At the right, a little further below, you’ll see a guitar tuner where you can go through each string and tune your guitar to it. I’ve checked it with my own digital tuner and it is relatively accurate.
But tuning your guitar can be a bit of a mystery at first if you’re new to the instrument and haven’t played around with the tuning pegs (the round things on the headstock of your guitar that have the strings wrapped around them).
First of all, be brave and twist one of those pegs and then plunk the string attached to it to see how it works. It works more or less like a rubber band…have you ever plunked a rubber band when it’s all stretched out? You may have noticed that the tighter you stretch it, the higher the sound, and the looser it is, the lower the sound. The strings of your guitar work the same way with the tuning pegs tightening or loosening the string. Notice which way you have to turn it to make the string sound higher and then lower. This is important to know! You’ll be using the tuning pegs a lot as you get used to tuning your guitar on your own.
Many people buy digital guitar tuners at first, and that’s a good idea. Not absolutely necessarily, but helpful nonetheless! Digital tuners help you find the right tuning, usually by using little red and green lights, or a simulated meter. The tuner I use is a Korg GA-1, pictured below:
It is relatively simple to use and tells you the name of the note and how close you are to it. It also has a bass setting so you can tune a bass guitar if you need to. You’ll notice in the upper left-hand corner of the window, there is a 5A. If you’re going to use a digital tuner, most of them identify the name and number of the string.
Guitar strings are numbered from the bottom, skinny, high string to the top, thick fat one. The high string is the 1st string, the string up from that is the 2nd string and all the way to the fat or 6th string. They all have names too, in accordance with the notes that they make when you play them. This is how they are named:
1st string, E (sometimes in lower case “e” to signify that it is the high string, the 1st and 6th strings are both E)
2nd string, B
3rd string, G
4th string, D
5th string, A
6th string, E
That explains the 5A in the upper left-hand corner of the tuner pictured above. It is identifying the 5th or A string being played. When you pick up a tuner for the first time, hold it on your lap and go through each string to see if they are reading correctly as listed above, 6E, 5A, 4D, 3G, 2B 1E. Next, you’ll want to make sure you tune each string so that the green light stays on solid as pictured above. The manual that comes with your tuner will give you more information.
But if you don’t have a tuner, you’ll have to learn how to do it by ear. Now if I had my preference, you’d learn to do both, because sometimes you just don’t have a tuner handy, and it is also a good idea to use your ear as much as you can. The strings on the blue flash guitar tuner pictured to your right are, from left to right: E, A, D, G, B, e. The most left string is the fat 6th string on your guitar. If you click on that “E”, you’ll hear what your 6th string is supposed to sound like. Now you’ll want to find the associated tuning peg (usually the top one closest to you if you’re holding your guitar normally), and twist it one way or the other to tighten or loosen the string until you achieve that same note. **If you see Google ads on the guitar tuner to the right, you’ll have to close that window first before using the tuner**
It’s a little overwhelming at first, so don’t worry if you can’t master tuning by ear right away. With a little practise and some help from your teacher, you’ll get the hang of it.
I want to explain something a little more scientific when it comes to tuning. When you play the “E” on the guitar tuner to the right and you play your fat E string on your guitar, chances are they won’t be the same and you’ll hear that right away (unless you’ve recently had your guitar tuned, that is!). What you are hearing is sound waves…and you’ll notice something very distinctive, almost like a wobble as the waves reach your ears at different times. Note the diagram below:
It shows a higher frequency or higher pitched sound above, and a lower pitched one below. If you can imagine these waves hitting your ears at the same time, one will hit before the other and more often. This is the “wobble” I’m speaking of when you are tuning your guitar and the string is not yet in tune. At first the wobble is really obvious, but as you get the string closer to the correct tuning, it takes longer to hear the difference, so you have to listen longer. It becomes very obvious when the two sounds merge, because they really do sound “as one”. The more familiar you become with tuning, the more you’ll notice these sounds.
Don’t be discouraged if tuning doesn’t come to you easily! As you become more familiar with your guitar and as your ear develops (which it will, I swear!), tuning will become much less of a mystery and more of a chore 
.
IJ
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