Tips for Tuning your Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitars can take a lot of work to make them sound their best. Yes your skills can make them sound better, but you will need to tune them in a regular basis to ensure they continue to make you sound good when you are jamming out. Tuning a guitar by ear can be difficult but once you have a go at it a few times you should be able to tune your own guitar with ease.

Before we get into the tips for guitar tuning let’s start with the basics. Make sure you buy a quality acoustic guitar to play. The better the quality the more likely it will stay in tune. Remember this isn’t a one-time deal-you will need to continually tune your guitar.

One thing to remember is it’s almost impossible to tune a guitar all the way up and down the neck. If you find something you are doing helps this then continue to do it. Last thing is to always remember to stay patient. As stated it can be difficult to tune a guitar and you might not get it right on the first try, but keep trying and keep improving.

Top 5 tips

Strings- make sure you have fresh new strings. Older strings will stretch and make it more difficult to tune the guitar properly.

Locking Tuners- these may save you hours of frustration, if they are available for your guitar make sure to invest. These can help keep your guitar in tune as well.

Graphite- just a small amount under the strings at the nut will make the strings glide instead of bind.

Heavier gauge strings- as you become more experienced your hands will become stronger and heavier strings can hold up to your strength better.

Pings and Pops- if you hear these noises and suddenly go out of tune make sure you try graphite, or check with your guitar tech if it seems to happen often.