Musical tuning to the fundamental note of the unstopped, full string. The strings of a guitar are normally tuned to fourths (excepting the G and B strings in standard tuning, which are tuned to a third), as are the strings of the bass guitar and double bass. Violin, viola, and cello strings are tuned to fifths. However, non-standard tunings (called scordatura) exist to change the sound of the instrument or create other playing options. To tune an instrument, often only one reference pitch is given. This reference is used to tune one string, to which the other strings are tuned in the
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