# Pros and Cons of tuning guitars in all 4ths



## HarryLikesProg (Dec 24, 2010)

I'm thinking of changing my tuning permanently from regular standard, to all perfect 4th's. So i'd have E-A-D-G-C-F. Reason being, it makes the guitar more symmetrical and you don't have to compensate for the major 3rd interval that occurs in between the G and B strings. Hypothetically, this would make playing and remembering scale shapes and chords easier because each shape becomes instantly movable between groups of strings as you don't need to compensate. The downsides of this change would mean all the chords and scales i have learnt will need to be slightly revised and i would have to learn the notes on the C and F strings. I don't mind that all the shapes and songs i have learnt will need to revised because i'm more of an improviser and composer now and i believe this change will make my playing better. 

so before i embark on this epic change, what are your thoughts on this tuning and do you foresee any horrible disadvantages i might have? 

this guitarist tom quayle tunes in all 4ths and he seems to be loving it.


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## Espaul (Dec 24, 2010)

This tom quayle fella sounds pretty good 

but, here's my point of view:

Ups: 
You'll get some inspiration from fiddling with new tones and scales.
It'll be easier to play scales when they are learnt.

Downs:
You'll have to re-learn scales and such.
Traditional full chords will not be as easily available.


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## neoclassical (Dec 24, 2010)

Scale changes were easy, but not being able to remember changes to chords and arpeggios at speed or while improving made switch back to standard tuning.


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## Cabinet (Dec 24, 2010)

I would really mess up my chording if I did P4s tuning. I'd have to relearn arpeggio shapes as well, and all I seem to get out of that sacrifice are scales that are very slightly altered.
It just isn't for me I guess


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## Explorer (Dec 24, 2010)

I was using full fifths for quite a while on my 8-strings, and have now gone to what is full fourths on the bottom, and whole step detuned on the top six strings. It's like a bass and detuned guitar combined.

The main thing I really like about having those six strings in a flavor of standard at the top is that I have access to barre chords which allow the use of that finger barre. There is no way to play all six strings in either full fourths or full fifths outside of a few barred forms, and those forms are extremely limited, unlike the choices available for standard tuning. 

Given the slight discontinuity in standard for melodic work, and the complete failure of full 4ths/5ths for full chords, I'll take the slight discontinuity.


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## Waelstrum (Dec 24, 2010)

I use all fourths tuning, and the chords are actually quite do-able. What I do is barre the two thickest strings with the pad of my index finger, and the two or three thinest strings I barre with the part nearest the knuckle one fret lower. You don't have to worry about barring the middle strings as they are fretted with the other three fingers. It may take some getting used to, but it makes everything so much easier in the long run.

That is to say, it makes it easier to improvise and compose using the guitar (IMO) because instead of following patterns, you go by the intervals. However, I don't ever use tabs, and exclusively use standard notation, so if you are dependant on tabs, this tuning might not be for you.


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## Durero (Dec 24, 2010)

Been using all 4ths tuning for the past 9 years. It's really not a big deal if you give yourself a few months to get used to it. I use standard tuning 5 days a week while teaching guitar, and outside of that it's all 4ths.

I prefer all 4ths for chords because of the consistent visual structure no matter which string group you're on. It also makes switching between 6, 7, 8, etc. string guitars a breeze.


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## Explorer (Dec 24, 2010)

Waelstrum said:


> I use all fourths tuning, and the chords are actually quite do-able. What I do is barre the two thickest strings with the pad of my index finger, and the two or three thinest strings I barre with the part nearest the knuckle one fret lower. You don't have to worry about barring the middle strings as they are fretted with the other three fingers. It may take some getting used to, but it makes everything so much easier in the long run.



I don't know about that... I was just looking at barred chord forms based on E min, A min, and E min 7/A min 7, and that broken/staggered barre approach doesn't quite generate the easy chord forms of standard tuning. I assure you, I'm not speaking from ignorance or from unfamiliarity, because the chord forms for full fifths and full fourths are just reversed from high to low from each other in terms of pitches, although different in octaves. I've been using full fifths for a few years.

One of the things I did when I switched to full fifths was to generate chord forms, both movable and those reliant on open strings. I never found the easily movable equivalents to the barre chords of standard tuning. 

Of course, I'd be grateful if someone had found something I hadn't. If someon posted any fifths/fourths chord families which have the same ease of use as, for example, the chord family based on barred A (major, minor, normal and flat 7, and so on), I'd be thrilled, and might rethink my decision to abandon full fifths.


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## Waelstrum (Dec 25, 2010)

Yeah, if you hold a left handed guitar tuned to fifths in your right hand, the chord shapes of fourths will work, they'll just be much more spaced out.

I'll see if I can get the old web cam working and see if I can't post a video showing some of the chords and arpeggios that I've figured out, since that seems to be the most asked about thing on this topic, and I can never explain things properly with just words. (Case in point: that run-on sentence.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I don't have anything for open strings, as I generally try to avoid open strings for various reasons.


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## Explorer (Dec 25, 2010)

You don't even have to post a video. Just a simple number notation like this...

200230

... is enough to notate chords. I can't remember if chord forms are supposed to be from bottom to top, though, the way I just notated that full-fifths chord. And, of course, you can just add two to each number, and get the chord a whole step above that one. That way, you won't have any open strings. 

I'll be interested to see if you found something I didn't. I was using an online fretboard chord diagram generator, to put all the chord tones across the entire fretboard, and then looking to see if there was any easy forms which emerged. I didn't find many, which is why I doubt there are more to find. Ah, the wonders of software! *laugh*


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## dpm (Dec 25, 2010)

Durero said:


> Been using all 4ths tuning for the past 9 years. It's really not a big deal if you give yourself a few months to get used to it. I use standard tuning 5 days a week while teaching guitar, and outside of that it's all 4ths.
> 
> I prefer all 4ths for chords because of the consistent visual structure no matter which string group you're on. It also makes switching between 6, 7, 8, etc. string guitars a breeze.



pretty much ditto here... not sure how long I've been doing all fourths but it has been many years. Really, the only thing that's a hassle is the usual cliche barre chords, which I only use when I'm trying to annoy my girl with an inappropriate improv ballad As far as my 'real' playing goes I feel far, far more comfortable and creative in fourths.


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## Waelstrum (Dec 25, 2010)

I just remembered that I had already made a pdf showing some basic chords in a few inversions, I am quite sleepy right now so I can't remember if I finished it, but it should give you the right idea. Most of the chords are probably the same as standard tuning with just the two highest strings down a fret.


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## PeteyG (Dec 25, 2010)

Another awesome awesome guitarist who plays in all 4ths is Alex Hutchings, and he's nothing short of focking awesome.


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## Annoying Twit (Jul 10, 2014)

I registered here just to thank Waelstrum for his advice about barre chords in all fourths tuning. I'm primarily a bass player, but have some guitars. Some time ago, realising that I wasn't playing the guitars as I didn't want to confuse my bass playing, I tuned them into all fourths tuning. Instant win, except for six-string chords. I really like learning something on bass, and instantly being able to apply it to guitar without having to think about the top two strings being 'out of tune'. I've given the non-parallel barre with the index finger a try, and while it'll take me more time to get fully used to it, it looks as if it will be a very useful technique. Thanks very much for that.


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## 80H (Jul 10, 2014)

nobody is stopping you from using both


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## Annoying Twit (Jul 10, 2014)

80H said:


> nobody is stopping you from using both



I found it confusing to switch back and forward, and felt that I needed to spend what time I have available on one instrument. I chose bass. I find that all fourths tuning is more efficient as I get more bang for each hour of practice.


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## GiveUpGuitar (Jul 10, 2014)

I remember reading an Allan Holdsworth interview, where he stated that if he could go back and do it again, he would tune to all 4ths. His excuse was that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but if he could have learned that way it would have made his life easier. This, of course, is debatable, but I could totally see a crazy linear player like Holdsworth get the best of the all 4ths tuning. I've tried it, and its cool to be able to move the same positions around a bunch of octaves without having to adapt to that gosh darn B string. I believe Vildhjarta plays G standard all 4ths on a majority of their material.


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## The Omega Cluster (Jul 10, 2014)

I've been playing on a 6 string bass and it's all 4ths, too, and it's fine! Sure, when I do 5 string (or 6) chords, there's the C string that gives me a minor 6th instead of a perfect 5th (in the example where I play a chord similar to an Em chord), but other than that, it,s fine.

I've recently thought about tuning it to all 5ths, but that's a story for another time.


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## Scrap (Oct 16, 2015)

It seems P4 tuning is great for diddling all over the neck at high speed.. but something that 2 of its biggest proponents Quayle and Hutchins have in common is a kind of hybrid sterility in their playing. They both produced and kind of mechanical computerised sound that really lacks any real depth or soul. Spitting out so many notes but very very few of them actually saying anything memorable or of meaning.

I have noticed too that most of the P4 players I see on Youtube and particularly the two fellows mentioned above almost totally avoid any kind of chordal comping.. which I find very odd for jazz/fusion players.

This leads me to think P4 could be great for some lead and solo playing.. but can be a challenge if you're a serious chordal harmony player or heavy jazz head.

Here's Sean Lane.. this man has almost a cult following and was an early adopter of P4 tuning.. yet again here we see the same diddly diddly almost mindless robotic and sterile lead playing. Again any chordal harmony, comping suspiciously absent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK-B20_0ggQ


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## JohnIce (Oct 16, 2015)

Scrap said:


> It seems P4 tuning is great for diddling all over the neck at high speed.. but something that 2 of its biggest proponents Quayle and Hutchins have in common is a kind of hybrid sterility in their playing. They both produced and kind of mechanical computerised sound that really lacks any real depth or soul. Spitting out so many notes but very very few of them actually saying anything memorable or of meaning.
> 
> I have noticed too that most of the P4 players I see on Youtube and particularly the two fellows mentioned above almost totally avoid any kind of chordal comping.. which I find very odd for jazz/fusion players.
> 
> ...



 Chordal comping is suspiciously absent from most guitar virtuosos in rock/fusion, I don't really see what you're getting at. Standard guitar tuning was designed with barre chords as a priority, this is indeed fact so you're not exactly unraveling any mysteries by pointing that out. But P4 and P5 are used for most other instruments not made for chordal comping, such as violins etc. Are violin players as a result mechanical and computerized? Of course not, that has nothing to do with the tuning.

All I see is you basically resurrected a thread from 2010 to say a few players have a style that isn't enjoyable to you, that's what I collected from your post


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## MatthewK (Oct 16, 2015)

The pro is that patterns work anywhere. It's fun and logical for lead playing. The con is that it sucks for chording.


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## The Omega Cluster (Oct 16, 2015)

I have an ERB so it's pretty much the same tuning you mentioned for guitar, in all straight 4ths. It's really convenient for improvising, soloing, and knowing where you are on the fretboard, but I guess it would be more difficult for guitarists to make barred chords. Of course, if you don't use barred chords often, or at all, then it should be a good choice.

The "new standard tuning" - all in perfect 5th intervals, so basically CGDAEG - is also something I wanted to try out, but never got to it. It looks interesting, and must feel like you're in "drop" tuning on every string.

Alternatively, there's Coma Cluster Void who brought the concept (at least to my attention) of smaller interval tunings. They play on a 10-string guitar so they can afford it without losing range, but it looks incredibly fun for more dissonant and clustered stuff. At the moment, I don't know their exact tuning, but I guess it's in major or minor thirds. I'm asking the guitarist and will edit this post when I get the answer.

Update: So, CCV's 10-string guitar is tuned C F# G E F B C G# C# D. The low C is similar to a low C on bass, and the high D is a whole step lower than the high E of a 6-string guitar. That's a pretty strange tuning to me. There's a tritone between the two first strings, a semitone between the two next, then a major sixth, a semitone, a tritone, a semitone, a minor sixth, a fourth, and a semitone.

Their bass is tuned C F# A D# G, so their first two strings are in unison.


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## redstone (Oct 16, 2015)

Scrap said:


> Here's Sean Lane.. this man has almost a cult following and was an early adopter of P4 tuning.. yet again here we see the same diddly diddly almost mindless robotic and sterile lead playing. Again any chordal harmony, comping suspiciously absent.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK-B20_0ggQ



I don't know who that "Sean Lane" might be but Shawn Lane used the standard tuning.

That being said, P4 kills the chords diversity, for sure.


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## ncfiala (Oct 16, 2015)

Cons? There are none in my opinion. The things I lose by tuning in 4ths don't matter to me. The only advantage of standard I can see is that if you are playing a root position chord with a perfect 5th in it with the root on the 6th string then the root can be doubled (or even tripled) on the 2nd string on the same fret and the 5th can be doubled on the 1st string on the same fret. This allows for bar style fingerings of some chords. I frequently omit the 5th, and sometimes the root, from chords so I don't care about doubling them.


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## Explorer (Oct 16, 2015)

JohnIce said:


> Chordal comping is suspiciously absent from most guitar virtuosos in rock/fusion, I don't really see what you're getting at. Standard guitar tuning was designed with barre chords as a priority, this is indeed fact so you're not exactly unraveling any mysteries by pointing that out. But P4 and P5 are used for most other instruments not made for chordal comping, such as violins etc. Are violin players as a result mechanical and computerized? Of course not, that has nothing to do with the tuning.



Although i only have full fifths on two 8-strings, one six-string and one 12-string at this point, I do have and regularly use many other instruments with only four strings/courses tuned to full fifths, including mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin, tenor banjo and tenor guitar.

You can find examples of all of them being used for combined chord-melody playing, with some having such as an almost exclusive focus.

Because there are only four strings/courses on these instruments, there are a lot of barre chords which enable usage of the other fingers for melody work. It's when you add one or more courses beyond those four that you run into chord/melody problems, at least if you want to be able to use the full width of the neck at any given time. Please believe that I have invested some amount of time in exploring this.

I do think that full fourths tuning on a 6- or 8-string works against chord usage and chord-melody just as full fifths does, and guitar standard tuning facilitates chord work and chord melody.

And i do think that removing players who would embrace chord work and chord-melody from the potential users of full fourths absolutely filters out those styles, so that bare soloing players would be the overwhelming majority of exemplars.

What's interesting from your examples is that even violins/fiddles and other bowed instruments often use double stops and open drone strings in concert with the fingered strings in order to at least sketch a chordal accompaniment.

That doesn't mean that the potential isn't there for someone using full fourths to adopt such playing. However, I don't think there is a demonstrable tendency among current full fourths players to do so, and especially not so much that one can easily point out examples as I did for violin-family instruments.

----

Although someone might be able to overcome this aspect of full fourths tuning on six string, I suspect most who find it to be an issue go with a tuning which doesn't throw impedimenta in the way of such chordal/melodic combination work.

Which would result in those who didn't use those chordal considerations at all to have that particular swimming pool all to themselves.


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## JohnIce (Oct 16, 2015)

Explorer said:


> Although i only have full fifths on two 8-strings, one six-string and one 12-string at this point, I do have and regularly use many other instruments with only four strings/courses tuned to full fifths, including mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin, tenor banjo and tenor guitar.
> 
> You can find examples of all of them being used for combined chord-melody playing, with some having such as an almost exclusive focus.
> 
> ...



Did you read the post I was responding to? Just curious cause I don't disagree with anything in your post and I don't see why you directed it at me?


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## The Omega Cluster (Oct 17, 2015)

Update: So, CCV's 10-string guitar is tuned C F# G E F B C G# C# D. The low C is similar to a low C on bass, and the high D is a whole step lower than the high E of a 6-string guitar. That's a pretty strange tuning to me. There's a tritone between the two first strings, a semitone between the two next, then a major sixth, a semitone, a tritone, a semitone, a minor sixth, a fourth, and a semitone.

Their bass is tuned C F# A D# G, so their first two strings are in unison.


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## Dusty Chalk (Oct 17, 2015)

How do pentatonic scales translate to all-P4s tuning? I'm curious.


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## Durero (Oct 18, 2015)

Scrap said:


> This leads me to think P4 could be great for some lead and solo playing.. but can be a challenge if you're a serious chordal harmony player or heavy jazz head.



Not too hard to find:


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## Durero (Oct 18, 2015)

HarryLikesProg said:


> I'm thinking of changing my tuning permanently from regular standard, to all perfect 4th's. So i'd have E-A-D-G-C-F. Reason being, it makes the guitar more symmetrical and you don't have to compensate for the major 3rd interval that occurs in between the G and B strings. Hypothetically, this would make playing and remembering scale shapes and chords easier because each shape becomes instantly movable between groups of strings as you don't need to compensate. The downsides of this change would mean all the chords and scales i have learnt will need to be slightly revised and i would have to learn the notes on the C and F strings. I don't mind that all the shapes and songs i have learnt will need to revised because i'm more of an improviser and composer now and i believe this change will make my playing better.



I'd say do it and don't look back.

It's a much easier tuning to play and think in than standard tuning in my experience and it has the huge advantage of making the interval structure of anything you play clearly visible and consistent to your fingers. All intervals are the same regardless of what string group you use - just like basses and all violin-family instruments.

I find it also makes switching to guitars with more than 6 strings really really easy.


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## ncfiala (Oct 18, 2015)

Dusty Chalk said:


> How do pentatonic scales translate to all-P4s tuning? I'm curious.


 
Everything transforms exactly the same way from standard to 4ths. Just move everything on the first two strings down a fret.


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## Mvotre (Oct 18, 2015)

I switched to P4 when I started to play and think in intervals. It`s just logical that way. Regarding the barre chords... well, I just use those playing ....ty cover on my ukulele


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## Winspear (Oct 21, 2015)

Yeah barre chords are hardly a loss. They are good for filling out sound on solo acoustic accompaniment, but in a band setting, eh...There is no need for such a wide and plain voicing, with so many doubled roots and fifths. Most of the time, the simple 4 string 1-3-3-2 type variant would be a better choice if anything like that in my opinion.
Maybe not minors but major barre chords can still be played in P4 fairly easily anyway with an angling of the index finger 
I'm putting together a P4 PDF at the moment


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## Scrap (Dec 16, 2016)

JohnIce said:


> Chordal comping is suspiciously absent from most guitar virtuosos in rock/fusion, I don't really see what you're getting at. Standard guitar tuning was designed with barre chords as a priority, this is indeed fact so you're not exactly unraveling any mysteries by pointing that out. But P4 and P5 are used for most other instruments not made for chordal comping, such as violins etc. Are violin players as a result mechanical and computerized? Of course not, that has nothing to do with the tuning.
> 
> All I see is you basically resurrected a thread from 2010 to say a few players have a style that isn't enjoyable to you, that's what I collected from your post



Let's resurrect it again shall we?

1. Of course you don't see what I'm getting at. You need to expand your mind. 
Standard tuning is NOT just designed with barre chords as a priority, its designed to facilitate _larger chords and voiced harmonies_ being in reach for the average mortals hand. I am not referring to baby beginner barre chords either, I mean the vast array of complex chordal harmonies and vocabulary of voicings real jazz musicians have at their instant disposal many of which which are simply not practically reachable in P4 tuning. Which is the very reason you will not see the exampled players cited above hardly touching on them.

2. Please learn to read. I did not say all P4 players were mechanical and computerised either, what I said was that the players linked above comments were of this ilk.

3. Resurrected threads? Do conversations die? Are you the grim Reaper of debate and opinion around here?

4. You seem to be a bit of a dimwit.


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