Tuning Your Guitar is best done with a guitar tuner.  If you are unable to use a guitar tuner, here are some tips to get you guitar in relative tune.

Relative Tuning:

The guitar is tuned E, A, D, G, B and E again. You can tune the guitar to itself and not worry about tuning to other instruments if you are playing without other instrumentation.  If you don’t have a pitch reference to get started, just start with the lowest string which is E (it is the thickest of the strings).  Play this E string on the 5th fret, and then play the adjacent string (A string) at the same time.  Adjust the A string till you match the two notes.

Once you have the A string in tune with the E string, move on to the D string.  Pluck the A string while pressing down on the 5th fret, and then pluck the D string at the same time.  Adjust the D string until the two tones are matching.  Now you can match the D and the G strings by playing the D string on the 5th fret and matching the open G string at the same time.

Now you have four strings in tune.  The next string is the B string and you’ll need to play the G string on the FOURTH fret while plucking the open B string at the same time.  Adjust the B string till both notes are matching.  For the final E string, play the B string on the 5th fret and match the open E string to this note.  Now, play your favorite 6 string chord and you are ready for your guitar lesson!