How to tune a guitar with your phone

A tuner tells you two things: which note it hears, and how far off you are. Everything else is technique. This page covers standard tuning, what the numbers mean, and the alternate tunings worth knowing.

Standard tuning, string by string

From the thickest string to the thinnest:

String	Note	Frequency at A4 = 440 Hz
6th, thickest	E2	82.41 Hz
5th	A2	110.00 Hz
4th	D3	146.83 Hz
3rd	G3	196.00 Hz
2nd	B3	246.94 Hz
1st, thinnest	E4	329.63 Hz

An easy way to remember the order: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie.

Play one string at a time, letting it ring on its own. Two strings at once give the tuner two pitches to choose from, and it will pick the louder one.

What cents mean

Between two adjacent notes there is a semitone, and a semitone is divided into 100 cents. So the display saying -12 means the string sits an eighth of the way below the note it is heading for.

• Inside 3 cents: in tune. Nobody will hear the difference.
• 5 to 15 cents: audible against another instrument, worth correcting.
• Over 50 cents: you are closer to the neighbouring note, and the tuner may well name that one instead.

Tune up, not down

Turn the machine head until the string is slightly below the note, then bring it up to pitch. A string tuned upwards pulls evenly against the tuning post and holds. Ease down onto the note and the slack in the post gradually gives, which is why the string drifts flat after a few minutes.

If you overshoot, do not creep back down. Go under and come up again.

Work in a sensible order

Tune the low E first, then move across to the high E, then go back and check the low E again. Every string you tighten pulls the neck a little further, which drops the strings you already tuned. On a guitar with new strings, expect to go around twice.

Alternate tunings worth knowing

Tuning	Strings, low to high	What it is for
Standard	E A D G B E	Everything
Drop D	D A D G B E	Heavier riffs, one-finger power chords on the bottom
DADGAD	D A D G A D	Celtic and modal playing, ringing open strings
Open G	D G D G B D	Slide, and a lot of Keith Richards
Open D	D A D F♯ A D	Slide and fingerstyle in D
E flat	E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭	Everything down a semitone, easier on the voice and the fingers

Going into Drop D is a single string: take the low E down until the tuner reads D2. Coming back is the same move in reverse, and worth checking afterwards, because that string will have pulled the others.

If the tuner keeps jumping

• Mute the strings you are not tuning with the palm of your picking hand.
• Play at a normal volume. A hard pick attack pushes the pitch sharp for the first instant.
• Get away from a noisy fan or an open window; a microphone hears those too.
• With very low notes on a bass, give the string a moment to settle before reading.

A tuner and a metronome in one app

We make Tunora, a free tuner and metronome for Android and iOS. Pitch detection runs entirely on the device and is precise to the cent, with automatic string detection, so you just play and turn.

It covers 16 instruments, including 6, 7, 8 and 12-string guitar, 4 and 5-string bass, ukulele, violin, viola, cello, mandolin, banjo, balalaika, domra and a full chromatic mode. Drop D, DADGAD, Open G, Open D, E flat and more are built in, you can save your own tunings, and A4 calibration runs from 430 to 450 Hz. Tap a string to lock onto it and the play button sounds a held reference tone you can tune against.

The metronome is a mechanical pendulum you can watch, 30 to 240 BPM with tap tempo, four click sounds and accent patterns.

Tunora is on Google Play and the App Store. The microphone is used only to detect pitch, on the device, and audio is never recorded or uploaded.