Nashville tuning: the strings, the notes, and a tuner

This is a free online tuner, already set to Nashville tuning: E3 A3 D4 G4 B3 E4. The four lowest strings sound one octave higher than in standard tuning, and the B and high E stay where they are. Press Start, play one string on its own and aim for 0 cents. No account, no download. It sits alongside the rest of our free guitar tools.

What Nashville tuning is

Nashville tuning, also called high strung, keeps the note names of standard tuning, E A D G B E, and changes their octave. The sixth, fifth, fourth and third strings are replaced by much thinner strings tuned one octave higher. The second and first strings do not change.

If you have played a 12 string guitar, you already know these pitches. On a 12 string, each of the four low pairs has a thin octave string next to the main one, and the two high pairs are doubled in unison. Take the thin half of the guitar, one string per pair, and you have Nashville tuning on six strings.

Frequencies are at A 440, the default reference pitch of the tuner. Look at the third string: G4, 392 Hz, is now higher than the first string. The strings no longer climb from the sixth to the first, and that broken order is a large part of why the tuning sounds the way it does.

Nashville tuning strings: what to buy

This is where Nashville tuning differs from every other tuning on this site. You do not get there by turning pegs. A string at a given pitch needs a given tension, and that tension grows with the square of the pitch: one octave up is four times the pull. A regular low E taken up to E3 would snap, and it would put the neck under a load it was never built for on the way.

Two ways to get the right strings:

• A dedicated set. Some string makers sell sets labeled Nashville or high strung. They are the simplest option: six strings, already matched to these pitches.
• Half of a 12 string set. Use the four octave strings, for the E, A, D and G pairs, and one string from each of the B and E unison pairs. This is the original studio trick, and it leaves you with the other half of the set for a standard guitar.

Fit the new strings, then check three things, in this order.

1. The nut. Slots cut for a thick low E are much too wide for a thin string. It can sit loose in the slot and buzz when played open. A luthier can shim or recut the slots if it bothers you.
2. The neck. Thin strings pull less, so the neck relaxes. A small truss rod adjustment is sometimes needed; if you have never made one, leave it to a luthier.
3. The intonation. Compare the twelfth fret harmonic with the fretted note on each string, as you would after any change of gauge.

How to tune a guitar in Nashville tuning

With the right strings on, tuning is quick. There is one trap, and it is the reason for the first step.

1. Check the frequency, not only the letter. The tuner names notes, not octaves: a string an octave too low still reads E, A, D or G, and can even read 0 cents. The number in Hz under the note tells the octaves apart. Your sixth string should read close to 164.81 Hz, not 82.41.
2. Open Settings, below the tuning menu, and tick Open string sound. Six buttons appear, one per string, each labeled with its octave: E3, A3, D4, G4, B3, E4. Tapping one plays its reference tone at the right octave, so let it fade before you play.
3. Tap the button of the string you are tuning, then play that string on its own. With a button selected, the tuner measures against that string even when it is several half steps away, which helps with new strings that start well below pitch. Bring each one up slowly, especially the G: it is now the highest note on the guitar, and it breaks easily if you overshoot.
4. Stretch the new strings gently, a hand under each one, and go round again. Thin new strings keep settling for a while.

The usual ear check, the fifth fret against the next open string, works on the bottom four strings: E3 to A3, A3 to D4, D4 to G4. It breaks between the third and second strings, because the G is now above the B: the fourth fret of the third string gives B4, an octave above the open second string. The fifth fret of the second string still gives the open first, E4.

The reference pitch menu offers A at 432, 440 and 442 Hz and opens on 440, which is what the frequencies on this page assume.

Why Nashville tuning sounds the way it does

The name comes from the Nashville studios, where session players took the octave strings from 12 string sets to string up a second, higher guitar. Played alone, it sounds light and glassy, with no bass at all. Played on top of a guitar in standard tuning, it fills in the octaves a 12 string would add.

That is still the main way to use it:

• Double a part. Record a strummed or picked part in standard tuning, then play the same part again on the Nashville guitar. Panned left and right, the two takes give a wide, chiming sound close to a 12 string, without its muddy low end.
• Brighten a dense mix. When the bass and a standard guitar already cover the low end, a Nashville part sits above them and stays clear.
• Play it on its own. Arpeggios on a Nashville guitar ring like a harp: the six strings sit close together in pitch, and the high G rings out above the B.

For a listening reference, Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones is the example most often given: listen for the bright, chiming acoustic layer above the main guitar.

The chord shapes do not change. Every string carries the same note name as in standard tuning, so an open G is still an open G. What changes is the voicing: the lowest note of the guitar is now E3, and chords come out compact and high. It is a color to add, not a guitar to play bass lines on. If you want the full instrument that sound comes from, see the 12 string guitar tuner.