The starting point of everything
Before playing a single note, before learning a chord or a scale, the guitar is already teaching you something. That lesson is in the tuning: the way the six strings are organized when the instrument is ready to sound.
Standard tuning — E, A, D, G, B, E, from the lowest string to the highest — is not arbitrary. It is the result of centuries of evolution of the instrument, a carefully found balance between physical comfort, tonal range, and harmonic practicality. Understanding why the strings are tuned this way means understanding something profound about the instrument you play.
And there is something more: now that you know how to measure distances in semitones and tones, you can read standard tuning for what it really is — a sequence of intervals. Not just six notes, but six notes related to each other in a very specific way.
The six strings and their notes
A standard guitar has six strings. By convention, they are numbered 1 to 6 starting from the highest: string 6 (the lowest): E — string 5: A — string 4: D — string 3: G — string 2: B — string 1 (the highest): E.
Strings 1 and 6 are both E, but separated by two octaves. That symmetry is not coincidental: it has enormous practical consequences for how notes and patterns are learned across the fretboard.
The intervals between strings: fourths and one third
What is truly interesting is not the individual notes, but the distance between them. String 6 to string 5 (E→A): 5 semitones, a perfect fourth. String 5 to string 4 (A→D): 5 semitones, a perfect fourth. String 4 to string 3 (D→G): 5 semitones, a perfect fourth. String 3 to string 2 (G→B): 4 semitones, a major third. String 2 to string 1 (B→E): 5 semitones, a perfect fourth.
Four perfect fourths and one major third. That is the pattern. The irregularity — the third between strings 3 and 2 — is the only point where the pattern breaks, and it is precisely that point which causes the most confusion when guitarists try to transfer chord shapes or scale patterns from one pair of strings to another.
Why this tuning and not another
EADGBE tuning is not the only option. Dozens of alternative tunings exist — Drop D, Open G, DADGAD — and each has its own musical advantages. Standard tuning became the reference point because of a balance of three factors: tonal range (spanning nearly four complete octaves), chord practicality (allowing most common open chords to be formed with comfortable hand shapes), and pattern uniformity (the same interval movements work almost identically across all strings, except between the second and third).
Other tunings may make certain chords easier, but at the cost of complicating others. Standard tuning is the best compromise for the greatest number of musical situations.
The E-E symmetry and what it means
The fact that the first and sixth strings share the same note name — both E, though two octaves apart — has a very useful practical consequence: everything you learn on one string can be transferred directly to the other. If you learn the notes on the sixth string, you already know those on the first. If you learn a scale on the sixth string, its exact mirror exists on the first.
This symmetry also explains why so many guitar exercises begin on the sixth string: it is the instrument's low reference point, and what is learned there naturally replicates on the highest string.
How to memorize the tuning
The deepest way to memorize the tuning is not to repeat E-A-D-G-B-E as a list, but to understand the pattern of fourths: from one string to the next there are always five semitones (five frets), except between the third and second strings, where there are four. If you know it starts on E, you can reconstruct the rest: five frets up, A; five more, D; five more, G; four frets (the exception), B; five more, E.
The tuning stops being a list and becomes a logical structure. And logical structures remember themselves.
Related resources
On the Guitar Trainer platform you will find string recognition and ear tuning exercises, as well as tools for practicing note identification on each open string. Working on this from the start builds a physical relationship with the instrument that later becomes instinctive.
What comes next
You know standard tuning. You know which note each open string produces and which interval separates each pair of strings. But the guitar does not only sound on open strings: the entire fretboard is full of possibilities, and many pieces, styles, and effects require adjusting that starting tuning. In the next post we will explore alternative tunings — Drop D, Drop C, Open G, and others — and you will understand why guitarists use them, what possibilities they open up, and what limitations they create.
The guitar is an instrument that tunes itself in secret. Each string is a question, and together they form the answer. — Andrés Segovia
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