Guitar String Order: A 5 minute lesson

Are you learning guitar but struggling to remember the order of guitar strings? Don't worry, you're not alone and we can solve that quickly.  

Memorizing the order of the guitar strings is extremely important so that you have a foundational knowledge that not only helps you navigate the 6 strings when played open but so that you can start to stitch together where you can find those notes anywhere along the fretboard.

In this article, we'll simplify the guitar string order, making it easy for you to memorize the numbers and names and move on to conquering other guitar lessons.

Standard Tuning

Let's start with the simplest thing to know: How many strings does a guitar have? Six. A guitar has six strings and each one has a corresponding note and number.

Before we dive into the details, let's understand what is most commonly known as the standard tuning of a six-string guitar. In standard tuning for a six string guitar, strings are tuned to E, A, D, G, B, and E, starting from the thickest to the thinnest string. Another way to think of this that we name the notes starting with the top string closest to our face and go down to the bottom string closest to our waist.

The standard tuning applies for any six string guitar whether it's an electric guitar, acoustic guitar, or a nylon string classical guitar.

The trick with guitar tuning: the notes and the numbers are inverted.

I've been playing guitar for over 25 years and though I've memorized the order of the notes I often get mixed up with how they're referred to by a given number.

While we remember the string notes starting from the top and going down - E, A, D, G, B, E as opposed to E, B, G, D, A, E - but when we count a guitar strings order we start from the bottom and go up. That means the low E string is the 6th string and the high E string is the 1st string.

And, if I've lost you with low vs high E then don't worry, we'll go into the details of the right away so you can begin memorizing the guitar string names or notes and their numbers.

E A D G B E tuning

EADGBE is not an acronym, it is simply the names of the notes, like those on another stringed instrument the piano, and the order in which they are played as open strings on our guitar.

The E String

The thickest string, also known as the low E string, produces the lowest pitch on the guitar. It is actually the 6th string of our instrument.

The A String

Moving on, we have the A string. It is thicker than the D, G, B, and high E strings, producing a slightly higher pitch. And, while it is the 2nd string down it is the 5th string from the bottom which is how we number it.

The D String

Next up, the fourth string for those keeping count is the D string.

The G String

After the D string, we come to the G string. It is thinner than the previous strings, resulting in an even higher pitch. This is the 3rd string. On a set of acoustic guitar strings this is often the last string from the top that is wound but on a set of electric guitar strings this is the first string that is purely a steel wire.

The B String

Moving towards the thinner guitar strings, we have the B string. It produces a higher pitch than the G string and is known as the 2nd string. On an acoustic guitar, the B string is the first string from the top that is not wound.

The High E String

The high E string shares the same note with our low E string but in a higher pitch (or octave) so that it has a much brighter sound. Play both the lower E string and the highest string of your guitar at the same time and you'll notice how they share the same note but in a different key.

What is an open string?

Earlier I mentioned the term "open strings" which simply means that this is the note made by plucking the strings on a guitar. As soon as you fret a string, or press down with your finger and onto the guitar neck you will no longer be playing the note that the guitar string was was tuned to.

Alternate tunings

While most songs are played in standard tuning there are a number of different tunings that will make our instrument's six strings sound completely unique.

• Half-Step Tuning - each note is tuned a half step down to their flat note. You'll notice this a lot in Jimi Hendrix songs.
• Drop D Tuning - the low E string is tuned down a full step from an E note to a D note. Makes it super easy to play barre chords.
• DADGAD - similar to Drop D but this time both the low E string and the high E strings are tuned down a full step to a D. Yep that's three open strings tuned to a D at once!

There are many more alternate tunings which we'll cover in a future article and there are different tunings for different guitar types such as a 12 string guitar tuning.

How to memorize guitar string numbers

Alright so now that we have the notes memorized let's go back to the order of guitar strings by their number. Maybe the simplest way to remember the order in which to count guitar strings is that you're counting down when you going down one string at a time and counting up when you're going up one string at a time.

We'll start with the first string, also the lightest string, the high E. From there we play our way up remember? That means our second string is the B, the third string is the G, the fourth string is a D, fifth string is an A, and the sixth string - the heaviest string and lowest of open notes is our low E string.

The tuning pegs

One last thing when it comes to memorizing the order of guitar strings - the tuning pegs.

On most guitars you'll either find all the tuning pegs on one side of the guitar body or them split into 3 on the top and 3 on the bottom. Once you've memorized the notes of the strings it's pretty easy to follow the string to its corresponding tuning peg but what if you're staring at a guitar without strings on them? Then it's slightly more difficult.

Bass guitar tuning

While we normally focus on our six stringed instruments here lets quickly go over the bass guitar string names. This is actually very easy because a bass guitar, which only has four strings, follows the same tuning as a six string guitar but with only the top 4 strings.

That's an E-A-D-G. Or otherwise known as our 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd string.

Moving on... to the fretboard.

There you have it. EADGBE. Say the guitar strings order over and over again and you'll soon have it burned in your memory.

Ultimately, it's important to memorize the order of the guitar strings so that you can tune your guitar properly but also have the right vocabulary to use when discussing the guitar and what you're playing with somebody else.

However, the other reason it's important is because there is a relationship between the notes of the guitar when played open and notes along the fretboard. We won't go into this in too much depth but let's cover the basics.

If you were asked to play an A you'd quickly know that the 5th string is an A. However, you could also press down the 5th fret of the E string and you'd be playing an A note in the exact same octave. You could also be playing the 2nd fret of the G string and you'd be playing yet another A note except this time in a higher register.

Once you understand the relationship of each string to another you'll be gliding up and down the neck with absolute ease.

Good luck out there!