Major thirds tuning also facilitate advanced guitarists' improvisation, precisely the aim of jazz guitarist Ralph Patt when he began popularizing major-thirds tuning between 1963 and 1964. In standard tuning, the successive open-strings mix two types of intervals, four perfect-fourths and the major third between the G and B strings: Only major thirds occur as open-string intervals for major-thirds tuning, which is also called ""major-third" tuning", ""all-thirds" tuning", and ""M3" tuning". A popular M3 tuning has the open strings in which the low G is a major third above the low E of standard tuning. Consequently, a seventh string for the low E is
Septimal major third 3:2 / 9:7 = 7:6 ). Similarly, the septimal major third is the interval between the third and the fifth of the septimal minor triad. In the early meantone era the interval made its appearance as the alternative major third in remote keys, under the name diminished fourth. Tunings of the meantone fifth in the neighborhood of Zarlino's -comma meantone will give four septimal thirds among the twelve major thirds of the tuning; this entails that three septimal major triads appear along with one chord containing a septimal major third with an ordinary minor third above it, making up a