Tuning your guitar correctly is one of the key things you need to learn to do. This is because tuning has an important role to play in how good your guitar sounds. There are different ways you can tune your guitar and here are some of the most popular guitar tunings. Try these different tunings to make your guitar practice a bit more fun.

How to Tune Your Guitar

First, here are some of the basics of tuning your guitar. You can ensure your strings are in tune using a variety of different methods. One of the simplest ones is to take advantage of an online tuner. Check out ProGuitarTuner.com for an example of a good quality online tuner. In addition, they also offer an iPhone app, which could be a handy thing if you don’t have access to the Internet.

On top of this, you can also find electronic tuners from online shops such as Ebay and Amazon. Again, these are very handy since they are relatively small, so that you can carry them around to your band practice, for instance.

Naturally, you can also utilise other musical instruments. Piano is a great help when tuning a guitar.

Standard Guitar Tunings

Guitar tunings have been changing a lot in the past few decades as musicians have experimented and looked to create new and distinct sounds, but the standard tunings have stood the test of time. For a 6-string guitar, the standard tuning consists of the following notes:

• E2, A2, D3, G3, B3 and E4

This is the tuning used for most songs and it is something you need to learn as you start playing the guitar. It isn’t too difficult to do. In fact, here are simple steps that’ll help you tune your guitar to the standard tuning:

• Tune the bottom E (the thickest string, known as the sixth string) by playing the 2^nd E below middle C on a piano or by using one of the online tuners.
• Tune the A string by placing your first finger behind the fifth fret on the bottom E string. Pick the fifth and sixth strings while tuning with the tuning peg until the strings make a similar sound.
• Tune the D string by placing your first finger behind the fifth fret on the A string. Use the tuning peg until the fourth string sounds similar to that.
• Tune the G string by tuning with the tuning peg until the G string makes a similar note to when you place your first finger behind the fifth fret on the D string.
• Tune the B string by placing your first finger behind the fourth fret.
• Finally, tune the E string (the thinnest string) by placing your first finger behind the fifth fret on the B string.

Alternative Guitar Tunings

On top of the standard tuning, there are also some alternative guitar tunings to try. Once you get a hang of using the standard tuning, it is fun to play around with these alternatives.

Some of the most popular ones include:

• Drop D – uses notes D-A-D-G-B-E. Everything is the same as in standard tuning, except the bottom E, which is tuned to low D.
• Open D – uses notes D1-A1-D2-F#2-A2-D3
• Drop C – uses notes C-G-C-F-A-D

You can find other alternative examples from this Music Radar article. Changing your guitar tunings is a great way to practice and it makes your practicing sessions feel a little bit different.

If you want to master the acoustic guitar, you need to learn how to finger pick. Fingerpicking is all about being able to pick the string very fast and in an accurate manner. As a result, you’ll end up playing a lot faster. To help you practice fingerpicking, here are some good tabs to try.

What Does Fingerpicking Require?

Before you start practicing with the tabs, it is essential to understand what skills you need to master it. The goal is to use one finger for every string on your guitar. For most of your fingers, playing a string won’t be too difficult, but your little finger might not have the required strength at the start.

It’s often a great idea to learn from the masters themselves and see what hand positioning they use for fingerpicking. This Guitar Fresh guide is a nice way to get to know some of the best guitar players that play in the fingerpicking style.

The Basic Guide to Understanding the Tabs

In the tabs below, we showcase the chord and the finger you need to use to play it. Therefore, you need to remember the shortcut for each finger and they go as follows:

• T for thumb
• I for index finger
• M for middle finger
• F for fore finger
• P for the pink finger

Here are some of the basic tabs you can practice with:

This tab is played in the C-chord. Hold the chord and use each of the corresponding fingers to pick the string in question.

E   | ————  | ———-  | ———-  | ———-  |

B  | ——-1—  | ———-  | 1———| ———-   |

G  | —–0—–  | ——1— | —0—— | 1——— |

D  | —2——-  | —-0—– | ——2— | —0—— |

A  | -3———  | –2——- | ——–3- | —–2—- |

E   | ————  | 3——— | ———-  | ——-3– |

T I M F      T I M F      F M I T     F M I T

You can change the chord if you like as well. Another good tab to practice with, which also includes the pink finger, is this:

E   | —2——-  | —0—— | –0——- | –2——- |

B  | ———0-  | ———0 | ——–2- | ——–3- |

G  | ———–   | ———-  | ———-  | —–2—  |

D  | ———–   | —–2—- | —–2—  | 0——— |

A  | ——2—-  | -2——– | 0——–  | ———-  |

E   | -3———  | ———-  | ———-  | ———-  |

T  P  I  F     I  P M F    I P M F     I  P M F

Generally, each finger will also pick just a specific set of strings. Naturally, there are always exceptions but it helps to recognise the most common hand position.

• Thumb will pick the 6^th (E), 5^th (A) and 4^th (D) strings
• Index finger will pick the 3^rd (G) string
• Middle finger will pick the 2^nd (B) string
• Fore finger will pick the 1^st (E)

But as you can see from the above tabs, there can sometimes be alterations to this rule. On top of this, it is crucial to let your hand rest naturally on top of the strings. If you keep bending the hand, you’ll find it harder to pick and you’ll have a lot of pain in your wrist in no time.

Play these above tabs regularly and try to use different chords when you play. It’ll be a bit difficult at the start, but your fingers will slowly ease into it and you’ll find playing a lot easier. When you feel yourself progressing, slowly start increasing the speed as well.

Acoustic Guitar has a list of rock songs that are great for practicing fingerpicking. It is worth checking out if you feel like your skills are getting better and you want to try something a bit harder.

It often helps to view video lessons in order to achieve the right playing position. If you want, you can check our video lessons for more information. Just remember to practice regularly and you’ll be able to enhance your fingerpicking skills.