To tune a guitar without a Tuner, first tune the 6th string to low E. If you know the pitch on E string, you can tune it on first. Or you may want to checkout the sample sound of a low E. If you’re playing with your friends or other guitarists, you may want to have one person with the tuned guitar, so that you can tune your Low E with the other guitar.
- Pluck your tuned low E string with your right hand (for right-handed, standard guitar players—lefties playing left-handed guitars should reverse this) while holding the string down with your left hand at the 5th fret (starting from the headstock, count 5 frets up toward the body.) The tone that emanates, because you are holding the string down at the 5th fret, will be an A.
- Pluck the open string below it (“open” meaning, not holding down the string on any frets with your left hand) and turn the second tuning peg until your A string produces the same tone as your low E string when played at the 5th fret. Following suit, you’ll play the A string at the 5th fret to find the correct tone for the D string, the D string at the 5th fret to find the G string, but when you’re ready to tune your B string, you’ll play the G string at the 4th fret instead of the 5th.
To tune the last high E string, you’ll move back to the 5th fret where you’ll play the B string to find your high E tone. Got it? It’s pretty easy once you do it a couple of times. The down side to tuning your guitar this way is you may not be in “standard 440.” Tuning to A 440 assures you of being in tune with other guitars all around the world.