New Standard Tuning

Among tunings for guitars, the New Standard Tuning (NST) has greater range than traditional ("old standard") tuning (OST) in which the strings are tuned to the open notes E-A-D-G-B-E (from lowest to highest). In NST, the strings are assigned C-G-D-A-E-G. The greater range allows NST-guitars to play pieces like The Moonlight Sonata that are impossible using OST.

NST was introduced by Robert Fripp, who is known as a guitarist for King Crimson. Fripp taught the new standard tuning in Guitar-Craft courses beginning in 1985, and thousands of Guitar Craft students continue to use the tuning. Like other alternative tunings for guitar, the NST has provided challenges and new opportunities to guitarists, who have developed music especially suited to NST. Indeed, many NST guitarists have become professional musicians and recording artists.

The five lowest strings C-G-D-A-E are tuned in perfect fifths, which has long been the tuning used for mandolins, cellos, and violins. On a guitar, the highest B of an all fifths tuning was impractical until recently. The NST has provided a good approximation to perfect fifths tuning since the 1980s.

The NST has required greater attention to strings than has OST. String sets for the traditional tuning have problems being adapted for the New Standard Tuning: With OST string-sets, the lowest string is too loose and the highest string too often snaps under the increased tension. Special sets of NST strings have been available for decades, and of course some guitarists have assembled NST sets from individual strings.