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<div class="item-wrap"> <div class="trail {{crumbs|red"> |4 <span class="text">[[|Guitar Parts and Functions|Parts]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Holding the Guitar and Pick|Playing]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Basic Technique|Technique]]</span> <span class="text current">[[|Tuning and Harmonics|Tuning]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Music Theory Basics|Theory]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Position|Position]]</span> <span class="text">[[|1st String|1st String]]</span> <span class="text">[[|1st and 2nd Strings - Intervals|Intervals]]</span> <span class="text">[[|2nd and 3rd Strings|2nd/3rd Strings]]</span> <span class="text">[[|4th, 5th, and 6th Strings|Other Strings]]</span> <span class="text">[[|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking|Alt. Picking]]</span> <span class="text">[[|C Major Chord|C Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|G Major Chord|G Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|F Major Chord|F Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|E Minor, D Minor, and A Minor Chords|Minor Chords]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Music Theory - Diatonic Chord Progressions|Progressions]]</span> </div> </div>}}
<div class="item-wrap"><div class="trail {{crumbs|blue"> |1 <span class="text current">[[|Tuning and Harmonics#Tuners|Tuners]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Tuning and Harmonics#Common Tunings|Common Tunings]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Tuning and Harmonics#How to Tune the Guitar|How to Tune]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Tuning and Harmonics#Harmonics|Harmonics]]</span> </div> }}</div>
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<div class="item-wrap"> <div class="trail {{crumbs|red"> |4 <span class="text">[[|Guitar Parts and Functions|Parts]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Holding the Guitar and Pick|Playing]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Basic Technique|Technique]]</span> <span class="text current">[[|Tuning and Harmonics|Tuning]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Music Theory Basics|Theory]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Position|Position]]</span> <span class="text">[[|1st String|1st String]]</span> <span class="text">[[|1st and 2nd Strings - Intervals|Intervals]]</span> <span class="text">[[|2nd and 3rd Strings|2nd/3rd Strings]]</span> <span class="text">[[|4th, 5th, and 6th Strings|Other Strings]]</span> <span class="text">[[|C Major in Open Position and Alternate Picking|Alt. Picking]]</span> <span class="text">[[|C Major Chord|C Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|G Major Chord|G Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|F Major Chord|F Major]]</span> <span class="text">[[|E Minor, D Minor, and A Minor Chords|Minor Chords]]</span> <span class="text">[[|Music Theory - Diatonic Chord Progressions|Progressions]]</span> </div> </div>}}
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Tuning the guitar is one of the most difficult things for any beginner to get right quickly. It seems simple, but it is not nearly as simple as it first appears. I will be spending lots of time here - just bear with me and don't get discouraged. If your guitar is not in tune, it will NOT sound good. And if tuned incorrectly, it will apply the wrong tension to each string, which makes fretting easier/harder and can throw off your technique. Basically, you must learn to tune your guitar to succeed.
== Tuners ==
Even the most advanced players use some kind of tuning tool to help them. '''If you don't own a tuner, buy one or download a free smartphone tuner app.''' There are 3 kinds of tuners. The best kind for electric guitar is one you can plug the electical output of your guitar directly into the deveice. The other two either use a microphone or a vibration sensor to get an electrical signal to analyze, which can introduce noise. The vibrational ones can also get broken from a hard shock. A tuner app on a phone will use a microphone - with electric guitar it can be difficult to play loud enough so that the microphone can pick up a clean signal.
Most tuners only tell you how close you are to a target note (A, B, C, etc), not what octave that note is (A2, C3, etc). You should be able to tell if you are a whole octave off, however. If you are an octave below, the string should have very little tension and may not resonate at all. If it does resonate, it will likely flap against the frets. If you are an octave above, the string will be extremely tense, to the point where it will be near breaking. It's always safer to go lower than higher. So if your target note is E but the note on your tuner is A, and you are unsure if you need to raise or lower the frequency, try lowering it down to E first. If the string is now way too loose, you went the wrong way. no harm done, just tune it up to the next highest E.
== Common Tunings ==
Standard Tuning on a guitar is
* 1 - E (E4)
There are also '''''open tunings''''', named because all the open strings' notes belong to particular chord. For example, ''Open E'' is (E B E G{{s}} B E) - all notes are from the (E G{{s}} B) triad or E major chord. All of the 12 notes can potentially have an open tuning. Again, people may call this lazy, but it really has far more inventive uses.
== How to Tune the Guitar ==
=== Using a tuner ===
Make sure you are only playing the open string you want to tune. Mute the other strings with your right and left hands as described above in the [[Basic Technique]] lesson. If you are using an electric tuner, use your neck pickup - it has less overtones relative to the fundamental frequency, allowing your tuner to more easily detect the pitch of the note being played. Use your left hand to rotate the tuner for that string. You should see the tuner adjust accordingly.
Again, you should be using a tuner to help you tune, but you also don't want to constantly stop playing and going back to the tuner. Also, sometimes your tuner will work very well on your 6th or 5th strings but not others (particularly if you are using an unplugged electric with a microphone-based tuner). This is where tuning by ear comes in handy.
=== Tuning Using the 5th Fret ===
Unfortunately, this requires fretting a note with the left hand while picking with the right hand. After picking, you have to quickly move your right hand onto the correct tuning peg and start rotating. Fretted notes don't sustain as long as open strings, so you may have to use your right hand to pick the note again. Your right will keep going back and forth between picking position and adjusting the tuning pegs, which can be quite frustrating and cumbersome and at some point counter-productive.
== Harmonics ==
I prefer to use harmonics. Harmonics use a pivot point on the string to cause it to resonate at pitch that is a multiple of its resonant frequency. To sound a harmonic, you lightly place a finger from your left hand on the pivot point, but don't push down (don't fret the string) and pluck the string. Almost immediately after plucking, remove your finger from the string - it will continue to resonate at the harmonic frequency. Harmonics are identified by a number (the multiple of the base frequency), but more often are labeled by the location of a pivot point in relation to fret numbers. For example, the second harmonic is also called the "12th fret harmonic". Note that beyond the 2nd harmonic, there are multiple pivot points on the string that can be used to achieve the same harmonic. The number of the harmonic indicates the frequency multiple from the first harmonic. Here are a list of the first 8 harmonics:
''An excellent visualization of all the harmonics across the fretboard can be found [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_harmonics#Nodes here].''
== Homework ==
* [[Artificial Harmonics]]
[[Category:Guitar]]
[[Category:Technique]]