How to tune an acoustic guitar

John Stratton

Professor Steve Errede

Physics 199 POM
Spring 2003

I have been playing acoustic guitar for a little more than three years now. In that
time, I have learned that in order for a guitar to sound good while being played, it must be
in tune. Ok, so that was obvious, but seriously, unless a guitar is fairly well in tune, it
sounds horrible. I began this project because my guitar, a Martin DCME dreadnaught
acoustic with a piezoelectric transducer pickup, has proved to be very difficult in this
area. I try tuning with a tuner, and it doesnt sound perfect. I try with frets and it still
sounds bad. I try with harmonics, and it still doesnt sound right. I try with just tuning
the intervals by ear, and it still doesnt come out well. This got very frustrating, and I
thought it would be a good topic for a more thorough investigation.
To determine why these things occurred, I decided that the best way to find out
what goes wrong would be to just tune my guitar, and then take many measurements of
many different notes and pitches to determine why it doesnt sound good. There are
many problems with getting this data. First, anyone who has tried tuning a guitar with a
tuner has noticed that the frequency decays with time after you pluck it. Also, how hard
you pluck the string will change the frequency. So, I had to pick an arbitrary moment at
which to take the measurements, and hope that they were somewhat accurate. Also, the
electronic tuner that I used to take the measurements takes the average frequency over a
short period of time, so the exact frequency at a given instant could not be calculated.
Even with these difficulties, I was able to get measurements that were accurate enough to
reflect qualitatively what was going on, though quantitatively they are somewhat lacking
in their accuracy.
I decided to use a few methods of tuning that I knew well. These are certainly not
all the ways of tuning a guitar, but I think that they are the most common.
1. Tuning by frets
This is probably the most common method when there is no electronic tuner
handy. I tuned the low E string with a tuner, to have a starting point from which to work.
Then I tuned the A string to the tone I heard when I played the low E string at the fifth
fret. When I was satisfied with this tuning, I then tuned the D string to the tone of the A
string played at the fifth fret. I continued this method all the way up the guitar, tuning the
next string to the tone heard when playing at the fifth fret of the previous string, except
for the B string, which should be tuned to the tone heard when the G string is played at
the fourth fret.
2. Tuning by harmonics.
With an acoustic guitar, you can play harmonics by lightly holding the string
down at a node of the appropriate harmonic. The second, third, and fourth harmonics can
be sounded by plucking a string while lightly touching the string over the twelfth fret,
seventh fret, and fifth fret, respectively. With the low E set with a tuner, I then played the
fourth harmonic of that string along with the third harmonic of the A string, tuning the A
string until the two tones were identical to the ear. With the A string tuned, I then played
the fourth harmonic of that string with the third harmonic of the D string, tuning the D
string. The G string was also tuned this way, but the B string is not at the correct interval
for this method. So, the open tone of the B string is tuned to the third harmonic of the

low E string. Since the high harmonics of the high E string are harder to play, its openstring pitch is tuned to the tone heard at the fourth harmonic of the low E string.
3. Tuning by Intervals.
This one is very difficult for many, but most musicians use only this method for
stringed instruments in an orchestra. With the E string again set with a tuner, I played the
E and A strings both open simultaneously, and tuned the A string until I heard
consonance at the correct interval. I then played the A and D strings, again tuning until I
heard consonance. This method was used for all the strings, keeping in mind that the
interval from the G to the B string was a third instead of a fourth.
4. Tuning with a tuner
This is very popular. I connected the pickup output of my guitar to my tuner, and
played each string, adjusting it until the tuner said that it was correct. I then checked all
the pitches with another tuner to see if mine was incorrect for some reason.
After tuning my guitar with one of these methods, I took many measurements and
put them in the table at the end of this report. The measurements there are how much
each tone was off from the correct frequency, measured in cents, where five cents is
about the smallest change in pitch that we can detect with our ears. To measure the
pitches, I simply connected the pickup output of my guitar to the input of the tuner, and
played each tone, reading off what it read. To measure the harmonics, I simply played
the harmonic I wanted to measure as stated above, and the tuner was able to tell how far
off that pitch was from the correct pitch.
The Fret method worked out fairly well. The open strings were all within about
five cents of being perfectly in tune. However, some of the tones played at frets were ten
to fifteen cents higher than the correct tone. This was not a large problem in this case,
because the higher-pitched strings were consistently a bit higher than the expected as
well, and the human ear has some trouble detecting error in the lower frequencies, so the
net result was that the guitar sounded reasonably well in tune, though not exactly.
The Harmonic method didnt work as well. The open string pitches are very close
to being in tune, except for the G string, which was a little low. What made this tuning
sound bad was that the error of the lower-pitched strings played at frets was ten to fifteen
cents higher than the error of the higher-pitched strings played open. This made most of
the common chords sound rather badly out of tune, though they werent horrible.
The Intervals method didnt work well either, mainly because Im not as talented
in this area. As I continue to practice it, I might get better, but that test had open string
error differences of twenty cents, which was even higher if I pushed down on some of the
strings, so any chord I played sounded almost painfully out of tune.
My tuner turned out to be the best method that I had for the lower strings, because
the open string errors were almost zero uniformly, while the error at the frets wasnt more

than five cents higher. This was very close to being in tune, but not quite, because some
of the higher-pitched strings were a bit sharp while others were a bit flat, which meant
that if the sharper string were played at fret while the flatter strings were not, the
combination didnt sound perfect. Still, this method has worked fairly well for me
consistently.
My own subjective ratings of the success of each method, (out of a scale of 10)
Frets8
Harmonics- 6
Intervals4
Tuner7
ConclusionWith these measurements, I found out a few things that most experienced guitar
players could tell you off hand. First, the action of the guitar is very important, as it
can greatly affect how a guitar sounds. Second, it is impossible to get a guitar perfectly
in tune. The harmonics of each string were usually within five cents of the open string
error, but this was made possible only by slight differences in the bridges shape which
compensated for the non-linearity of each string with its different harmonics. There are
always small variations in pitch, so the goal for tuning a guitar should be not to have it be
perfectly in tune, because it never will be, but to get it as close as you can, and make sure
that it still sounds good. I have found, in absence of a good tuner, the best way is to use a
combination of the above methods. However, my tone perception cannot beat electronics
yet. Its possible that more experienced musicians can tune better than most electronics,
but I havent developed that skill yet. In general, these are the recommendations that I
can make to those who dont have a nice tuner handy.
Tune the lower strings with harmonics. The first harmonic pitches for the lowest
two or three strings are too low for my ear to distinguish easily, but the higher harmonics
are much easier for distinguishing tones and sensing beats.
Tune the G string to the pitch heard by playing the D string at the fifth fret. For
my guitar, this string doesnt have as much pitch variation when the string is pressed, and
the harmonics are sometimes a bit hard to play loud enough to hear well for tuning.
The B string is the most obnoxious on any guitar that Ive played, but Ive found
that tuning to the third harmonic of the low E string is the most useful, though you
probably want to check this with one or more of the other methods.
In all of these tests, the E strings error was almost exactly the same as the B
strings error. That means that you should be able to tune it well with frets or intervals,
but the accuracy of harmonics will depend on how accurate the harmonics of your low E
string are.

These are only my recommendations. They may not work for you, but no matter
how you decide to tune your guitar, you should check it with one of the other methods if
it doesnt sound right. I have found that, in general, the best method isnt any one of
these, but all of these used together to check and recheck your tuning.
All of these tests started with the low E string, which isnt always a good idea. If
you dont have a good tuner, and are tuning to another tone or source, the pitch of the low
E string is hard for the human ear to distinguish, so it might be a better idea to get the
pitch for one of the higher stings, probably the high E, and then tune the low E string
using a harmonic or other method.
All of these methods and conclusions are subjective on my part. You may not get
the same results that I did, because every guitar is unique. These results shouldnt be
considered hard and true facts that will always hold, but rather what I found out about a
particular guitar, that might have some relevance to yours. Also, you might have
different abilities than I do; I am currently unable to hear and tune accurately intervals
between tones that are too low in pitch. However, I think that many of the concepts and
conclusions here may be useful, provided that you do your own testing. This doesnt
mean that you need to take all the measurements that I did, but my results cannot be
expected to match those of any other guitar. My realistic advise would be to take the
methods for tuning and testing that I have presented here, and try them yourself to see
what works for your guitar.
Notes: HE = High E
LE = Low E
H = Harmonic
F = Fret
These measurements should only be considered accurate to within 5 cents.
A positive value indicates that the pitch was sharp, while a negative value
indicates that the pitch was flat.