It might seem arbitrary at first glance that the lowest string on a standard tuned guitar is an E. While the specific octave (E2) could be considered somewhat arbitrary, the choice of the note “E” itself is deeply rooted in a fascinating and lengthy historical evolution of musical instruments and tuning practices.
To understand why our guitars sing in E, we need to journey back to the Renaissance era, a period where guitars and their relatives, such as the lute and vihuela, gained significant popularity. During this time, tunings for these instruments were quite diverse, but by the late 17th century, certain trends began to solidify.
One crucial piece of the puzzle is the concept of the “gamut,” the standard Renaissance scale. This scale had a lowest note, G, which we now denote as G2. Interestingly, absolute pitch wasn’t standardized then; A440 was still centuries away. So, while “gamma-ut” (as it was known, named after the Greek letter gamma) was notated as G2, its actual pitch could vary around G2, possibly even closer to A2 or E2 in modern frequencies. Regardless of the exact pitch, “gamma-ut” was conceived as the lowest possible note of the scale, hence its placement on the bottom line of the bass clef. Notes below this were not initially considered within the realm of musical possibility, reflecting the vocal music focus of the time, often aligning with the lowest comfortable pitches for bass voices. The term “gamut” itself originates from this fundamental lowest note.
Our exploration takes us to Juan Bermudo’s treatise of 1555, a seminal work offering detailed insights into guitars and their tunings, albeit primarily focusing on the vihuela. Bermudo’s writings illuminate the tuning landscape for fretted instruments in 16th-century Spain.
Earlier in the Renaissance, instrument makers experimented with various tuning schemes. Some attempted to mirror the perfect fifth intervals found in the violin family, while others explored tunings based on perfect fourths. The latter proved more practical for chord playing. However, as instruments evolved to include more courses (strings), tuning solely in perfect fourths presented a challenge. It could necessitate tuning a string to a chromatic pitch – a note with a sharp or flat. Such chromatic notes were not considered integral to the standard scale or gamut at the time, being relegated to musica ficta. These were essentially notes outside the standard notation, added or altered as needed for musical expression and taste. Tuning a fundamental string of an instrument to a musica ficta note was highly unconventional.
Furthermore, musicians discovered that incorporating a major third interval within the tuning was beneficial for playing chords. By 1555, when Bermudo documented common vihuela tunings, they resembled contemporary lute tunings, featuring a pattern of fourths with a major third nestled in the middle. The first tuning Bermudo describes starts on gamma-ut (marked with gamma to highlight its role as the lowest scale note), encompassing the notes G-C-F-A-D-G. A second tuning, shifted up a whole step, was also common: A-D-G-B-E-A. The rationale behind this shift might be that it allowed the same interval pattern to exist in another part of the scale without requiring accidentals. It also possibly relates to the ancient Greek scale, which, unlike the medieval scale, concluded on a low A (proslambamenos) rather than Gamma.
These two tunings, G-C-F-A-D-G and A-D-G-B-E-A, became established as relatively standard for six-course fretted instruments like the lute and vihuela during the 1500s. The G-C-F-A-D-G tuning eventually became a favored lute tuning. Crucially, both tunings anchored themselves to the lowest note of the contemporary scale.
When the five-course guitar burst onto the European music scene in the early 17th century, it often adopted the vihuela tuning pattern from the second tuning, A-D-G-B-E, simply omitting the highest string. It’s important to note that guitar tunings in the early 1600s were still quite fluid, sometimes even featuring overlapping strings within the same octave, as evidenced by various baroque guitar tunings. The reasons behind the A-D-G-B-E tuning gaining prominence on the guitar are not definitively known, but it may be linked to the resurgence of Greek musical theory and the renewed interest in ancient Greek music during the late 16th century – a movement where the guitar played a significant role. Even the word “guitar” itself traces its etymology back to the Greek “kithara.” Considering that A was the lowest note in the Greek scale, this may have reinforced the preference for tunings ending on that low A, hence A-D-G-B-E. This Greek music theory connection is further suggested by the historical convention of listing tunings from highest string downwards, mirroring the tuning of Greek scales from highest to lowest in fourth intervals.
The final step in this evolution is the emergence of the modern six-course guitar. Initially, some six-course guitars mirrored lute tunings, essentially adding a higher string (A-D-G-B-E-A). However, as the six-course guitar evolved, the old gamut with G as the lowest note lost its relevance. Consequently, the bottom A on the guitar was no longer perceived as a “lower limit” of the scale but simply as another note. This conceptual shift paved the way to extend the pattern of perfect fourths downwards by one more step, resulting in the addition of the low E string and establishing the modern standard tuning of E-A-D-G-B-E.
In essence, historical context reveals compelling reasons why the second-lowest string on the standard guitar was traditionally associated with G or A, notes that anchored the bass staff. The E on the lowest string represents a later addition, expanding the guitar’s tonal range and completing the sequence of fourth intervals in its tuning. So, while it might seem like a simple letter choice, the “E” string on your guitar carries within it centuries of musical history and instrument development.
