Octave twelve Octave twelve An octave twelve is a type of 12-string guitar fitted with a short-scale neck and a small solid body. It is tuned one octave higher than a standard guitar giving it the tonal range of a mandolin and enabling a guitarist to achieve a mandolin sound without learning mandolin fingering. The effect is similar to that of capoing a standard 12-string guitar at its twelfth fret. However, unlike a standard 12-string guitar, the courses of strings tuned in unison, rather than in octaves. The octave twelve was invented by engineers at Vox, which sold the octave twelve as
Standard tuning and drop down to lower open string notes. This is also more practical for the whole playing range of E–C♯ (on a 21-fret guitar), as it can fit easily into the treble clef when written as E–C♯. Transposing by an octave may be explicitly indicated by a suboctave clef, where a treble clef has an '8' placed below it, or a normal treble clef may be used for simplicity. Other plucked string instruments and their respective standard tunings include: Standard tuning In music, standard tuning refers to the typical tuning of a string instrument. This notion is contrary to that