Regular
| Regular tunings | |
|---|---|
For regular guitar-tunings, the distance between consecutive open-strings is a constant musical-interval, measured by semitones on the chromatic circle. The chromatic circle lists the twelve notes of the octave. |
|
| Basic information | |
| Other names | Uniform tunings |
| Advanced information | |
| Advantages | Simplifies learning by beginners and improvisation by advanced guitarists |
| Disadvantages | Replicating the open chords ("cowboy chords") of standard tuning is difficult; intermediate guitarists must relearn the fretboard and chords. |
| Regular tunings (semitones) | |
| Guitar tunings | |
With standard tuning, and with all tunings, chord patterns can be moved twelve frets down, where the notes repeat in a higher octave.
For the standard tuning, there is exactly one interval of a third between the second and third strings, and all the other intervals are fourths. The irregularity has a price. Chords cannot be shifted around the fretboard in the standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E, which requires four chord-shapes for the major chords. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings.
In contrast, regular tunings have equal intervals between the strings, and so they have symmetrical scales all along the fretboard. This makes it simpler to translate chords. For the regular tunings, chords may be moved diagonally around the fretboard. The diagonal movement of chords is especially simple for the regular tunings that are repetitive, in which case chords can be moved vertically: Chords can be moved three strings up (or down) in major-thirds tuning and chords can be moved two strings up (or down) in augmented-fourths tuning. Regular tunings thus appeal to new guitarists and also to jazz-guitarists, whose improvisation is simplified by regular intervals.
On the other hand, some chords are more difficult to play in a regular tuning than in standard tuning. It can be difficult to play conventional chords especially in augmented-fourths tuning and all-fifths tuning, in which the large spacings require hand stretching. Some chords, which are conventional in folk music, are difficult to play even in all-fourths and major-thirds tunings, which do not require more hand-stretching than standard tuning.
Read more about this topic: Guitar Tunings
Famous quotes containing the word regular:
“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“[I]n our country economy, letter writing is an hors d’oeuvre. It is no part of the regular routine of the day.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)