Acoustic Lesson 03 - Standard Tuning and Acoustic Basics

In acoustic guitar music (or any western music) we use chords and scales based off a 12 note pattern that repeats. Each note of the pattern is given a letter to notate its position, beginning with A and ending with G. The other five notes are notated as sharps and flats. The sharps and flats are the black keys on a piano and the lettered notes are the white keys.  See Example 1.

Sharps, noted by the symbol #, means to go up one half step. Flats, notated by the symbol b, means to go down one half step. For example Gb is one half-step down from G. F# is one half-step up from F. Although they are the same note in location they are given a different name depending on the key but can be used interchangeably.

Each string of the guitar contains this same pattern and therefore it could be said that one string of the guitar is like one piano keyboard. A guitarist can only play one note per string where as a piano player can play multiple notes on the same pattern. Standard acoustic guitars have six strings to allow for complete chording and easier scale patterns.

The following image shows how guitar tuning aligns with the piano keyboard.

Tuning your guitar gives a standard starting point for this pattern to begin and allows consistency to be maintained on the instruments and in playing with others. By tuning we mean changing the tension of the strings to match a certain pitch. Tuning to correct pitches can be done using an electronic tuner or a tuning fork. You can also tune from one instrument to another by using your ears to match the pitches. 

Standard guitar tuning from the lowest string (in pitch) to the highest is

6th string  - E
5th string  - A
4th string  - D
3rd string  - G
2nd string - B
1st string  - E

There are also many guitarists who prefer alternate tunings on the guitar to allow a different sound or playability to certain styles. Some examples of these tunings are        D, A, D, G, A, D,  - D, G, D, G, B, D;  or   - D, A, D, G, B, E.  But a guitar can be tuned to anything as long as the string tension can be supported by the guitar.

After you have your guitar tuned to the correct open pitches you can begin to learn patterns for chords and scales on the neck. Each step up the neck (towards the soundhole) fret by fret increases the pitch by one half-step, like walking up the piano key by key (including the black keys). Placing your finger behind the first fret on the first string shortens the string length and produces an F instead of the E produced when ringing open. See Example.

 

These basic principles may seem easily grasped but they are the basis upon which all music is built. You may be able to play a song without knowing these basics and think that you don’t need to know them in order to be a good musician but inevitably you can only grow as musicians if you know every nuance of how your instrument works.

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