Digital Tuner or App

There is a wide variety of digital tuning devices available at your favorite music store. There are also countless guitar tuning apps available on the App Store and Google Play for you to download to your favorite device. One of my favorite apps is Guitar Tuner Free from GuitarTuna. These are valuable tools to have at your disposal. Check out this video from Berklee Online to learn more about digital tuning techniques.

Unisons

When you don't have access to a digital tuner or tuning application you can tune your guitar by ear using unisons. A musical unison is playing the same note twice. You can play unisons on most stringed instruments because the same note occurs more than once on these instruments, such as on the guitar where the fifth fret on the low E string is the same as the open A string. This tuning method is often referred to as the 5th fret method, and also the matching method. This will require you to use a reference pitch to base your tuning on. This is most commonly acquired from another instrument that is already tuned such as another guitar or a piano, but you can also use a tuning fork or a pitch generator. For a demonstration of this technique check out this video from Berklee Online. Follow along with the video and use the following guide for more clarity.

• Step One
  Acquire your reference pitch by matching the low E string to the pitch of another tuned guitar or instrument such as a piano, or a pitch generator or tuning fork.
• Step Two
  Place your index finger on the fifth fret of the bottom E string. That’s an A note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the open fifth string and fretted six string in turn, gently adjusting the fifth string tuning peg until the two unison notes are in harmony. Tightening the peg will make the pitch higher, loosening the peg will make the pitch lower.
• Step Three
  Place your index finger on the fifth fret of the A string. That’s a D note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the open fourth string and fretted fifth string in turn, gently adjusting the fourth string tuning peg until the two unison notes are in harmony. Tightening the peg will make the pitch higher, loosening the peg will make the pitch lower.
• Step Four
  Place your index finger on the fifth fret of the D string. That’s a G note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the open third string and fretted fourth string in turn, gently adjusting the third string tuning peg until the two unison notes are in harmony. Tightening the peg will make the pitch higher, loosening the peg will make the pitch lower.
• Step Five
  Place your index finger on the fourth fret of the G string. That’s a B note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the open second string and fretted third string in turn, gently adjusting the second string tuning peg until the two unison notes are in harmony. Tightening the peg will make the pitch higher, loosening the peg will make the pitch lower.
• Step Six
  Place your index finger on the fifth fret of the B string. That’s an E note. Keep your finger on that fret. Now pick the open first string and fretted second string in turn, gently adjusting the first string tuning peg until the two unison notes are in harmony. Tightening the peg will make the pitch higher, loosening the peg will make the pitch lower.

What you have just done is the standard tuning pattern, and it can be done anywhere using only your ears and a starting reference pitch.

Harmonics

This method is a bit trickier. You must be able to sound harmonics on your guitar. This video from Berklee Online will show you this technique. Tuning with harmonics is a rather advanced concept, but for the purpose of tuning your guitar it is quite simple.