6-String Guitar tuner – Standard E
E-A-D-G-B-E · Standard
Also known as EADGBE, Spanish tuning
Press “Start tuner” – the browser will ask for microphone access. Sound is analysed on this device and never uploaded.
This free online tuner listens through your microphone and shows how close each string of your 6-String Guitar is to Standard E tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E). Play a string, watch the needle, and turn the peg until the meter glows green. If you prefer tuning by ear, tap any string card to hear its reference tone.
About Standard E tuning
Standard E is the reference tuning for the 6-String Guitar – the pitch the instrument normally ships at, and the starting point every other tuning on this page is measured from.
Played open, the strings sound E-A-D-G-B-E – from E2 at the bottom to E4 at the top, a span of 2 octaves. Step by step across the neck the intervals are a fourth, a fourth, a fourth, a major third, a fourth, and that is what decides how chord shapes fall under the hand.
Standard E is the tuning almost every guitar method, chord chart and tab on the internet assumes. Its shape is a stack of perfect fourths with one major third between the G and B strings, and that single irregularity is the whole story of the instrument: it is what makes barre chords work with four fingers, and it is also why the same shape has to be fingered differently on the top two strings.
If a song does not say otherwise, it is in this tuning. Worth knowing: because of that major third and the compromises of equal temperament, a guitar tuned perfectly to a meter will still sound slightly sour on an open E or G chord – the B string is usually the one people keep correcting by ear.
History
6-String Guitar
The guitar's name goes back through the Spanish guitarra to the Greek kithara, but the instrument itself took shape in 15th- and 16th-century Spain alongside its aristocratic cousin, the vihuela. Early guitars had four courses of gut strings; by the late 16th century a fifth course had been added, and Juan Carlos Amat's 1596 booklet Guitarra española made the five-course “Spanish guitar” the popular instrument of the Baroque. A sixth string appeared around the 1780s–1790s, in Italy and Spain at roughly the same time, and single strings replaced double courses.
The modern classical guitar is largely the work of the Spanish luthier Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–1892), who in the 1850s–60s fixed the larger body, the 65 cm scale and the fan bracing still used today. In the United States, the German emigrant C. F. Martin, who set up shop in New York in 1833, developed the X-braced flat-top that later carried steel strings. The electric guitar followed: the Rickenbacker “Frying Pan” lap steel of 1931–32, George Beauchamp's magnetic pickup, Les Paul's “Log” around 1940, the Fender Esquire/Broadcaster of 1950 and the Gibson Les Paul of 1952.
Where the Standard E tuning comes from
The upper five strings of standard tuning, A-D-G-B-E, are older than the six-string guitar itself: they are the tuning of the five-course Baroque guitar, described in Juan Carlos Amat's Guitarra española of 1596 and used throughout the 17th century. When a sixth string was added around the 1780s–1790s, it went a fourth below the A, giving E-A-D-G-B-E. Nobody invented it as such; it settled into place because it fits the hand – fourths everywhere except one major third, which keeps common chords within four frets.
The absolute pitch came much later. Until the 20th century “E” meant whatever the local pitch standard was; only after A = 440 Hz was agreed internationally in 1939 (and confirmed as ISO 16 in 1955) did standard tuning mean the same frequencies everywhere.
Other 6-String Guitar tunings
Standard
Drop
Open
Chords for this tuning
How do I tune my 6-String Guitar to Standard E?
Allow microphone access, pluck a string, and the tuner will detect it automatically. The needle shows whether the string is flat or sharp – adjust until the reading is within ±5 cents (E-A-D-G-B-E).
Which notes are used in Standard E tuning?
Standard E tuning for 6-String Guitar uses the notes E-A-D-G-B-E, listed from the lowest string to the highest.
Can I tune without a microphone?
Yes. Every string card plays a reference tone – tap it and match your string to the sound by ear.