Would it be safe to say that a blog post on the different ways to tune your guitar is perhaps the most mundane form of literally creativity, ever?

Probably.

But, be that as it may there’s nothing worse than listening to an out-of-tune guitar being played. I’m talking worse than getting this stuck in your head all day.

In my many moons of guitar playing I have come across a bunch of different ways to tune the guitar. Some are better than others, and this isn’t an absolute list.

5th Fret/Open String

The first way I learned to tune was to use the 5th fret of each string (or the 4th for the G string). For example, you play the 5th fret on the low E string (the note ‘A’) and then play the open A string.

This method works, but quite often when alternating between clean and distorted sounds you’ll find your barre chords don’t quite tune up perfectly.

Harmonics

Play the harmonic on the 5th fret of the low E string and the harmonic on the 7th fret of the A string. Let them both ring and then tune up. For the B string, you need to play the harmonic on the 7th fret of the low E string and then play the open B string.

CAGED Chords

Many guitarists play most of their music using the 5 basic chord shapes in the first few frets of their guitar. Because they don’t venture very far up the fingerboard they are more concerned with getting the chords in tune. So, these guys will generally play these chords and tune everything up that way.

The tricky part for this – and for all tuning, really – is getting the G and B strings to cooperate with each other. Tempered tuning makes it very tricky for these two strings to play nice together.

Power Chords/Distortion

For those of us who primarily only play power chords with distortion on, power chords are the way to go. Start with an E chord and work your way up to get them sounding djenty.

Octaves

Play a C chord. You know, the generic first-position C chord. Now just play the two C notes and tune the guitar. Then do the same with E, G, D, and A. That should cover all of the strings.

I haven’t had much success with this method, but I know a lot of people do it.

Buy a Tuner!

Now that you’ve finished with all of those, do all of us a favor and just buy a tuner! Seriously, use the tuner first to get everything tuned on a macro level, and then refine it depending on how you play (distortion, CAGED, etc).