Guitar chord for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings. For a six-string guitar in standard tuning, it may be necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord; this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard in standard tuning often forces guitarists to permute the tonal order of notes in a chord. The playing of conventional chords is simplified by open tunings, which are especially popular in folk, blues guitar and non-Spanish classical guitar (such as English and Russian guitar). For example, the typical twelve-bar blues
Fret generally perpendicular to the instrument's neck centerline and parallel to each other, on a "fanned" fretboard, the frets are angled (spread like a fan) with only one center fret perpendicular to the neck’s centerline. This gives the lower-pitched strings more length and the higher strings shorter length (comparable to a piano or a harp where heavier strings have different lengths). The idea is to give more accurate tuning and deeper bass. Some think that fanned frets might be more ergonomic. Fanned frets first appeared on the 16th century Orpharion, a variant of the cittern, tuned like a lute. John Starrett