How to Easily Tune A Guitar
Why is tuning your guitar so important?
Tuning the guitar is an extremely important skill for your child to learn and master. Why?
The tuning of your child’s guitar has a HUGE impact on how their guitar songs sound during their Level Up Guitar School lessons and play sessions. Put simply, it doesn’t matter if your child is as skilled as Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix, if their guitar is ‘out of tune’, their rendition of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ will sound like someone strangling a cat.
How often should my child tune their guitar?
Every guitarist should tune their guitar every time that they pick it up! Guitars and guitar strings are quite sensitive to heat and cold and often get out of tune - sometimes multiple times a day! It’s important for your child to get into the habit of tuning their guitar before every lesson and play session. It ensures that the guitar sounds great, which leads to your child establishing a positive connection with the guitar. If their guitar is out of tune and sounds terrible, even if they’re playing it correctly they will believe that they can’t play guitar and their guitar songs never sound good.
Do I need a special guitar tuner?
Guitar tuners come in many different shapes and sizes. The main forms of guitar tuners are:
Clip-On Guitar Tuner (Recommended) - clips on the guitar, senses the vibrations in the guitar when a string is plucked, and displays the string pitch on the LCD screen. The tuner can still read the pitch of the guitar string even when there is background noise
Guitar Tuna Phone App - Virtual guitar tuner that can be downloaded for iPhone or Android. The phone microphone listens to the pitch of the string as you pluck it and displays the string pitch on your phone screen. Although it’s convenient, unfortunately, because the tuner app is using the microphone, you cannot use it to tune your guitar when there is any background noise otherwise the tuner will get confused and not give an accurate reading.
Plug-in Guitar Tuner - Very accurate but not as convenient as the Clip On Guitar tuners. You need a guitar cable to connect the guitar to the tuner and they don’t work for acoustic guitars that don’t have an input for a guitar cable (which is most beginner acoustic guitars)
If you sign up for lessons with Level Up Guitar school, your child will receive a new clip-on rechargeable Guitar tuner from our friends at Vivace Music Underwood. Book your trial guitar lesson here to get started.
Ok, I’ve got my guitar tuner. Now how does my child actually tune up their guitar?
In order for your child’s guitar to be in tune, each string needs to match a particular pitch.
The sixth string or the thickest string is tuned to an E
The fifth string is tuned to an A
The fourth string is tuned to a D
The third string is tuned to a G
The second string is tuned to a B
The first string is tuned to a High E
To memorise these strings, your child can remember the sentence of Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie
Take the first letter of each word and you’ve got the names of the 6 guitar strings. (image below)
Next steps for your child:
Clip the tuner onto the headstock of the guitar, making sure that your child can see the tuner’s LCD screen. This is the screen that will display the pitch of the string
Select the string that you want to tune
Trace the finger along the string all the way up to the tuning peg that it is connected to. That is the tuning peg that your child will be twisting to tune the guitar string
Pluck the string that you want to tune. Let’s say that your child plucks the Low E string
On the guitar tuner, it should read “E” - if it doesn’t, you need to turn the tuning peg until it says the name of the selected string
Twist the tuning peg until the Guitar tuner shows a green or blue needle (depends on the tuner) in the middle of the screen with the correct string name on the screen as well
Congrats! You’ve tuned one guitar string, now just repeat the process for the other 5 strings.
Now that your child has successfully tuned their guitar, check out this article on how your child can instantly play THOUSANDS of songs.
If you’re looking for guitar lessons near Daisy Hill and sign up for lessons with Level Up Guitar school, your child will receive a new clip-on rechargeable Guitar tuner from our friends at Vivace Music Underwood
Tuning a guitar is a tricky skill to master for a beginner but like anything, the more frequently that your child tunes their guitar, the quicker they are going to get at it. If your child is more of a visual learner, you can check out the video below which does a great job of explaining the guitar string tuning process further.
About the Author
Alex is an experienced and passionate multi-instrumentalist and guitar teacher. Mainly specialising in teaching kids and teenagers guitar in a fun and engaging way, Alex believes that children’s lives can be transformed by learning a musical instrument and collaborating with other like-minded musicians. If you’re looking for guitar lessons in Springwood, return to the home page and book a FREE trial lesson with Alex.