It's good that digital guitar tuners exist, and if your a guitar player and don't own one I'd suggest you consider investing in one. They make tuning a guitar easier, make sure that your tuned accurately, and as we guitar players know being tuned to the right notes is important. But you should also know how to tune your guitar by ear without the use of one. Why? You'll find out in this guide on how to tune your guitar. This tutorial will assume that you want to be tuning a electric guitar.

Tuning your guitar is important as I stated above, you should always check your guitar is in tune each time you pick it up, but you also shouldn't depend on your digital tuner all the time, because sometime your going to forget it and then what are you going to do? No problem! Here are a way of tuning your guitar without the use of any aids other than your fingers, ears and the know how.

Standard guitar tuning method

Training your ears to pick up a guitars note will take time if your a beginner, so you'll need to be doing this regularly in order to train your ear, but here's Method 1 of tuning your guitar.

Going right back to the basics of a guitar (bare with me) a electric guitar has 6 strings going in the order of E,A,D,G,B,E (Lowest to highest) which can also be described as 6,5,4,3,2,1 (As in Lowest string represents 6 and highest string represents 1) here's a image to demostrate:

Let's get on with the tuning!

Your E string (highest) needs to be tuned!:

For this tuning method to work your high E string must be in tune! Although this kind of defeats the object you may want to tune your E high string to make sure it's correct with a digital tuner. If you don't have a digital tuner then you can roughly tune it, or download one of the mp3 sounds of a tuned high E string and match it with that (Scroll down to the bottom of this page to find them) Once thats tuned moved onto the next string.

Tuning your B string:

To tune your B string you will need to place your 1st finger on the 5th fret on the B string like so:

You will then play your high E string and then your B string immedietly after it (Making sure you are Pressing down your B string on the 5th fret) You will know your in tune if your B string sounds the same as the high E string. Adjust your B strings tuning peg accordingly until you get your B string sounding the same as the high E string when played together while pressing down the B string on the 5th fret.

Tuning your G string:

To tune your G string you will need to place your 1st finger on the 4th fret on the G string like so:

(Note this the only string you will tune using the 4th fret. The rest will use the 5th fret)

You will then play your B string and then your G string immedietly after it (Making sure you are Pressing down your G string on the 4th fret) You will know your in tune if your G string sounds the same as the B string. Adjust your G strings tuning peg accordingly until you get your G string sounding the same as the B string when played together while pressing down the G string on the 4th fret.

Tuning your D string:

To tune your D string you will need to place your 1st finger on the 5th fret on the D string like so:

You will then play your G string and then your D string immedietly after it (Making sure you are Pressing down your D string on the 5th fret) You will know your in tune if your D string sounds the same as the G string. Adjust your D strings tuning peg accordingly until you get your D string sounding the same as the G string when played together while pressing down the D string on the 5th fret.

Tuning your A string:

To tune your A string you will need to place your 1st finger on the 5th fret on the A string like so:

You will then play your D string and then your A string immedietly after it (Making sure you are Pressing down your A string on the 5th fret) You will know your in tune if your A string sounds the same as the D string. Adjust your A strings tuning peg accordingly until you get your A string sounding the same as the D string when played together while pressing down the A string on the 5th fret.

Tuning your E (Lowest) string:

To tune your Low E string you will need to place your 1st finger on the 5th fret on the Low E string like so:

You will then play your A string and then your Low E string immedietly after it (Making sure you are Pressing down your Low E string on the 5th fret) You will know your in tune if your Low E string sounds the same as the A string. Adjust your Low E strings tuning peg accordingly until you get your Low E string sounding the same as the A string when played together while pressing down the low E string on the 5th fret.

You've successfully tuned your electric guitar without the use of a digital tuner! Practice this method to train your ears to know what notes are in and out of tune

Tuned electric guitar strings (in a playable sound format):

If you want to make sure your guitar strings are in tune you can now use your digital tuner, however if you don't own one you can listen to each guitar string on your PC with this funky gadget below coursety of How to Tune a Guitar: