I have a great electronic tuner. Ed, one of my classical guitar students, gave it to me as a gift because I was always grabbing his tuner at lessons and playing around with it. Thanks, Ed.

Unfortunately for me, the tuner isn’t idiot proof and you need to remember to turn it off. I find this difficult and therefore the battery is always dead. To make matters worse I never remember to get a new battery when I’m at the store. Fortunately, I have another accurate way to tune my guitar and I haven’t forgotten it yet. Here it is.

Tune the 5th string A. I use an A=440 tuning fork. Play a harmonic by lightly touching the A string above the fifth fret and plucking the string by the bridge. Plucking nearer the bridge will give a clearer harmonic. Adjust the string to match the tuning fork.

All the other strings are now tuned to the 5th string. This system is excellent because minor pitch errors are not compounded between strings.

E (6th string) — harmonic 7th fret 5th string = harmonic 5th fret 6th string

D (4th string) — harmonic 5th fret 5th string = harmonic 7th fret 4th string

G (3rd string) — play an A on 2nd fret 3rd string = harmonic 12th fret 5th string

B (2nd string) — play an E on 5th fret 2nd string = harmonic 7th fret 5th string

E (1st string) — play E first string open = harmonic 7th fret 5th string

Now that the guitar is in tune you can make minor adjustments by comparing unisons (same note different strings) and octaves between various strings.