Guitar tunings


Guitar tunings[List of guitar tunings|] are the assignment of pitches to the open strings of guitars, including classical guitars, acoustic guitars, and electric guitars. Tunings are described by the particular pitches that are made by notes in Western music. By convention, the notes are ordered and arranged from the lowest-pitched string to the highest-pitched string, or the thickest string to thinnest, or the lowest frequency to the highest. This sometimes confuses beginner guitarists, since the highest-pitched string is referred to as the 1st string, and the lowest-pitched is the 6th string.
Standard tuning defines the string pitches as E, A, D, G, B, and E, from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch. Standard tuning is used by most guitarists, and frequently used tunings can be understood as variations on standard tuning. To aid in memorising these notes, mnemonics are used, for example, Eddie Ate Dynamite Good Bye Eddie.
The term guitar tunings may refer to pitch sets other than standard tuning, also called nonstandard, alternative, or alternate. There are hundreds of these tunings, often with small variants of established tunings. Communities of guitarists who share a common musical tradition often use the same or similar tuning styles.

Standard and alternatives

Standard

is the tuning most frequently used on a six-string guitar and musicians assume this tuning by default if a specific alternate is not mentioned. In scientific pitch notation, the guitar's standard tuning consists of the following notes:
The guitar is a transposing instrument; that is, music for guitars is notated one octave higher than the true pitch. This is to reduce the need for ledger lines in music written for the instrument, and thus simplify the reading of notes when playing the guitar.
Standard tuning provides reasonably simple fingering for playing standard scales and basic chords in all major and minor keys. Separation of the second through fifth strings being tuned in minor 3rds and second following the low string as the separation being tuned in 5ths, and creating as by a five-semitone interval allows the guitarist to play a chromatic scale with each of the four fingers of the fretting hand controlling one of the first four frets only when the hand is in the first position.
The open notes of the second and third strings are separated by four semitones. This tuning pattern of fourths, one major third, and one fourth was inherited by the guitar from its predecessor instrument, the viol. The irregular major third breaks the fingering patterns of scales and chords, so that guitarists have to memorize multiple chord shapes for each chord. Scales and chords are simplified by major thirds tuning and all-fourths tuning, which are regular tunings maintaining the same musical interval between consecutive open string notes.
When barring each fret in standard tuning, all of the notes of the minor pentatonic scale based on the note of the first fret are produced. For example, the open strings E, A, D, G, B, E yield the notes of the E minor pentatonic scale, and barring the third fret produces the notes of the G minor pentatonic scale.

Alternative

refers to any open string note arrangement other than standard tuning. These offer different kinds of deep or ringing sounds, chord voicings, and fingerings on the guitar. Alternative tunings are common in folk music. Alternative tunings change the fingering of common chords when playing the guitar, and this can ease the playing of certain chords while simultaneously increase the difficulty of playing other chords.
Some tunings are used for particular songs and may be named after the song's title. There are hundreds of these tunings, although many are slight variations of other alternate tunings. Several alternative tunings are used regularly by communities of guitarists who share a common musical tradition, such as American folk or Celtic folk music.
The various alternative tunings have been grouped into the following categories:
  • dropped
  • open
  • both major and minor
  • modal
  • instrumental
  • miscellaneous.
Joni Mitchell developed a shorthand to specify guitar tunings: one letter naming the note of the open lowest string, followed by the relative fret offsets between adjacent strings; in this format, the standard tuning is E55545. This scheme highlights pitch relationships and simplifies comparisons among different tuning schemes.

String gauges

String gauge refers to the thickness and diameter of a guitar string, which influences the overall sound and pitch of the guitar depending on the guitar string used. Some alternative tunings are difficult or even impossible to achieve with conventional guitars due to the sets of guitar strings, which have gauges optimized for standard tuning. With conventional sets of guitar strings, some higher tunings increase the string-tension until playing the guitar requires significantly more finger-strength and stamina, or even until a string snaps or the guitar is warped. However, with lower tunings, the sets of guitar strings may be loose and buzz. The tone of the guitar strings is also negatively affected by using unsuitable string gauges on the guitar.
Generally, alternative tunings benefit from re-stringing of the guitar with string gauges purposefully chosen to optimize particular tunings by using lighter strings for higher-pitched notes and heavier strings for lower-pitched notes.

Dropped tunings

A dropped tuning is one of the categories of alternative tunings and the process starts with standard tuning and typically lowers the pitch of one or more strings, almost always the lowest-pitched string on the guitar.
The drop D tuning is common in electric guitar and heavy metal music. The low E string is tuned down one whole step and the rest of the strings remain in standard tuning. This creates an "open power chord" with the low three strings.
Although the drop D tuning was introduced and developed by blues and classical guitarists, it is well known from its usage in contemporary heavy metal and hard rock bands. Early rock songs tuned in drop D include the Beatles' "Dear Prudence" and Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick". Tuning the lowest string one tone down, from E to D, allowed these musicians to lower the key of songs of their choosing and thus acquire a heavier and darker sound than in standard tuning, without needing to re-tune all six guitar strings ; this, plus the fact that it expands the guitar's range by two semitones, makes dropD a decidedly convenient tuning.
In the mid-1980s, three alternative rock bands, Soundgarden, and Melvins, influenced by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, made extensive use of drop D tuning. While playing power chords in standard tuning requires a player to use two or three fingers, drop D tuning needs just one, similar in technique to playing barre chords. This allowed them to use different methods of articulating power chords and more importantly, it allowed guitarists to change chords faster. This new technique of playing power chords introduced by these early grunge bands was a great influence on many artists, such as Rage Against the Machine and Tool. The same drop D tuning then became common practice among alternative metal acts such as the band Helmet, who used the tuning a great deal throughout their career and would later influence many alternative metal and nu metal bands.
There is also a double drop D tuning, in which both E strings are tuned down a whole step. The rest of the strings keep their original pitch.

Open tunings

An open tuning allows the guitarist to play a chord by strumming the open strings.
Open tunings may be chordal or modal. In chordal open tunings, the open chord consists of at least three different pitch classes. In a given key, these are the root note, its 3rd and its 5th, and may include all the strings or a subset. The tuning is named for the base chord when played open, typically a major chord, and all similar chords in the chromatic scale are played by barring all strings across a single fret. Open tunings are common in blues and folk music. These tunings are frequently used in the playing of slide and lap-slide guitars, and Hawaiian slack key music. A musician who is well known for using open tuning in his music is Ry Cooder, who uses open tunings when playing the slide guitar.
Most modern music uses equal temperament because it facilitates the ability to play the guitar in any key—as compared to just intonation, which favors certain keys, and makes the other keys sound less in tune.
Repetitive open tunings are used for two classical non-Spanish guitars. For the English guitar, the open chord is C major ; for the Russian guitar, which has seven strings, it is G major.
When the open strings constitute a minor chord, the open tuning may sometimes be called a cross-note tuning.

Major key tunings

Major open tunings give a major chord with the open strings.
Open AA–C–E–A–C–EA–A–E–A–C–EE–A–C–E–A–Eopen BB–D–F–B–D–FB–B–F–B–D–F
B–F–B–F–B–DOpen CC–E–G–C–E–GC–C–G–C–E–GC–G–C–G–C–EOpen DD–F–A–D–F–AD–D–A–D–F–AD–A–D–F–A–DOpen EE–G–B–E–G–BE–E–B–E–G–BE–B–E–G–B–EOpen FF–A–C–F–A–CF–F–C–F–A–CC–F–C–F–A–FOpen GG–B–D–G–B–DG–G–D–G–B–DD–G–D–G–B-D
Open tunings often tune the lowest open note to C, D, or E and they often tune the highest open note to D or E; tuning down the open string from E to D or C reduces the risk of breaking strings, which is associated with tuning strings up to a higher pitch.