How to Tune a Guitar in Standard Tuning (EADGBE)

It's so important to tune up your guitar before playing! You are putting time and effort into playing, so why not take a minute or two and make sure your guitar sounds great first?

Personally, I love the sound of an acoustic guitar. Although I own an electric too, I find myself drawn into the natural sounds resonating from inside the body of an acoustic guitar. I also prefer to play in standard tuning which uses the open strings EADGBE.

Most song tablature and lessons that I have come across are for standard tuning, although there are a wide varierty of other interesting and useful tunings. For now, let's focus on basic tuning. So there are 6 strings on a guitar, and from left to right the notes are EADGBE. 

A close-up of the headstock from my Ovation acoustic guitar




































 In order to tune your guitar, turn the machine heads (or tuning keys) either clockwise or counter-clockwise until it is in tune for each string.

How do you remember the strings EADGBE?  
Here are a few funny neumonics that I have come across on the web:

* Eddy Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddy
* Easter Bunnies Get Drunk After Easter
* Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually 
* Eat All Day Get Big Easy
* Eat A Darn Good Breakfast Early

I created the below video to help quickly and accurately tune up your guitar:


Try and remember to tune your guitar before you start to play. It will be music to your ears.

If you have any other EADGBE neumonics, please feel free to add a comment below, although I reserve the right to *not* post it if it's too raunchy!  =)

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