Standard guitar tuning

Standard guitar tuning, from the 6th string to the 1st: E A D G B E. Frequencies are for A4 = 440 Hz.

Standard guitar tuning names the open strings from the thickest to the thinnest: E, A, D, G, B, E. The thick one is called the 6th string and the thin one the 1st, so the numbers run the opposite way from the letters. With octave numbers the notes are E2, A2, D3, G3, B3 and E4, and the two E strings sound exactly two octaves apart.

Almost every lesson, chord chart and tab assumes this tuning unless it says otherwise. It is the same on acoustic, electric and classical six-string guitars, so a chord shape learned on one works on the others. A phrase many beginners use to remember the order is Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.

Guitar music is written an octave higher than it sounds, which keeps the notes on the treble staff. The high E string is the E just above middle C, and the note written as middle C in guitar sheet music actually sounds as C3, the 3rd fret of the 5th string.

Between neighboring strings, standard tuning steps up a perfect fourth, five frets: E to A, A to D, D to G and B to E. The one exception is G to B, a major third of four frets. That is why tuning by ear uses the 4th fret between the 3rd and 2nd strings instead of the 5th, and why a scale or chord shape slips by one fret when it crosses from the 3rd string to the 2nd.

The exception is there for the hand. If every pair of strings were a fourth apart, the top string would be F instead of E, and open chords like E, A, C, G and D would need awkward stretches. With the major third in the middle, the familiar open chords fit under four fingers and the two outer strings land on the same note.

Some players tune in all fourths on purpose because every shape then moves the same way across the neck. Nearly all written guitar music is in standard tuning, though, so it is the one to learn first and the one every other tuning is described against.

A bass guitar in standard tuning is E A D G: the notes of the guitar's four lowest strings, one octave lower. A guitarist who picks up a bass already knows where every note on those strings is, and the bass tuner works with the same needle and string buttons.

A baritone ukulele is tuned D G B E, exactly the pitches of the guitar's four highest strings, so guitar chord shapes on those strings carry over unchanged. A regular ukulele (G C E A) has the same pattern of notes shifted up five half steps, so a shape that makes D on the guitar's top four strings makes G on a ukulele.

Extended guitars build on standard tuning rather than replace it. A 7-string guitar adds a low B below the 6th string (B E A D G B E). A 12-string doubles every string: the four lower pairs have a thin string tuned an octave higher, and the B and E pairs are tuned in unison. The chromatic tuner names any note, so it can check those octave strings too.

A tuner aims every string at equal temperament, the system that splits the octave into twelve equal half steps and that frets and modern keyboards are built around. That is what lets a chord sound right in every key and at every position on the neck.

The popular trick of tuning with harmonics does not quite get there. Matching the 5th-fret harmonic of one string to the 7th-fret harmonic of the next gives a pure fourth, about 2 cents narrower than the equal-tempered one, and the error adds up from string to string. Between the G and B strings it is worse: the 4th-fret harmonic of the G string is a pure major third, about 14 cents lower than the fretted B, enough to make open chords sound sour.

Harmonics are still useful for a quick check, because they ring clearly and leave the fretting hand free to turn a peg. For the final setting, let the tuner decide: its green zone is within 5 cents of the equal-tempered note, and the string buttons play equal-tempered reference notes if you tune by ear.