10 reasons why your guitar won’t stay in tune

Why won’t my guitar stay in tune? 10 reasons why

You happily tuned your (electric-) guitar, but within minutes it’s out of tune again.
In desperation, you almost wanted to cry: “Why won’t my guitar stay in tune?”
We have 10 answers to the reasons and to solve the problem.
Maybe you’ll solve the problem in a flash, or maybe your instrument is due for professional maintenance.

Either way, you will find the solution to all your tuning problems here.
But first off, we will tell about how to tune your guitar the easiest way.

Two Methods for Tuning Your Guitar

To start at the beginning, there are basically two ways to tune your guitar: by ear or with a tuner.

Tuning Your Guitar by Ear

Tuning by ear requires a fair amount of practice. You can use a reference note, such as a tuning fork or pitch pipe. How do you know which way to turn the tuners of your guitar?

If you were to look at a tuning peg from above, you usually turn it counterclockwise to raise the note. If the note then becomes lower, you turn it clockwise. It can take some getting used to depending on the guitar, as the configurations often vary. Many electric guitars have six tuners in a row on one side of the headstock, while other guitars, like most acoustic guitars, have three on each side.

Tuning Your Guitar with a Tuner

An easier and more accurate option is using a tuner. Because tuning with a tuner has nothing but advantages.
A clip-on tuner is the most accessible. But any sort of guitar tuner is OK, whether it is microphone- or jack-cable equipped.

Tuning your guitar with a tuner is not only the simplest but also the most accurate option.

Pluck a string, the tuner will indicate which note it is and if it is in tune. Try to play one string at a time, plucking it repeatedly to maintain a consistent tone, but not too hard.

Using moving lights, it will then indicate whether the string is too low, too high, or just in tune. You then turn the tuner in the correct direction until the tuner indicates the string is in tune.

10 reasons why your guitar won’t stay in tune?

Always tune before playing

A reason your guitar won’t stay in tune could be not having tuned it recently; Before you start playing, tune your guitar.
It’s not at all surprising that your guitar is no longer perfectly in tune the next time you play.
There’s quite a bit of tension on the strings. This is especially important with new strings: a new string needs some time to adjust to its position in the beginning. The wood of a new guitar also needs an adjustment period, and that affects the tuning.

Old, dirty strings

Another reason your guitar won’t stay in tune is due to old strings. Every time you play, your fingers leave a residue on the strings. Even ‘clean’ hands leave a little residue. If you wipe the strings with a cloth after each play, they’ll stay in tune for a little longer. Also, remember that strings become less tunable as they near the end of their lifespan.

New strings? Stretching

When your guitar won’t stay in tune it may be caused by new strings. If you’ve put a new set of strings on your guitar, make sure they’re properly stretched. Grasp a string and gently pull it upwards, along the entire length of the string.
Then, bring the stretched string back into tune. Repeat these two steps until the guitar string stays in tune, and continue until you’ve done all the strings.

Check if the strings are properly tightened

When your guitar constantly is out of tune, check if your strings are tightened properly.
When stringing your guitar, make sure you secure the strings properly. On the tuner side, use two to three turns to prevent the strings from slipping due to the high tension. The strings at the bridge also need to be properly tightened.

Shown above is the perfect way to wind your strings. With 2 to 3 turns, you will have the least chance of tuning problems.

The wrong way of attaching strings

Never wind your strings like this here below, because you will definitely have tuning problems when strings lie over each other.

The quality of the guitar

A reason why some guitars won’t stay in tune is simply because they’re cheaper.
More expensive models generally has better quality parts and materials. Higher-quality tuners, for example, keep your guitar in tune better.

The nut also affects tuning stability. Upgrading these parts can help. Cheaper guitars are often made of younger wood and less quality parts. Young wood still flexes relatively frequently, which affects the tuning.
Nuts made of cheap materials may cause tuning problems, as well as the the nut slots.

They ensure the correct string position, spacing, and height, which is crucial for tuning stability and playability.
Sometimes they are simply called slots or grooves.

New strings the same gauge as the old ones?

Do different gauges of strings affect the tunability of your guitar? Yes, it does and even as only the brand is different, there may be tuning problems.

For example, when your old strings were 0.09 and the new set is a 0.10-gauge set.
Now you need to intonate the guitar, which will be done by changing the the length of the strings. You need to move the bridge saddles forward or backwards. This need to be done by a professional, unless you are not a beginner at guitar.

Be careful not to skip the “intonation” process.
The guitar might sound in tune on open chords, but still be out of tune higher up the neck.
If you’re having trouble adjusting, or simply don’t feel comfortable doing it, contact an experienced guitar technician.

Extreme temperature fluctuations and humidity

Try to avoid extremes in temperature and humidity in case you want to stay your guitar in tune.
Extremes in temperatures can cause the guitar’s wood to warp considerably, which affects its tuning.
If the environment feels comfortable to you, it probably does for your guitar too.
Therefore, never place your guitar near a radiator, in a damp room, or in a hot or cold car for extended periods. It’s also normal for your guitar to be a little harder to tune after transport. The wood needs time to adjust to its new environment.

Ideally, a humidity between 40 and 50% will be OK.

• Too high? Place a dehumidifier in the room.
• Too low? Place a humidifier in the room.

You can find (de-)humidifiers and humidity meters at home improvement stores.

Are the nuts and bolts tight?

Check all contact points and screw-connected parts. You want to make sure there’s no unwanted movement anywhere. Tighten the nuts, bolts, and screws by hand, so don’t overtighten;
This will prevent you from breaking anything or making it difficult to loosen later.

Check the glued parts

Does your guitar have a glued nut, neck, and/or bridge? To check the stability of each part, pluck your strings. Now listen for a difference in pitch when you move the relevant part. If you feel like you’re hearing too much pitch difference, but still feel a lot of movement when checking one of these glued joints, then release the tension on all strings and take your guitar to a luthier or technician with sufficient experience.

A guitar will never be perfectly in tune

Even if you’ve carefully followed all the points above, no guitar is perfectly in tune. You might have noticed that certain chords sound perfect, while others are just a little off. In short, this means that for perfect tuning, each note on each string should actually have its own fret, set at exactly the right pitch.

But instead, guitars have a compromise: one long fret for each position, resulting in minor imperfections in various places. We have to live with that, unless you want to pay for a guitar with “True Temperament” frets. Due to the level of this blog, we don’t want to dive deeper into this.

What else is important when you are looking for great sound

Please note that many many things are substantial for creating great guitar sounds. We cannot mention everything, but besides a good guitar it could be as follows;

Guitar amps explained

A good guitar amp, whether it is a solid-state or tube amplifier. Think of effects pedals, cables and guitar picks as well.
Want to know more about how tube amps work? And when you always wanted to know what “headroom” means, please read the Headroom special.

Guitar effects pedals explained

Not only the brand or type of pedals (buffered pedal or true-bypass), but the way you place them in the guitar effects pedals chain is important as well. As an example; Did you know this about compressor pedals?

Open- or closed back guitar speaker

Read about the advantages of those 2 types of guitar speakers. Both have a huge impact on guitar sound. More information about this will be explained here.

The right guitar picks

Many people think that a guitar pick is just a simple piece of plastic; the thinner & cheaper the better.
I thought exactly the same for probably 10 years since I started playing guitar. Until a certain moment I went experimenting with different materials and thicknesses.

Well, guitar picks make a huge difference on your sound and on your playing style.
Thicker picks have more mass and definitely sound different than thin flexible picks.
When using extra thick picks, you might want beveled edges for gliding on and off strings with less effort.

You may read the story of ChickenPicks guitar picks at the About page on our website and there you will also find information on all of our different models.

What others say about ChickenPicks guitar picks

Musikhaus Thomann
Chicago Music Exchange
Guitarpickreviews.com
Anatomy of guitar tone

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Guitar essentials:

In guitar essentials we write about interesting things every guitarist should know a bit of, especially when you’re new to (electric) guitar.
We definitely don’t dig deep into theories or technical aspects.
You will find many scientific documents about anything somewhere on the internet.