Guitar tuning explained

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I have blogged about how to tune guitar. This blog explains why part of tuning a guitar.
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In total 7 characters C D E F G A B are employed to indicate different sounds. These characters are called notes.
Interval is a distance between two notes. Smallest interval used in western music is half step. Interval between c and c# is half step. No intermediate sound is defined in between c and c#. Difference between any of the two above mentioned immediate notes are full step.

Guitar strings are called as E, A, D, G, B ,E (From thick to thin) as shown below.


Now let us look how these same notes are mapped on keyboard. Figure shown below shows, how C D E F G A B are mapped on keyboard :

On guitar we have A string after E string. If you look in above shown figure, distance between E and and A is, 5 keys (in terms of number of keys) and 3 whole (or full) step.


On guitar if you move from one fret to immediate next fret , it is half step. There is 2 exceptions to this rule. First, if you move from E to immediate next fret it will be F and difference between E & F is whole step. Second, if you move from B to immediate next fret it will be C and difference between B & C is whole step. Difference between open string and first fret (top most) is also a half step with above mentioned two exceptions. Explaining first exception, if you play E string pressing from first fret it will give F and difference between E & F is whole step. Explaining second exception, if you play B string pressing from first fret it will give C and difference between B & C is whole step.

On guitar if you play E string (Thick one) open, sound will resemble to E and than if you play same E string pressing it from 5th fret, it will resemble to A. Remember that your 2nd string (counting from thick to thin) is also named A. That means If you play E string pressing it from 5th fret and play A string open, it should give same sound. So if you don't have keyboard or guitar pitch pipe with you and if you still want to tune your guitar, you can tighten your E string (FYI : possibility of getting E string de-tuned is very less because of its thickness) according to your own convenience and than tune A string as mentioned above.

Similar reasoning applies to tuning of all other strings. Remember that to tune B string you need to press G string from 4th fret and make it sound same as B string. For tuning of all other strings yo need to press string from 5th fret.

Only to tune B string you need to press string from 4th. Why is this so??
Reason is in above shown figure. Distance between G and B is, 4 keys (in terms of number of keys) and 2 whole (or full) step.


Now recall that if you move from one fret to immediate next fret , it is half step and difference between open string and first fret (top most) is also a half step (exception of this rule is mentioned above). Means on guitar if you play G string open, sound will resemble to G and than if you play same G string pressing it from 4th fret, it will resemble to B. Your 5th string is also named as B. That means If you play G string pressing it from 4th fret and play B string open, it should give same sound!!

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FYI (Related talk):
Casio company is so popular in India that people sometimes uses casio brand name to indicate keyboard!! Same thing is applicable to brand name Honda, Maruti, Colgate etc. People are used to call any damn 2-wheeler as Honda, 4-wheeler as Maruti, Tooth paste as colgate !!!
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Jaydip Mehta (JD)
http://jaydipmehta.blogspot.com