How to Tune a Guitar

First an embarrassing personal statement, after 25 years of playing guitar I only recently found out how to properly tune a guitar.

Just in short, what is the best way to tune a guitar:

  1. While tuning the guitar, hold the guitar exactly as how you are going to play. When you tune for a gig where you will be standing, tune standing. You are going to sit during a recording session, tune while sitting. Hold the neck in the exact position for tuning as for playing. Never lie a guitar on it’s back when tuning. The idea behind this is that the strings have a certain weight. This weight affect the tone when tuning. So to avoid having  this ‘string weight’ influence the guitar tone, hold the guitar exactly the same way for tuning as for playing.
  2. When tuning use the neck pick up, turn the treble on your guitar (not on your amp) down and hit the string above the 12th fret. In this way you get as less harmonics and as much root tone as possible. The root tone is what your tuning device ‘listens’ to.
  3. Hit the string the same way as you would when playing. Use the same pick (or not) and use the same attack.
  4. Especially with the lower strings, you can see the needle of your tuner move sharp when hitting the string and then gradually setting to a stable position. What should you tune to? Well this depends on your playing. When you gonna play ‘staccato’ on the lower strings, tune to make the initial peak hit the proper tone. When you play long sounding chords, tune to the stabelized position. Take the way you tuned also into account when playing, maybe adjusting between songs. And when in doubt, better tune a little bit flat than sharp.
  5. Try always to hit the correct note by tuning upwards, so from a low pitch tone to the higher  correct tone. This prevents having slack in the string in the nut.
  6. Use a good tuner, one with a needle (Boss TU-12 etc) is OK. Tuner pipes are useless, strobo tuners can be complex. Keep a tuner with a ‘physical’ needle in the correct (standing up, not lying down) position. The needle has weight too.
  7. When in a studio, the whole band should use the same tuner. The reference of  different tuners might differ which can be heard on recordings. On stage it will be hardly audible but when recorded it will. Using the same tuner is also handy when you want to re-record parts afterwards.
Needless to say that old strings, a wrongly adjusted (curved) neck, a bad nut etc. influences tuning and staying in tune. Keep your guitar and strings always in perfect condition.
Still a well tuned guitar can sound horrible. The ‘intonation’ can be off what will result in horrible sounding chords.
There are a lot of myths about intonation. What every guitar player has to realise is that western musical harmony theory is ‘incorrect’. More on this subject later. Be aware that it was only in the late 17th century that the so-called ‘Tempered voicing’ was developed. This enabled players to have a piano tuned in such a way it sounded about correct in all keys. Bach even wrote special pieces to demonstrate this, check out ‘ Das wohl temperierte klavier’.
And for a piano it’s relatively easy because you can tune every note separately. A guitar has only 6 tuners! Besides this, the guitar is susceptible for other influences such as a piece of a guitar string that don’t vibrate when a string is fretted.
Anyway, intonating your guitar is a way to compensate for all the inconsistencies in a guitar. The idea is that a note hit at the 12th fret gives a tone exactly an octave higher than the open string. So tune the open string, then fret the string on the 12th fret and hit the string. If the tone is too flat (too low) this means that the part of the string from the 12th fret to the bridge is too long. Therefore the saddle needs to be moved upwards in the direction of the neck.
When the note is too high, the saddle needs to be moved backwards. Change the saddle position, tune the string and check the note on the 12th fret again. Repeat this until the note on the 12th gives a perfect note.
A correct intonation also depends on your playing style. A friend of mine would pick up my perfectly set-up strat and it would sound like sh…… Only because he used so much pressure when fretting strings that all notes were out of tune. So when setting intonation, ‘play’ the note at the 12th fret the same way as you would normally play.