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
Guitar chord chord is lowered by an octave. Drop-two chords are used for sevenths chords besides the major-minor seventh with dominant function, which are discussed in the section on intermediate chords, below. Drop-two chords are used particularly in jazz guitar. Drop-two second-inversions are examples of openly voiced chords, which are typical of standard tuning and other popular guitar-tunings. "Alternatively voiced" seventh chords are commonly played with standard tuning. A list of fret-number configurations for some common chords follows: Already in basic guitar-playing, inversion is important for sevenths chords in standard tuning. It is also important for playing major chords. In standard tuning,