I want to go through an idea real quick about how to tune by ear now typically I will use a tuner this is a headstock tuner that I would generally have clipped them to the top of my guitar and it would tell me if I'm flat or sharp and I could adjust the tuning machines as need be but sometimes you don't have a tuner so how do you know if you are in tune the way that I first started to figure out how to tune by ear was by picking notes that are picking notes from a song that I'm familiar with whenever I go through all of these strings right here all of these strings are separated in an interval known as a fourth with exception to the G and B which I'll get to in a second but what I wanted to find was a song where the first two notes were something I could recognize and were a fourth apart and so what that song became for me was here comes the bride as in so now whenever I go across these strings and I play them I'll pluck you know plug them in succession the E and then a and I'll think the both sound like the first two notes - here comes the bride yep sounds like it so that must be in tune if the a is a little bit flat that doesn't sound like it so I wouldn't need I'd know that I need to raise it up until it sounds like the first two notes of all right so you can do that across all of these strays we're not all alone but most of them the one exception is the G and the B string these are separated by an interval known as a third which is different from the fourth so I have to find a different song that that sounds like whenever I was first learning how to tune by ear and what I landed on was have yourself a merry little Christmas as in so whenever I plug the G in the B string what I'm listening for is does this sound like the first two notes of what I know to be and recognize to be have yourself a merry little Christmas and yes it does if it was a little bit sharp no that's not a very Merry Christmas so yeah that's how I got in the habit of figuring out how to tune by ear another thing to keep in mind about how to tune by ear is that all of these strings wouldn't pluck together like it wouldn't plucked in pairs excuse me all these strings when plucked in pairs like those those those like the ones that are in direct succession with one another they're forming a chord in and of themselves like this e and a that is forming an a5 like you're basically playing in a you're just not used to hearing an A like it's this board you're just not used to hearing it with the e in the bass like but it's still the same separation of notes is still in a chord and so you should be able to hear you know sonically you should be able to understand that that is a chord and you should be able to hear if it's not in tune like it sounds like this that doesn't sound right you would need to figure out what string is maybe flat or sharp raping it until it becomes accord and you can hear that click that mesh that kind of begins to happen between those cords these two notes right here that would be a G so anyway they're all basically a chord that you're making gonna be plugging them together one of them just an outright major chord a gene all right so hopefully that will give you an approach on how to begin learning how to tune by ear