Tune Your Guitar (Standard E A D G B E)
The fastest path to making a guitar sound like a guitar: standard tuning, octaves, and how to check by ear.
Standard guitar tuning is E A D G B E from the lowest (thickest) string to the highest. The strings are usually numbered the other way: 6 is low E, 1 is high E.
A reliable mnemonic: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.
Use our built-in mic tuner under Tools → Tuner, or any chromatic tuner app. A clip-on tuner is the most beginner-friendly upgrade you can buy.
- Open the tuner and pluck the 6th string — adjust until it shows E.
- Move down to 5 (A), 4 (D), 3 (G), 2 (B), 1 (E).
- Re-check string 6 — tuning one string changes neck tension and detunes the others slightly.
Always tune up to the target pitch. If you overshoot, drop below the note and come back up so the string settles cleanly.
Self-check
Did you complete the drill above and feel confident with this lesson?
- Wikibooks · Guitar · CC BY-SA 4.0
Lesson copy © Free Chord Book. Content adapted from sources marked CC BY-SA 4.0 is itself shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.