Unless you were a boy scout and always have a guitar tuner handy, you never know when you might be required to pull off a few songs for your adoring audience. It’s useful to know how to tune a guitar by ear so that you’re going to sound at your best.
If there’s no other guitars, piano or tuners around, don’t worry too much. It doesn’t matter if the guitar might is not in absolute perfect pitch, it matters only that the 6 strings are in harmony with each other.
Now it could be that you’ve just rested the guitar on the floor and it’s knocked one or two of the tuning heads a little and simply want to quickly re-tune by ear to save time.
Step One – ‘Test’ The Guitar
I normally play E major or G major and listen to see if it sounds ok. If it sounds off, then play one or both of the chords string by string to try and pick out whether it’s just one string that’s doing the damage.
If it is, go straight to step 2 and apply the process to the relevant string that needs attention.
If the whole guitar is out of tune, you’ll have a general idea how the low E (6th) string should sound (it doesn’t actually matter if you’re way off, but just take a guess. We’ll sort this out later, I promise.
Step Two – How To Tune A Guitar By Ear
Starting with the low E (6th) string :
i) Play E (6th) string on the 5th fret and the open 5th string. Tune the 5th string until it matches the 6th string.
ii) Play A (5th) string on the 5th fret and the open 4th string. Tune the 4th string until it matches the 5th string.
iii) Play D (4th) string on the 5th fret and the open 3rd string. Tune the 3rd string until it matches the 4th string.
Actually, you can stop here if you are only playing power chords!
iv) Play G (3th) string on the 4th fret and the open 2nd string. Tune the 2nd string until it matches the 3rd string.
v) Play B (2nd) string on the 5th fret and the open 1st string. Tune the 1st string until it matches the 2nd string.
Step Three – How Good Was Your Guess?
This is just a bit of fun, but it will get to you improve your ear for music. When you next have a tuner, see how close you were to perfect pitch with your guess.
Next, play along to a track that you can easily play (ideally in the key of E) and the next time you might be sat around the campfire, it might be easier to guess the note when you imagine the song, rather than just a note.
Final Hint – And This Is A Brilliant Cheat
If you’re like me, I always have my cellphone with me, so simply upload that song to your cellphone. That way, not only do you know how to tune a guitar by ear, but you know exactly what note to start with, so it will be absolutely perfect every time.
Another thing, playing by ear is an awesome thing to practice and this is a great way to set the ball rolling. But there are some good techniques to train your ears within some guitar courses.