Acoustic bass guitar of acoustic bass guitars. The bajo sexto, with six pairs of strings, resembles a twelve-string guitar tuned an octave lower. The heavy gauge strings generate a large string tension, yet the guitar is built relatively lightly. Musicians began to use the bajo sexto in Texas in the 1920s with the rise of "Tex-Mex" music, and remains in common use to play parts that would be played by the piano in traditional American popular music. It matches the standard tuning of a 12-string guitar, one octave lower. The tuning of these instruments is (capital letters are an octave lower than small
Eight-string guitar slew of new age progressive metal and djent artists. Seeking a guitar tuning that would facilitate jazz improvisation, Ralph Patt invented major-thirds tuning in 1963. Patt's tuning is a regular tuning, in the sense that all of the intervals between its successive open strings are major thirds; in contrast, standard guitar tuning has one major-third amid four fourths. Seven-string guitars are needed for major-thirds tuning to have the E-e' range of the standard tuning. Having an eight-string instrument allowed Patt's guitar to have G (equivalently A) as its open note. Patt purchased six-string archtop hollow-body guitars that were then modified