Tuning
The first thing you should do every time you pick up your guitar is check the tuning. You might think that once you tune your guitar it will stay in tune for a while, but it doesn’t take much for a string to detune slightly. New strings tend to stretch a lot which affects the tuning, bending the strings can affect it, even a slight change in temperature can knock out the tuning.
One thing it’s important to do when you start tuning is to ‘switch your ear on’ and actively listen to the intervals between each string. Relative tuning is an important skill to learn. It’s not absolutely essential for a guitar to be at concert pitch, (as long as you’re not playing with other instruments); if the strings are in tune relative to each other then it will still sound good.
A good exercise is to tune the sixth string, the thickest string, to E using a tuner. Once this is in tune proceed to tune the rest of the strings by ear using relative tuning which works as follows:-
Tune the open fifth string (A) to the note made by playing the fifth fret of the sixth string.
Tune the open fourth string (D) to the note made by playing the fifth fret of the fifth string.
Tune the open third string (G) to the note made by playing the fifth fret of the fourth string.
Tune the open second string (B) to the note made by playing the fourth fret of the third string.
Tune the open first string (E) to the note made by playing the fifth fret of the second string.
Once you feel you have the strings tuned relative to each other (it will probably take a couple of passes through the strings), check how close you were by using a tuner. You may find that when you first start this method your attempts to tune by ear are quite a bit out. This is perfectly normal and will improve with practice. Soon you will be able to hear instantly when your, or anyone else's, guitar is or isn’t in tune.
To read more about tuning and access the site’s online tuner click
here.