One of the first things you should learn as a guitarist is to keep your guitar in tune. While there are altered guitar tunings suitable for different purposes, the most widely used guitar tuning is the standard guitar tuning. Your guitar will be in standard tuning for the majority of your playing, so it is important for you to learn how to tune your guitar into standard tuning.

Before we get into what standard guitar tuning actually looks and sounds like, you might want to read these guitar tuning tips. Also, you can watch our video tutorial on guitar tuning as well.

Standard Tuning Basics

So let's get started, let's tune your guitar to standard tuning. You'll want to start from the low E string and work your way up to the highest string. Here is how each string should sound in the end, click to hear the pitch:


You'll need to tune each string by turning the tuning pegs on your guitar. Here are which peg controls which string:

standard guitar tunings gibson fender

So if you've arrived in correct standard tuning, it should sound something like this:

Here are the specifics of what you're aiming for with standard tuning:

StringNoteFrequencyScientific pitch notation
1 - higheste - high329.63 HzE4
2B246.94 HzB3
3G196.00 HzG3
4D146.83 HzD3
5A110.00 HzA2
6 - lowestE - low82.41 HzE2

If you're not familiar with scientific pitch notation, it's the method of naming the notes in a way which also shows it's octave.

So for example, here are all of the C notes you could have, and how scientific pitch notation would label them. C0 is at around 16 Hz, so you can't really go lower.

Scientific pitch notation for the note C
Scientific pitch notation for the note C

But this is just a sidetrack, the lowest note you can have on the guitar in standard tuning is E2, at 82.41 Hz.

Keeping your guitar in tune

Your guitar will go out of tune at times, so you'll want to check your tuning regularly. After a while, you'll hear when your guitar is out of tune just from strumming a chord. It will really bother your ear, since nothing will sound right.

  • It's best to check your tuning before each practice session, so you don't have to deal with it later on.
  • Your guitar may go out of tune even during a practice session, so don't be surprised.
  • New strings always go out of tune, but here is a good way to prevent it.
  • If you have a tremolo, that might cause your guitar to go out of tune quicker as well.

More online guitar tuners

No need to search the web, if you don't like our guitar tuner, here are a few more from across the web:

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