There are a number of tools available for tuning your guitar. This article outlines the most common guitar tuner types.
Digital Guitar Tuner
Tuning a guitar is easiest with an automatic digital guitar tuner. An automatic guitar tuner is a device that detects the pitch of a guitar string and tells you whether the string is in tune, too low or too high via digital display. Automatic tuners receive sound input via a built-in microphone, vibration sensor, or a 1/4″ audio input jack. Guitar tuners with a digital display or LEDs are commonly called digital guitar tuners.
Digital guitar tuners can be very compact. The PitchBoy pocket-size, mini tuner ($9.95) can even fit on a keychain.
Automatic guitar tuners also come as software for Macs, PCs, and mobile devices. eMedia guitar lesson software (such as eMedia Guitar Method, Interactive Rock Guitar, etc.) features an automatic digital guitar tuner, as well as a metronome, guitar chord dictionary, and recorder. These four powerful guitar tools are also available together as the eMedia Guitar Toolkit, which at $4.95 offers an exceptional value.
Guitar Pitch Pipe
A guitar pitch pipe (seen below) has six pipes that are blown into to provide reference notes for each of the strings on the guitar.
How to Tune a Guitar Using a Piano
Refer to the graphic below to find guitar tuning reference notes on a piano keyboard.
Tuning Fork
When a tuning fork is tapped lightly it produces a sound that can be matched to an open guitar string. For example, a tuning fork in A would be matched to the open A, or 5th string. Some tuning forks are tuned to E or G, in which case you would match them to the open E or G strings respectively.
When matching tones, keep in mind that tuning forks may produce a pitch an octave higher than the string they’re to be matched with. Once one string is in tune, the relative tuning method can be used to tune the rest of the strings.