How to tune a guitar or ukulele

Guitar: standard tuning

From the thickest string to the thinnest, a guitar in standard tuning is E A D G B E. Strings are numbered from the thin end, so the thick low E is the 6th string.

• 6th string — E2, 82.41 Hz (the lowest)
• 5th string — A2, 110.00 Hz
• 4th string — D3, 146.83 Hz
• 3rd string — G3, 196.00 Hz
• 2nd string — B3, 246.94 Hz
• 1st string — E4, 329.63 Hz (the highest)

The two E strings are exactly two octaves apart. Classical, acoustic and electric guitars all share this tuning; a bass guitar is the lowest four strings, an octave down.

Ukulele: standard tuning

A soprano, concert or tenor ukulele is tuned G C E A, counted from the string nearest your face when you hold it.

• 4th string — G4, 392.00 Hz
• 3rd string — C4, 261.63 Hz (the lowest)
• 2nd string — E4, 329.63 Hz
• 1st string — A4, 440.00 Hz (the highest)

The surprise is the G: it is higher than the C next to it. This is called re-entrant tuning, and it is what gives the ukulele its bright strum. Some players fit a low G instead, an octave down at 196.00 Hz (G3) — if your 4th string is visibly thicker than the others, that is the one you have, and a tuner will read the same note name either way. A baritone ukulele is different again: D G B E, like the four thin strings of a guitar.

Tuning with a tuner, step by step

1. Open the tuner, press Start and allow the microphone. Choose the Guitar or Ukulele tuning, so it shows the strings you are aiming for.
2. Pluck one string and let it ring. Pluck again every second or two rather than hammering at it: the reading is steadiest just after the first attack has passed.
3. Read the note name first, then the needle. If the 6th string says D♯ and not E, you are more than a semitone away and the needle's "in tune" means in tune with the wrong note.
4. Tune up to the note, not down to it. If the string is sharp, loosen it until it is clearly flat and bring it back up. Ending on a tightening turn takes the slack out of the tuning machine, and the string is far less likely to sag a minute later.
5. Go through every string, then go through them all again. Changing the tension of one string moves the others a little, most of all with new strings.

If it will not stay in tune

• New strings stretch. Steel strings settle within a day or so; nylon strings, which is every ukulele and every classical guitar, can keep drifting flat for several days. That is normal — retune often and they settle.
• Temperature and humidity move everything. An instrument that came in from the cold will be out of tune, and will change again as it warms up. Give it a few minutes before the final pass.
• Old strings stop holding pitch, and stop agreeing with themselves: in tune open, out of tune a few frets up.
• Open string in tune, 12th fret not? That is intonation rather than tuning, and it is a job for the saddle or a repairer, not the tuning pegs.

Without a tuner

You can tune a guitar to itself. Press the 6th string at the 5th fret: that note is the A the open 5th string should match. The same works from each string to the next, with one exception — from the 3rd string to the 2nd it is the 4th fret, not the 5th. On a ukulele in standard tuning the open A matches the E string at the 5th fret, the open E matches the C string at the 4th, and the open G matches the E string at the 3rd.

This only makes the strings agree with each other. If the string you started from was off, the whole instrument is off by the same amount, which you will not notice alone and will notice immediately when you play with anyone else.

When the reference is not 440

All the frequencies above assume the A above middle C is 440 Hz. That is the usual standard, not a law: plenty of orchestras tune to 442 or 443, and a piano that has not been tuned for a while may have settled lower. If you are playing along with one of those, tune to it — the tuner's reference can be set anywhere from 415 to 466 Hz, and every string follows.

Then play

A tuner tells you the instrument is right. It cannot tell you whether the notes you play on it are. Scoreflection reads the score you are playing and marks every notehead as correct, wrong, missed or mistimed, on guitar and ukulele as well as piano. The app has its own tuner too, with custom tunings and reference tones. Need to keep time as well? There is an online metronome.