Question:
I do not have any experience with alternate tunings. I have just bought a Taylor acoustic about 6 months ago. I do know what drop D is. Why are some of the tunings indicated with capital letters and small letters?

Thanks.

Bob Edmonson

Answer:
The upper and lower case letters, and the primes (') after them, indicate what octave the note is in.

Lower case letters with a prime (the treble string e' in standard tuning, for example) indicate notes that are above middle C in pitch. "Middle C" is the dividing point on the piano between low and high notes. The true Middle C pitch on the guitar is located on the second string, first fret, in standard tuning.

Lower case letters with no prime indicate notes in the octave directly below Middle C. In standard tuning the fourth, third and second strings (d, g, and b) are in this octave.

Upper case letters indicate notes that are one to two octaves below Middle C. In standard tuning the fifth and sixth strings, E and A (the two bass strings), are in this octave.

If the bass string is tuned below the low C (two whole steps below your normal bass-string pitch of E), a prime is added to the note: B', for instance. Leo Kottke often tunes the bass string of his 12-string guitar to a B-flat', three whole steps below standard E for that string.

Many guitar publications ignore this convention and use all upper case letters: D G D G B D for Open-G tuning, for example. Reading from left to right gives you the bass strings to the treble. Using upper and lower case letters would look like this: D G d g b d' for Open-G tuning.

Have fun!

Mark Hanson

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