Guitar tuner

What it's for

It plays the exact note of each guitar string in standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E). Listen and tune by ear against your string.

Tip

Start from the lowest string (low E) and go up. Turn up the volume and play in a quiet room. Notes are generated at 440 Hz.

Tuning by ear, in practice

The most effective method is not listening for whether the note «sounds similar», but listening for beats: when two sounds are close but not identical, the volume pulses, and the slower the pulse the closer you are. When it disappears entirely, the string is right. It is the only signal the ear recognises precisely even without perfect pitch.

Always tune upwards, that is arrive at the right note from below: if you have gone too high, drop below and come back up. The string moves through the nut and the bridge in small jumps, and pulling it down from above leaves tension that settles and drops shortly after. Coming up, instead, it stays where it was put.

The fifth-fret method, and where it betrays you

It is the classic way to tune a guitar to itself: press the fifth fret of one string and you get the note of the next open string. It works for every pair but one, between the third and second strings (G and B), where the right fret is the fourth. Forgetting that is the commonest beginner's mistake.

The limit of the method is that errors accumulate: if the first string is slightly flat, all the others become a little more so. That is why, when playing with others or over a recorded backing, it is better to tune each string against an external reference, like the notes on this page, rather than in a chain.

Why 440 Hz, and when it does not fit

A at 440 Hz has been the international standard since 1955, but it is not a law of nature: many European orchestras play at 442 or 443 Hz, early music often uses 415, and some recordings from the sixties are slightly outside any standard because the tapes did not run at perfect speed.

If you are playing over a recording and everything sounds nearly right, the problem is usually not you: try tuning by ear to the recording itself, string by string. And if you use a capo, tune without it first and then fit it, because clamping the strings pushes them slightly sharp.

When the tuning will not hold

New strings drop for days before settling: that is normal, and the period is shortened by gently pulling them upwards and retuning several times. If instead one string alone keeps falling, the problem is nearly always the machine head or the way it is wound on the post: a few tidy turns going downwards hold better than a tangle.

If the guitar is in tune open but goes sour up the neck, that is not a tuning problem but the instrument's intonation: the string length from the bridge needs adjusting, and that is a job for a luthier. The same goes for climate: humidity and temperature move the wood, which is why an instrument left near a radiator goes out of tune every time.

Nearby tools

For the exact frequency of each note there is Note to frequency, for fingerings Guitar chords and to change key Transpose chords. To play in time Metronome and BPM tap counter.