Free Online Guitar Tuner

How to tune a guitar

Standard guitar tuning, from the thickest (6th) string to the thinnest (1st), is E A D G B E. A common way to remember it is "Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie."

1. Open the tuner and choose the guitar preset.
2. Play one string at a time. The tuner hears the pitch and shows whether you're sharp or flat.
3. Turn the peg until the needle sits dead center on the target note.
4. Work from the 6th string up to the 1st, then go back and re-check — tuning one string can pull the others slightly as the neck settles.

Tune by ear with the drone

Prefer to train your ear? Play the drone on a string's target note and match the string to it. Because a real jam won't hand you a tuner between every tune, learning to hear when a string is flat is a skill worth building — and matching a steady drone is the simplest way to practice it.

Capo and bluegrass keys

Bluegrass guitarists often capo up to play in singers' keys while keeping familiar G or C shapes. A capo doesn't change how you tune — set your open strings to standard E A D G B E first, then add the capo. If a chord sounds off after capoing, it's usually the capo pulling a string sharp, so re-check with the tuner once it's clamped on.