Guitar Standard Tuning

As its name implies, standard tuning is by far the most popular tuning on a 6-string guitar.
It comprises the following note arrangement.

String Note Frequency
1 (Highest) e’ 329.6 Hz
2 b 246.9 Hz
3 g 196.0 Hz
4 d 146.8 Hz
5 A 110.0 Hz
6 (Lowest) E 82.4 Hz

The guitar, as conventionally fretted, is an equal tempered instrument.
The guitar is a transposing instrument. Its pitches sound one octave lower than they are notated. The pitches referred to above are referenced standard pitch (a’ = 440.0 Hz.).

In parts of Europe, including Germany, the B natural is instead spelled as the letter H: in German music notation, H is B♮ (B natural) and B is B♭ (B flat).

This pattern can also be denoted as E-A-d-g-b-e’.

Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with minimal left hand movement.

Tuning guitars.The separation of the first (e’) and second (b) string, as well as the separation between the third (g), fourth (d), fifth (A), and sixth (E) strings by a five-semitone interval (a perfect fourth) allows notes of the chromatic scale to be played with each of the four fingers of the left hand controlling one of the first four frets (index finger on fret 1, little finger on fret 4, etc.). It also yields a symmetry and intelligibility to fingering patterns.

The separation of the second (b), and third (g) string is by a four-semitone interval (a major third). Though this breaks the fingering pattern of the chromatic scale and thus the symmetry, it eases the playing of some often-used chords and scales, and it provides more diversity in fingering possibilities.

Tuning with a tuning fork and harmonics: Tune the A string to the fork. Then make a harmonic at the 7th fret producing a 329.6 Hz E. Tune the 1st string open to that, and then make a harmonic on the 5th fret of the 6th string, and tune the 6th string until the 5th fret’s harmonic is also at 329.6 Hz E. Then on the 1st string play the 7th fret’s harmonic and tune the b string so the 5th fret’s harmonic matches the e string’s 7th fret harmonic. Next play the 5th fret harmonic on the a string, and tune the d string so its 7th fret harmonic matches the 5th fret harmonic on the a string. Finally, play the 5th fret harmonic on the d string and match the g string’s 7th fret harmonic to that.

The chromatic (equal tempered) musical scale and the natural musical scale have note pitches that are very similar. The natural musical scale uses natural harmonic pitches. For example, the A note has harmonics pitches for the D and E notes. The guitar fretboard can approximately accommodate to tuning to the chromatic or natural musical scale by adjusting the intonation by a little. Intonation is tuning of the fret notes to other fret notes so that most of the fretboard pitches are tuned to the pitches of the musical scale of a particular guitar string. Intonation tuning is done by adjusting the string lengths at the bridge. The open string note of a particular string is kept constant so that when adjusting the string length, most of the fretboard pitches are closely matched to the pitches of the musical scale for this string.