Guitar Strings/notes

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Jones
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Michael Jones

Michael Jones

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I'm posting this here because I couldn't figure out where else to post it.
OK, first, I DO NOT play guitar, so don't laugh at me. Put a guitar in my hands, and I have absolutely NO IDEA of whats going on. I don't play guitar because it hurts my fingers!
But I want to know: What are the open string notes on a guitar, from lowest pitch to highest pitch??
 
OK cool, thanks, now, that poses another question. I'm guessing the first (lowest) E is E3, or E below middle C? Right?
Also, it seems odd that every interval is a perfect 4th except one, and thats the G to B interval, which is a diminished 4th. Wonder why that is?
Reason I'm asking is that, well, I play piano, mostly, and I'm writing a piece for piano/guitar. I don't want to use chord symbols for guitar because the voicing is important.
 
Easter Bunnies Get Drunk After Easter.

There, you'll never forget now.

H2H
 
Michael Jones said:
OK cool, thanks, now, that poses another question. I'm guessing the first (lowest) E is E3, or E below middle C? Right?
Also, it seems odd that every interval is a perfect 4th except one, and thats the G to B interval, which is a diminished 4th. Wonder why that is?
Reason I'm asking is that, well, I play piano, mostly, and I'm writing a piece for piano/guitar. I don't want to use chord symbols for guitar because the voicing is important.
Click to expand...

Good question! :) I've played the guitar for 2 years but never thought about why the guitar is constructed the way it is ... hmmm ...

Who? :D
 
There's no mathematically theoretical reason for the B string to be tuned to B. I think it's just that way because it works so well in western music (easier to make barre chords, easier to make consonant open voicings, and it gives you an E on the bottom and the top).
 
The way a guitar is tuned can be said to be an accident of evolution. There was no standardized pitch until the 1700's, and there were many different guitar-like instruments around before and after then, all unique but similar.
The Modern Day guitar grew out of the lute, an instrument used over 400 years ago. It was tuned to a very high A, with anywhere between 12 and 20 strings, in pairs of two. Another precursor was the Cittern, with 5 sets of two strings tuned to fifths. You can only find these in collectible shops now.

The real modern classical guitar was standardized in the late 1800's, and through the need for a common tuning, the concert tuning for guitars was established for it, for no real specific reason except perhaps it blended well with other instruments, and was universallly playable and ultimately accepted.

Also, it did enable the playing of all chords in the first position, and helped establish a way to make the instrument uniform in the way most other instruments were. Even the old guitar like instruments had their own styles, different number combinations of strings, and different tunings that were accepted as standard for that instrument.

The modern day guitar evolved, and became a standard. Not a lot of complex pre- thought out theory went into exactly how to set it up, it just became that way through the ages to conform with other instruments and still remain playable.

Perfesser Bushice :)
 
Michael, if you dont know how to play guitar than how are you going to know what chord voicings to write down? You might be annotating impossible chords to play. Just curious.

As a side note I believe it was Bach and his Well Tempered Clavier pieces that actually proved that you could tune a Clavier to play in all the different keys with one standard tuning. Up until that time they had to tune the Clavier differently for every key and every composer had their own preferred tuning. What a mess that must have been.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Michael, if you dont know how to play guitar than how are you going to know what chord voicings to write down? You might be annotating impossible chords to play. Just curious.
Click to expand...
hehe, good question tex. I don't play guitar, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to write for it. I do know the limitations and constraints of the instrument. I don't play french horn either, but I can write for that. In college, we did have to demonstrate that we had "playable familiarity" with a multitude of instruments. Having not picked up a guitar since that class (more than 15 years) I just simply forgot the open string notes on it. "Modern Orchestration" was also part of the ciriculum. There's a big difference in scoring for a double bass thats going to be bowed in an orchestra, and scoring for a double bass thats going to be fingered plucked in say a jazz trio. That course explored those types of differences. I'm not going it alone either, the guitar player will have some input. (albeit limited) :p
 
I seem to remember an interview with Robert Fripp in which he went on a mini-rant about how the standard tuning for guitar is based on whimsical tradition. He was very adamant about the arbitrariness of ST, and he doesn't use that tuning himself.

If memory serves, I think I once read that Stanley Jordan modified his tunings (at least when he first hit the public spotlight) to match the intervals of a violin, or something like that. I think it had to do with his unique two-handed tapping style.

Do these snippets of memory ring any bells with y'all?
 
beaverbiscuit said:
I seem to remember an interview with Robert Fripp in which he went on a mini-rant about how the standard tuning for guitar is based on whimsical tradition. He was very adamant about the arbitrariness of ST, and he doesn't use that tuning himself.

If memory serves, I think I once read that Stanley Jordan modified his tunings (at least when he first hit the public spotlight) to match the intervals of a violin, or something like that. I think it had to do with his unique two-handed tapping style.

Do these snippets of memory ring any bells with y'all?
Click to expand...
I remember something to that effect about Stanley Jordan, I'm a huge fan of his. The guy's amazing.
 
Yeah, and he's an example of a player that non-guitarists have to see perform to really appreciate. Someday when I have time :rolleyes: I'm gonna burn to disc my LP copy of Magic Touch, his first release. His take on "Eleanor Rigby" is righteous.
 
Fripp used to have a great collumn in one of the Guitar mags. He was very into alt tunings.

They are fun to play with. It's nice to shake things up creatively with a different tuning.
 
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