Why the Guitar is tuned this way

It may not make sense to you at first, and you might just never think about it.

But the guitar is tuned the way it is for at least one very good reason.

As far as I can tell, it comes down to this: You have four fingers on your fingering hand.

So the guitar strings are tuned 5 frets apart (except for the B string). That means you can move up in semi-tones, fret by fret, until you come to the fifth fret. That one is tuned the same as the next higher string.

In other words, the strings are tuned this way to take advantage of the fact that you have four fingers.

This allows you to place your fingers along the frets, one finger per fret, in what we might call the “classic position”. The tuning of the guitar is based on this idea. It allows you to play up to two octaves of popular scales in the open position without moving your hand from the classic setup.

In other words it is tuned to take advantage of the four finger classic setup.

For more guitar tuning tips see “Tuning Your Guitar”.

For a free guitar course for beginners go to muzictrain.com