Double bass the "old" German method sounded an octave below where notation except in the treble clef, where the music was written at pitch. The double bass is generally tuned in fourths, in contrast to other members of the orchestral string family, which are tuned in fifths (for example, the violin's four strings are, from lowest-pitched to highest-pitched: G-D-A-E). The standard tuning (lowest-pitched to highest-pitched) for bass is E–A–D–G, starting from E below second low C (concert pitch). This is the same as the standard tuning of a bass guitar and is one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of standard
Violin Concerto No. 1 (Paganini) orchestra compared to the solo violin, because the orchestral string section plays less frequently on open strings, with the result that the solo violin part emerges more clearly and brightly from the orchestral accompaniment. Contemporary audiences did not realise that Paganini had retuned his instrument, and were thus all the more amazed at what he appeared able to play. (The more musically adept members of the audience would have recognised the distinctive sound of a violin's open string, and would have observed that this fell on the keynote of work (E-flat), and would have therefore realised that Paganini had re-tuned