How to Tune Your Guitar

You've just walked in the door with your new guitar- you picked out the coolest one in the store, tried it out, and took the plunge! Excitedly, you run into the living room, put the case gingerly on the couch and open it up just to look at it for a minute... reach out and touch the strings, give them a little strum and think proudly to yourself “Wow, it belongs to ME now!” Now what? You put the strap on, sling your new axe on your shoulder and marvel at how good it feels to hold it, grab a pick and strum it a couple of times. The next step is to open the book and learn some chords and scales, right? Wrong! The first step, as I've told every student I've ever given a lesson to, is to TUNE IT! A major difference between a good sounding chord and one that sounds “wrong” is how the guitar is tuned. All the practice and technique in the world will not help what you're playing sound right if your instrument is out of tune. It's not as hard as it might seem at first, and it's a vitally important step in learning to play. My personal feeling is that it's the FIRST thing anyone should learn when learning to play!