There are a lot of things that can cause your guitar to go out of tune. Temperature and environment are two big things. You’ll notice if you’re ever out trying to play around a camp fire in the evening your guitar will constantly be going out of tune.
For beginners if you don’t already it’s a must to have a digital tuner, if you don’t have one get one, put it on the Christmas list or what ever you need to do but definitely get one.
Today I’ll give you a quick tip on how you can get your guitar in tune so it’s at least playable if you wanted to sit down and play for a bit but don’t have a tuner handy.
Most guitar lessons on dvd or private lessons teach this same tip.
Each strings note is repeated at several different places on the neck. Because of this you can readily get all 6 strings in tune with one another by basing it off of one string.
Let’s say you’re going to start with the 6th string, Low E. The 5th Fret of that E string is the same Note as the 5th String A. Like wise the 5th fret of the 5th string is the same as the 4th string, and this is the same for the 5th fret of the 4th string and the 3rd string.
There is one exception and that’s the B string. To get the B string in tune you must match it with the 4th fret of the 4th string G, but then the pattern returns for the 1st string high E it matches the 5th fret of the B string.
You can use this simple patter to get your guitar in tune by ear if you’re stuck. Of course this is no guarantee that you’ll be in perfect tune with other instruments but for playing on your own for a bit it’ll work out just fine!