How To Guitar Tune - Learn with FREE Guitar Tips!

For beginning guitarists, a common question is "What's a good guitar tuning for metal?" They get to the point where normal rock and jazz just isn't really their style and they think, "When the heck do I get to learn how to thrash?"

Well, typically, a guitar tuning for metal guitarists is one of the "drop" tunings. Learning to play your guitar tunes in the drop tunings will allow for faster chord changes and the ability to play double-picked riffs with a little more ease as well.

So what IS drop tuning?

Well, standard tuning is typically E-A-D-g-b-e from the thickest to the thinnest string respectively and can be shown on this guitar tab I've just drawn up:

--e--
--b--
--g--
--D--
--A--
--E--

This is what a beginner should learn to tune their guitar tunes to. Drop tuning is usually done by tuning your 'E' string to 'D' instead, so your strings from thickest to thinnest would be D-A-D-g-b-e as shown on this guitar tab:

--e--
--b--
--g--
--D--
--A--
--D--

Now, with standard tuning, to play any sort of 5 chord using the thickest string (G5, A5, etc.) you would normally need your index, ring, and pinky fingers in order to make it work. Here's the tab for G5 in the standard tuning:

e-----
b-----
g-----
D--5--
A--5--
E--3--

However, with drop 'D' tuning, this same G5 chord can be played with only your index finger as shown here:

e-----
b-----
g-----
D--5--
A--5--
E--5--

Pretty cool huh? Now, some metal bands go EVEN LOWER by tuning to drop 'D' and then going ANOTHER full step down so the tuning becomes C-G-C-F-A-D. This is called drop 'C' tuning and it's very popular.

With this guitar tuning for metal purposes, not only are your chord changes going to be quicker, but your lowest note is lower, and your double-picking methods should become easier.

You can actually turn yourself to a live online tuner here: http://www.howtotuneaguitar.org/

For portable tuners check the How To Guitar Tune Store for tuners and other guitar equipment.

I don't normally like to mention any musical acts in my blog for fear that they'll become out-dated and I'll look like an old fogey, but here's a couple videos of metal bands that are known to use drop tunings for metal guitar purposes. (As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, and Bullet For My Valentine)