learn-guitar.org

OK… I have some guitar tuning tips - I just had my guitar restrung for the first, and got a good lesson from Ian over at Canyon Music. He had told me that he would re-string my guitar for me, and sure enough he hooked me right up when I walked in the store.

However, I didn’t just want the guitar strung - I wanted to learn how to do it and get some guitar tuning tips. This is some of the stuff I learned:

- Since guitars are wooden (at least MOST of them are wooden), there is some ‘give’ in their structure. And as you tune each string (and vary the tension of that string), then you are actually flexing the neck a bit… and that varies the tension on all of the other strings. And that tension change will change the tuning on those other strings. That is why you can tune your low E perfectly and then go through the rest of the strings, and then when you get back to the low E… it isn’t perfectly tuned anymore.

So here is a tuning tip - it is smart to make several passes through your six strings. Don’t worry about getting each string perfect the first time - get it close to being in tune the first time, or even the first couple of passes through the guitar. Be more exact on the subsequent passes through the guitar strings.

One more hint - besides not sounding great, old strings will get difficult to keep in tune. If you can’t seem to keep your guitar in tune, then go buy some new strings - they are pretty inexpensive, and they will make your guitar sound new again.