Acoustic Guitar Tunings: Standard, Drop D and Open Tunings

Acoustic guitar tunings? To play a guitar and get the right and best sound out of it, you must be in tune.

There are several acoustic guitar tunings that acoustic guitar players use. We will start with standard tuning on this page and move to other tunings on future pages.

Each string has a specific pitch. On a standard 6 string guitar, string pitches are shown in the photo.

The 6th string, low or big E which is usually the heaviest gauge string on the guitar is tuned to the E pitch that is in the second octave below (lower than) middle C (Refer to the diagram below).

The 5th string or A string of the guitar is tuned to the A pitch in the second octave below middle C also.

The 4th string or D string is tuned to the D pitch located in the first octave below middle C.

The 3rd string or G string is tuned to the G pitch located in the first octave below middle C.

The B string or second string is tuned to the B pitch located in the first octave below middle C.

The first string or high e string is tuned to the e pitch located in the first octave above(higher than) middle C.

There are other ways of tuning a guitar such as using a tuning fork, tuning by the 5th fret method, using a pitch pipe, using harmonics on the 5th and 7th fret, and using a digital chromatic tuner.

A digital chromatic tuner usually either makes the string pitch sound or has a virtual needle and light that lets you know when you are in tune.

Below is a guitar tuner that can be used to tune your guitar by switching on the note of the string that you want to tune.

It sounds the correct pitch of the string and you bring the string into pitch by hearing.

Many songs today are composed, played and sang in these tunings. I will attempt to explain each in the following pages!

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