New standard tuning

New standard tuning.

Among tunings for guitars, the New Standard Tuning (NST) has greater range than traditional ("old standard") tuning (OST) in which the strings receive the notes EADGBE. In NST, the strings are assigned CGDAEG. The greater range allows NST-guitars to play songs like The Moonlight Sonata that are impossible using OST.

NST was introduced by Robert Fripp, who is known as a lead guitarist for King Crimson. Fripp taught the new standard tuning in Guitar-Craft courses beginning in 1985, and thousands of Guitar Craft students continue to use the tuning. Like other alternative tunings for guitar, the NST has provided challenges and new opportunities to guitarists, who have developed music especially suited to NST.

The five lowest strings CGDAE are tuned in perfect fifths, which has long been the tuning used for mandolins, cellos, and violins. On a guitar, the higher B of all fifths tuning was impractical until the 1990s, when new materials and designs allowed the construction of specially reinforced guitars whose necks could withstand the tension of all-fifths tuning. In recent years, new strings have been engineered for the B of all-fifths tuning. Before such advances in technology, all fifths technology was impractical. The NST has provided a good approximation to perfect fifths tuning since the 1980s.

The NST has required greater attention to strings than has OST. String sets for the traditional tuning have problems being adapted to the New Standard Tuning, because the lowest string is too loose and the highest string too often snaps under the increased tension. However, special sets of NST strings have been available for decades, and of course some guitarists have assembled NST sets from individual strings.

History

A guitar tuning, the new standard tuning (NST) was introduced by Robert Fripp of King Crimson. Fripp has stated that the original version of NST "flew by" while he was sweating in a sauna in September 1983. Fripp began using the tuning in 1985 before beginning his Guitar Craft seminars, which have taught the tuning to thousands of guitarists.

The tuning is (from low to high): CGDAEG, and can be remembered by the mnemonic "California Guitarists Drop Acid Every Gig", according to the program booklet sold at the UK end of the Double Trio tour of King Crimson. The original version of NST was all fifths tuning. However, in the 1980s, Fripp never attained the all fifth's high B. While he could attain A, the string's lifetime distribution was too short. Experimenting with a G string, Fripp succeeded. "Originally, seen in 5ths. all the way, the top string would not go to B. so, as on a tenor banjo, I adopted an A on the first string. These kept breaking, so G was adopted." In 2012, Fripp suggested that Guitar Circle members experiment with an A String (0.007) from Octave4Plus of Gary Goodman; if successful, the experiment could lead to "the NST 1.2", CGDAE-A, according to Fripp. In 2010, Fripp suggested renaming the tuning as "Guitar Craft Standard Tuning or C Pentatonic tuning".

Characteristics

New standard tuning's range.

The lowest four strings are tuned just like a cello, i.e. in fifths from a low C. The next-to-highest string is another fifth up from the A to an E, and the first string is a minor third up from the E to a G. Since the lowest five strings are tuned in fifths, typical fingerings for chords and scales used on the violin, cello, and mandolin are applicable here.

The minor third between the top strings allow denser chords in the high range of the scale, and easier access to some elementary chord tones (typically the thirteenth for chords with the root note on the sixth string, and the ninth and flat ninth for chords with the root note on the fifth string, see chord). NST has a greater range than the Old Standard Tuning, approximately a perfect fifth greater (a major third lower and a minor third higher): The expanded range allows NST guitars to play music like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", which is normally played on a piano and is beyond the reach of a traditional guitar.

Scales across two strings in NST form tetrachords (four-note patterns). Whole and half-tone exhibit symmetry. This fifths-based tuning does present a downside, however: wider harmonic intervals between consecutive strings make certain closely voiced jazz chords impractical.

String gauges

With traditional guitar strings, the low C may be loose and the high G may be too tight. Special gauges are therefore more suitable for NST. For steel-stringed acoustic-guitars, many Guitar-Craft participants use either an .011–.058 set or an .011–.059 set; string-sets may be purchased as a set from a manufacturer or purchased singly and assembled by the guitarist.

Steel-string gauges for acoustic guitars

G 1	E 2	A 3	D  4	G 5	C 6	Source
0.011	0.013	0.023	0.032	0.046	0.056	Guitar Craft Services (Unavailable in 2012)
0.012	0.015	0.023	0.032	0.046	0.060	Guitar Craft Services (Unavailable in 2012)
0.011	0.013	0.022	0.032	0.047	0.058	John Pearse Strings, manufacturer
0.011	0.013	0.022	0.032	0.047	0.059	D'Addario, manufacturer (available at Guitar-Circle courses)

Artists who use NST

New Standard Tuning was taught first by Fripp in the courses of Guitar Craft, whose knotwork symbol is pictured.

Robert Fripp exclusively uses the New Standard Tuning in his guitar playing. He started using it in 1984 and has used it on all recordings since then, both as solo artist and within King Crimson, among others.

Fripp has taught NST in his Guitar-Craft courses. In Guitar Craft and since 2010 in the successor Guitar Circles, students use only New Standard Tuning. Having to use a new tuning, the students are challenged to approach their playing with greater mindfulness, putting to rest their habitual use of automatic chords or licks. With the new tuning, guitarists have to find new ways of musical expression.

The tuning is used by students of Guitar Craft, of which there have been thousands. Guitar-Craft alumni who continue to practice NST are called "crafty guitarists" or "crafties". Some crafty guitarists formed The League of Crafty Guitarists (LCG), which toured with Robert Fripp and released several albums. The Guitar-Craft experience and the League of Crafty Guitarists trained guitarists who went on to form new bands, such as the California Guitar Trio and Trey Gunn; the California Guitar Trio and Gunn toured with Fripp as The Robert Fripp String Quintet. Other alumni of the League of Crafty Guitarists include members of Los Gauchos Alemanes, such as U.S. guitarist Steve Ball; Ball is associated with the Seattle Guitar Circle, along with LCG alumnus Curt Golden. The collection A Plague of Crafty Guitarists features the following Guitar-Craft alumni, who were listed in a review by Barry Cleveland: Tobin Buttram, Nigel Gavin, Geary Street Quartet, Bill Hibbits, Janssen and Jensen, Sur Pacifico, Playmovil, and Santos Luminosos. The following guitarists also use NST: Gitbox Rebellion, BigTime Trio, Zum, the Atomic Chamber Ensemble, Europa String Choir, Fabio Mittino, Lost Pedro, Tom McCarthy of Chicago's Luminance Ensemble.

NST has been adapted for instruments besides guitar. Trey Gunn (Crimson's touch-guitar player from 1994 to 2003) and Markus Reuter (TUNER with Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto) have adapted NST for their 8- and 10-string instruments; in 2007, Reuter used a B[flat], F, C, G, D, A, C, D tuning. Finnish musician Heikki Malmberg uses a 7-string guitar tuned in NST with an additional low F when he is not playing drums.

References

• Cleveland, Barry (2004a). "The Plague of Crafty Guitarists: Volume one" (html). Guitar Player. (subscription required)]. Retrieved 25 March 2012. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Cleveland, Barry (2004). "California Guitar Trio (Interview)" (pdf). Frets Magazine (Fall). Guitar Player (subscription required). Retrieved 25 March 2012. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Fripp, Robert (2011). Pozzo, Horacio (ed.). Seven Guitar Craft themes: Definitive scores for guitar ensemble. "Original transcriptions by Curt Golden", "Layout scores and tablatures: Ariel Rzezak and Theo Morresi" (First limited ed.). Partitas Music. ISMN 979-0-9016791-7-7. DGM Sku partitas001. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tamm, Eric (2003) [1990], Robert Fripp: From crimson king to crafty master (html) (Progressive Ears ed.), Faber and Faber (1990), ISBN 0-571-16289-4, Zipped Microsoft Word Document, retrieved 25 March 2012 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Zwerdling, Daniel (1998). "California Guitar Trio" (html). All Things Considered (NPR Weekend Edition ed.). Washington DC: National Public Radio. Html transcription (subscription required). Audio recording (free). Retrieved 25 March 2012. {{cite journal}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Further reading

• Drozdowski, Ted (1989). "Robert Fripp: A plectral purist answers the dumb questions". Musician: 28+. Referenced in Tamm (2003). {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

External links

• Guitar Craft - Guitar education in New Standard Tuning, founded by Robert Fripp
• [1] - WebArchive.org wayback machine copy of old Guitar Craft website.
• The FraKctured Zone - King Crimson fan resource with some notation and tabs to songs in NST.

See also

• All fifths
• List of guitar tunings