Alternative tunings abound, and guitarists have their favorites, but the popularity of the trend seems to lead back to the man who changed perceptions of the electric guitar forever, Jimi Hendrix. But why? Why would a player change the standard tuning of the guitar? Could there be a concrete reason for this change? Or did it just sound good to him, or match his voice, or make the guitar strings easier to bend, or perhaps something else …?
How is the the guitar normally tuned?
Guitars are systems of strings and frets, and combined they let the player select particular pitches. Each string is tuned to a specific pitch, and pressing it against a fret effectively shortens the string so it plays a higher pitch. Each fret defines a distance called one half step, two frets equals a whole step. No matter the pitch of the string, the frets define half steps, allowing the player to transpose music to different keys.
To begin, a guitar’s strings are typically tuned to the notes E A D G B E, starting from the lowest, thickest string and ascending through the thinnest highest pitched string. The relationship between most of these notes are known as “perfect fourths” with G to B being a “major third.”
If you are used to tuning your guitar by ear, comparing pitches between strings, then you will be familiar with this pattern:
- E string fifth fret matches the open A string
- A string fifth fret matches the open D string
- D string fifth fret matches the open G string
- G string FOURTH fret matches the open B string (this oddball is the major third)
- B string fifth fret matches the open E.
Simple Changes
Changing these relationships results in the alternative tunings used by some guitartists. One very common alternative tuning is to simply lower, or “drop” the fat E string two half steps (1 step) to D, leaving all the other strings tuned normally. The result is called Dropped D tunning, and not only does it sound cool because it is lower, more importantly the three lowest open strings now form a chord. It allows the player to form similar chords simply by laying one finger across those strings, simplifying some chord changes. Other chords may be fingered as well. By the way, to achieve this I usually tune the guitar normally, then drop the lowest string by comparing it to the open D string, by ear.
Hendrix’ alternative tuning is subtle, in comparison to many other alternative tunings. He lowers ALL of the guitar’s strings by one half step.
- E becomes Eb
- A becomes Ab
- D is Db
- G is Gb
- B is Bb
- E becomes Eb.
That is to say, all the strings are a half step, or one fret, lower than standard tuning. And if you want to try to learn Hendrix by ear this is really important. If you try to play along in standard tuning when Jimi plays an open E chord, you will have to play F. F is typically played as a barre chord on the first fret, while E is an open chord utilizing open strings. Most guitarists would favor this “open E” configuration. In fact this E position and the A position are where most guitarists invest most of their practice. These positions are familiar, and even when tuned down in this manner many most still refer to the chords as E, A D, etc. despite the fact it is truly Eb, Ab, etc.
Tuners Over Time
I have had a long series of tuners, starting with a “banana tuner” which was recommended to me by a friend and bandmate (because i was always out of tune…). It had a needle that indicated when the guitar wars in tune, and a knob to pick the string. It was not chromatic, so it could not tune me to Eb… But wait! I tuned with my finger on the first fret and voila! Eb. I showed my thrash metal buddies this trick when they lamented the tuner problem, and was a hero among my friends. Then i got a Sabine tuner. It was the first chromatic tuner i ever saw and it was like $70.00 -expensive back in the 90s. So popular it got stolen. and replaced. Now i have a $10-ish Snark in every guitar case for every guitar. So cool, no cord and i can actually adjust my tuning while i am playing if i want!
Often Proposed Reasons
But why? Why tune one half step lower across the instrument? One reason often proposed is that his vocal range is lower, so the tuning is a better match. This could be true, it would make the highest note in any passage one half step lower and so, “easier” to sing. It could be that a singer’s resonant frequency “matches” this register and just sounds “the best” in this range. Singers certainly favor certain keys for these reasons, and instruments are built around these resonant frequencies as i will discuss more later.
Another reason I have heard put forward is that when the strings are looser they are easier to bend, and Hendrix does bend A LOT and that sounds beautiful to me. And one can definitely bend the strings more readily with that slack. It is even more fun when tuned down to D. That would be D, G, C, F, A, e. I can easily achieve bends of three half steps when tuned like this. And it sounds awesome, particularly those open chords! Only now the E shaped chord is actually D, A becomes G, etc. because the entire system is two half steps (one whole step) lower. A trade off is that solos may begin to lose some of their high tone because the pitch is lower.
That cool tone is the reason most cited to me as to why Jimi tuned down to Eb. But you have to ask yourself why did he stop at a half step, when a whole step sounds even cooler? One reason could be that he could continue to use the same string thicknesses, but would have to figure out new string sets to accomodate “floppier” strings. But Hendrix spent so much time with his guitar as well as having guitar technicians that i find that hard to believe. Interestingly concert pitch, which we regard as A being 440 Hz (cycles/second) used to be lower, a tuning fork from 1740 is about 422 Hz. That is somewhere between our modern A and G#. However this really points out an interesting phenomena. As long as an instrument is tuned internally, that is, to itself, and tuned in relation to other instruments in the group, then it does not really matter whether the instruments actually produce A=440 Hz! They just need to be tuned together. (it is interesting to note that musicians must have thought of pitch differently than we do today, since Hz is a measure of waves per second, but there was no real way to accurately measure either a second or waves at that time.)
A Practical Reason
None of those reasons seems overtly wrong to me, but none are particularly compelling either. So why did Jimi Hendrix tune his guitar to Eb? is there a more definitive reason for this choice? I think so. It has to do with playing in groups, and how different types of instruments play together, as well as the type of music.
Some instruments are MUCH easier to tune that others. A piano is complicated to tune, and in the past difficult to transport. So if your band featured piano, that instrument became the foundation for tuning. Most other instruments can adjust or tune to match small discrepencies in pitch. A guitar can adjust a lot up or down, compared to many instruments.
On paper the relationships between notes in various keys appear the same, but some instruments are easier to play in certain keys. For instance, a guitar is more difficult to play in F or F# for most people, and its design favors those open chords, such as E or A. Many musicians learn pentatonic scales in those “positions” as well, and these tools are fundamental to blues, rock, pop, and other styles of music. If you have ever played the the pentatonic scale over other instruments, or a recording, you know it is a good one for improvising.
The Eb pentatonic minor scale on the piano uses only the black keys. Easy to find!
But the piano favors Eb in these styles. The Eb pentatonic scale is every black key and no white keys. How much easier do you think it is to jam knowing that every black key is most likely a “good” note? You could even find those black keys in the dark. (it just hit me, the band The Black Keys… hmmm. Did i just unlock the secret meaning?) Ab pentatonic is second easiest with just one white key, and the “odd” black key beig the “blue note” (an extra note which works if used in passing.) So Back in the day I played in a band with a keyboard ist and he always wanted to play in Eb. i had no idea why, but it sounded great, and it was easier to tune down and play open E (now Eb)and i could do all my tricks as if i were playing in E. And I am confidant that Jimi did this too. Hendrix played with a lot of great musicians as a sideman before his personal fame, and as such the leader would have undoubtably called the shots. Jimi (then Jimmy) would probably be the guy to change. One of those leaders was Little Richard and I know the piano was featured in that band.
-should this “chart” be the other way?
After that the tuning may have just stuck. It would have also contributed to Hendrix’ “unusual” sound, particularly if most others were playing in standard tuning at the time. So the cool factor would play into that. Apparently Duane Eddy would tune all the strings UP a half step (and sometimes down) to break the monotony of similar songs, since he wrote mostly in E position.
The song Foxy Lady is published as being in F#, but the tuning is still Eb, so the fingering is G position. The use of the flatted tuning gives rise to very interesting key choice and chord progressions. The open position G minor scale has a distinct feel due to the position of the open string notes when compared to the standard pentatonic “box.”
One More Thing…
I want to mention one more theory related thing. Other instruments such as horns, like trumpet and saxophone, are called transposing instruments. They can adjust or tune to match small discrepencies in pitch, but their written pitch is different from the concert pitch, so therefore different from the piano’s written pitch as well. That is to say, when the saxophone player reads a C on the staff and plays that C, the sound is Bb on the piano. (Without getting into too much detail, the reason behind this is to keep fingerings the same across different sizes/registers of horn). So if a band is playing in C the improvising saxophonist knows to play scales in (the sax’) Bb – matching their pitch to the band’s, in this case, C. After a lot of practice these relationships become second nature (or written in sheet music!)
When the Guitar is tuned like Jimi’s, to Eb, it becomes a true transposing instrument! The piano is playing in concert Eb, and you the guitar player are playing in E(position) generating Eb sounds!
Summary & Exercise
To summarize, i think Jimi Hendrix may have tuned his guitar to Eb because in his history he played with other improvisational blues oriented musicians in bands with pianos in them, and it is way easier to tune a guitar than a piano. After that he may have just stuck with the tuning for a variety of reasons. The sound probably helped him stand out, and contributed to his virtuoso technique as well. But I really like the idea that it may have been driven by playing together with other musicians, because that is when playing music is most fun to me!
Keep in mind Jimi played songs in standard tuning too. Purple haze for instance.
It has been really fun to try and explain all of this. It has been particularly challenging because I have never really thought about it from a technical point of view before. I just listened and did it by ear. I was playing with a keyboardist recently, and she transposed her keyboard in like 2 seconds, and I stayed in E. I wonder if that is why the question’s answer is obscured?
If you want to try this for yourself pull out the CD version of Woodstock. Jimi is on it and for some reason the CD version is (mis)recorded at somewhere between Eb and E! you will have to tune by ear to the band. I say misrecorded because if I put the old vinyl record album on my old turntable and adjust the strobe to 33.333333 I am in tune with the recording when I am tuned to Eb.