It’s a fact of life, guitars go out of tune so you need to familiarise yourself with the ins and outs of guitar tuning whether you like it or not.

Your guitar will probably require a tune up every day if you’re playing it a lot, particularly if there are large variations in temperature and/or humidity in the room that you kepp your guitar in. Those lucky xylophone players don’t have to worry about this issue but you and I do I’m afraid, my Fellow Guitarist.

If you’re a beginner and are a little worried at the prospect of having to tune your instrument before each time you play, don’t worry. The fact is that tuning a guitar is really very straightforward and it can actually benefit your playing if done often because it will help to train your ear to recognise the pitches of the different notes. So embrace this aspect of guitar playing with gusto and treat it like the opportunity that it is, rather than a potential problem or hassle.

The cheater’s way of tuning a guitar is by using an electronic tuner. I have my cheek firmly in my mouth when I call it a cheater’s method because these little gadgets are fantastic, especially if you have trouble discerning the relative pitch of your guitar string and a reference note. All you have to do is plug it into the line out of your electric guitar, or hold it close to your acoustic guitar, play your open string and adjust the tension in the string until the little visual indicator on the tuner tells you you’re perfectly in tune.

Electronic tuners are also great for noisy environments where you might not be able to hear your guitar clearly enough to get the tuning spot on. They’re also fantastic for when your ear has an “off day” or if you simply don’t want to take any chances, like if you’re playing a live gig or recording a session.

The nest easiest way to tune your guitar is by using an online guitar tuner, which gives you a reference pitch for each string on your guitar. This typically means that you can take your time adjusting the tension and you get a very pure tone to listen to, which makes things easier. You also don’t need to place your fretboard hand on the frets when tuning in this way.

Finally, you have the tried and trusted method of taking a refernce pitch for the first string and then, once you’ve got your first one out of the way, you tuning the other strings on the guitar relative to this first one. It’s simple enough. All you have to do is play the open 5th string and adjust it until it plays the same note as the 6th string at the 5th fret. You can then whizz across the neck tuning the next string to the previous string’s 5th fret. The only exception to this rule is the 2nd string, which has to be tuned to the 4th fret of the 3rd string.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Happy guitar tuning!