Most players tune their guitars in standard tuning, which is E-A-D-G-B-E. Some tune it a little lower to either get the darker sound they prefer, or because it works better with the vocal range of the band's singer. But the relationship between each individual string remains the same as it is in standard guitar tuning.
There are, of course, countless other ways to tune a guitar, such as those used by artists as varied as Joni Mitchell and Sonic Youth. So, why do so many guitarists tune in standard tuning? Let’s start with an engineering problem…
How can you tune 6 strings to allow for the highest number of chords to be fingered by a human hand?
Wow, I bet you’ve never thought about how your guitar is tuned in that way before! But that is the conundrum that every tuning that has ever been created on a guitar, or any other fretted instrument for that matter, is trying to fathom.
The problem is that you can only use a maximum of four fingers; the thumb doesn’t really count, although some players, such as Jimi Hendrix, could wrap it around the neck to add a bass note or two, as shown in the picture below. But in reality, and for us mere mortals, the thumb is used for leverage 99.99999% of the time.
Jimi Hendrix’s amazingly long thumb!
You also need to include as many strings in each chord as is possible, allowing you to easily strum the instrument.
The solution is movable shapes, i.e., a barre. You could, for example, create a shape where all four fingers press down on an individual note and then move the whole shape up and down the neck. But you would only produce 4-string chords with two muted strings - not ideal.
That’s where the magic of a barre comes into play - press one finger across all six strings, leaving the other three available to finger the chords. This gives us six-string chords that we can move up and down the neck with ease.
Now that we understand the problem and have a solution, let’s find…
The Best Tuning Compromise
However you decide to tune a guitar, it has to be a compromise. In a perfect world, a player could put their fingers anywhere on the neck and use the six strings to make any six notes they want. However, in the real world, you are limited to the positions that your fingers can actually reach.
But these limitations might not be as limiting as you think. In reality, and using standard tuning, there are usually several different positions that you can use to play the same chord.
Using the CAGED System, here are five different fingerings of a C major chord (in standard tuning):
These are all the same chord - C major - but are inversions of each other. Therefore, even though they all contain the notes needed to create a C major chord - C, E, and G - they have different numbers of each note at different pitches within each chord, so they all produce a slightly different sound. They all sound like a C chord, but also sound slightly different from each other.
Guitarists usually choose the one that sounds best in the song they are writing. However, they also take into account how easy it is to get to and from the chord before and after it, as well as what notes can be picked or fingerpicked, if need be.
Is E-A-D-G-B-E the Perfect Guitar Tuning?
Tuning to EADGBE is the best option in terms of a compromise, making a large number of chords relatively easily accessible, although some are still nearly impossible to play. If you play the tuning open, it sounds pretty awful; however, it does let you play lots of nice chords easily using only two or three fingers.
Plus, using barre chords, you can play just about anything, although the G-shaped barre is a major stretch. The B major chord and barre are a problem for many, especially beginners, but you do eventually get used to it.
The Theory Behind the E-A-D-G-B-E Tuning
The basic chords that we know and love are formed by stacking up thirds, both major and minor.
I’ll explain by using the E major chord, which consists of the following notes…
E - G# - B
1 - 3 - 5
E to G# is a major third
G# to B is a minor third
E to B is a fifth
B to E (in the next octave up) is a fourth
When you invert a chord to form it in another position of the neck, each chord shape has to be built from these intervals. That’s why a guitar is tuned in fourths, making it easy to form chord shapes that include these four intervals.
So, let’s take a look at a chord…
The E major triad consists of the notes E - G# - B. Starting with the lowest string - E - this is left open. Now put your first finger on the 2nd fret of the A string, as you normally do; this is a B note, an interval of the fifth from the open E note. Next, add the second finger to the 2nd fret of the D string, another E note, which is an interval of a fourth from the B on the A string.
It’s now time to put your third finger on the 1st fret of the G string, a G# - which is a major third from the E note on the D string. This produces the notes - E - B - E - G# — all three notes of the triad, with the E doubled.
Oh No! Trouble is on the horizon!
That’s right, you’re in big trouble: you’ve used nearly all of your fingers already, and there are two more strings to go. If you were to tune them in fourths, the open notes would be C and F - no good at all.
So, this is where the compromise comes in: instead of tuning to C, tune the second thinnest string to B, which will create a major third from G#. The B note is part of the E chordal triad, so that’s one problem solved.
To the final, thinnest string, and we return to tuning in fourths, making it an E from the open B string, which is also in the E chordal triad - Excellent, the tuning is sorted!
We can now use our first, second, and third fingers to play a 6-string E major chord. Plus, we can swap our fingers around, leaving the first finger free to barre all six strings and move the chord to anywhere on the neck, creating all 12 major chords.
And it’s the same for the other CAGED chords - the C-shaped, the A-shaped, the G-shaped, and the D-shaped. All of these chord shapes are built on the same intervals - thirds, fourths, and fifths.
Three of them, the E, A, and D-shaped chords, also have the advantage that the third of the chord - the G# - is only used once, making it easy to lower it by a fret to create minor versions of the chord.
How does this all relate to my Guitar Tuner?
Whatever type of guitar tuner you have, either standalone, a clip-on, or an app on your smartphone, it will be calibrated for the standard tuning of guitars.
Your tuner will automatically tell you if any note you play is in standard tuning or if it is out of tune. As long as your tuner or app is calibrated to the note A4 (on a piano), at a frequency of 440 Hertz (standard guitar tuning Hz), it is perfect for standard tuning, as shown on the Boss TU-03 tuner below…
Wrapping It Up
So, there you have it, you now know why the guitar is tuned the way it is. I apologise that I had to get a bit theoretical to explain some of it, but there was no other way, I assure you.
Guitarists are artists, and will forever decide on different tunings to use in different songs, depending on the emotion they want to convey to the listener. These changes from standard tuning will make some things easier to play while making other things harder. As long as what they are playing is easier, the tuning is a great choice, so they stick with it, but will revert to standard tuning or another tuning if they work better in another song.
However, most of the time you don’t need to overcomplicate things, stick with good old E-A-D-G-B-E, it makes most things easy enough to play, making it the best option for most guitarists, most of the time.
