Guitar Down Tuning

Down tuning is popular in many genres of music, but especially rock and heavy metal, to give your music a deeper crunch. Tuning lower is also good for acoustic/clean playing though, because you can use those vibrant open position chords and get a completely different atmosphere from them.

Tip: If you're going to tune down, you might want to try some heavier gauge strings on your guitar, because the lower you tune, the less tension in the strings. Strings that lack enough tension tend to buzz on the fretboard and can kill tone.

I would say if you're going to tune down more than half a step you should at least use a gauge 10 set of strings (10 being the gauge of the high E string). That's just my opinion though - you might actually prefer the tone you get with lighter strings!

Tip: Don't forget there's also drop tuning, where you simply tune down the bottom string. For help with this, visit the drop tuning page.

Tuning the guitar down half a step / Eb (E flat) tuning

Some guitarists think playing in a flat/sharp key sounds fresher, because we're so conditioned to guitar pop music being recorded in standard E A D G B e tuning. I think there's definitely something in that!...

See, if you played a regular open G chord, it would in fact be G flat or F sharp because of the half step lower tuning. 

Tuning the guitar down half a step without tuning aids

This is useful to know when there's no reference to help match the tuning of your strings to the correct pitch.

Over time, your ear will become more and more accurate in identifying specific note pitches. However, here's a quick and simple way to get tuned...

As we're tuning down half a step (also known as a semi-tone), that's the equivalent of tuning down one fret position, so all we need to do is first get that low E string tuned down to Eb (E flat). E flat can be found on the A string at fret 6. Now your low E string is Eb, and you can use common guitar technique .

Tuning down a whole step / whole tone / D tuning

This tuning allows you to get that low bottom end D in, but as part of standard tuning intervals, so you can form all the chord shapes you're used to, especially open chords, and get that deeper atmosphere. 

EADGBe tuning changes to DGCFAd.

Tip: Just like with standard tuning, when you're trying to match your guitar's string to a string above, you'll hear a sort of oscillating effect, and as you tune closer to the correct pitch, this vibration effect will become slower and slower until you're in tune! You have to listen closely and train your ear to pick this up.

Tip: You can drop tune the low D string down to the same as the C string and you get... Drop C tuning.

Tip: Don't forget those slack strings - if they hang at your ankles after tuning down a whole step, you might want to think about buying some heavier gauge strings.

Tuning the guitar down a whole step without tuning aids

This is useful to know when there's no reference to help match the tuning of your strings to the correct pitch.

Over time, your ear will become more and more accurate in identifying specific note pitches. However, here's a quick and simple way to get tuned...

As we're tuning down a whole step (also known as a whole tone), that's the equivalent of tuning down two fret positions, so all we need to do is first get that low E string tuned down to D. D can be found on the A string at fret 5.

Simply fret the A string at fret 5 and tune down the open low E string until it matches. Even though the fretted D note will be an octave higher than the destination D note on the E string. Once you have done that use standard tuning method.