Stupid Question

[J. Dan]

I had formal training on piano from a young age and sax instruction through middle school and high school. I picked up guitar and bass in college with no instruction other than my roommates who played teaching me mainly technic to build on my background of music theory. But I digress....

 

In MIDI, notes are numbered from lowest to highest. On a guitar, on a given string, a note at fret 1 is lower than fret 12......so why do you guys start counting strings with the highest (pitch) string? If I was counting piano strings, I would count left to right.....bass notes to treble. Is it a ground - up thing? What about lap steel. Seems you'd start closest and count as you go away. Even string gauges.....well, you don't even use gauge, you call it gauge but actuall measure in thickness. In electrical wire, the thickest would be the lower gauge. 12ga is thicker than 22ga, thus if counting in numerical order, bass strings would come first. But you use thickness instead.

 

I know it's trivial and makes no difference, but it always seemed totally backwards to me.

[Scott Fraser]

I never think of them as 1st, 2nd, etc. I always refer to them by pitch, in standard tuning.

[J. Dan]

I never think of them as 1st, 2nd, etc. I always refer to them by pitch, in standard tuning.

 

I normally wouldn't either, but there have been a handful of times I'll refer to a YouTube video if I need to learn something quick and am struggling and they will make reference to 1st string and I'll think low E and they mean high E. Or even top vs bottom or low vs high for that matter......pitch vs elevation I guess. I always think I terms of pitch, period.

[RiffsThatRockUs]

1 is thinner than 6

so 1 is the thin E string, 6 is the fat E string

 

thats how i remember it.

 

[skipclone 1]

Well until you reach that peculiar interval of standard tuning, between B and G, counting strings 1 and 2 and separately, strings 3 4 5 and 6, follows the circle of fifths. Orchestral string instruments-actually the bass is the only exception-are tuned in fifths. That may influence the way pitch is viewed in general.

[whitefang]

Yeah, when I first started learning to play (and about) the guitar, that "1st string on the bottom" thing kind of threw me. But I reasoned it this way:

 

When looking DOWN at your guitars strings, it's more or less an UPSIDE DOWN point of view, and therefore what's nominally on the bottom is on the TOP.

 

Well, at least it worked for ME.

Whitefang

[Eric Iverson]

The people who taught me referred to the bass string as the "low E" so I always thought of it that way, and most people seem to understand it that way.

You could call it the "bass E" string I guess, especially since the bass E on guitar is only an octave higher than the bass E on a bass.

Re: tuning the string bass - there is a guy named Red Mitchell who tuned the bass in fifths, and he played great, so it IS possible. He played jazz and did a really nice album with Jim Hall.

[Larryz]

I always refer to them as the 1st string, 2nd string, 3rd string, 4th string, 5th string, 6th string...the thicker the string, the lower the note. It's that way on all stringed instruments depending on how you tune them. Guitar gauges are usually in inches here in the US: .011, .014, .023, .031, .041, .052 in a 11/52 set. (or in MM 0.28, 0.36, 0.58, 0.79, 1.04, 1.32) I'll let you guess which one will be the 1st and the 6th string (tuned to low E or high E)...on the piano which one is the 88th high or low key? I'm guessing middle C is somewhere around the 44th either way. I'm sure the low notes have much thicker strings than the high ones. BTW a 22 caliber has a much smaller barrel diameter than a 12 gauge pump, kind of like that wire gauge...

[Scott Fraser]

And when referring to alternate tunings, like DADGAD, it is ALWAYS listed from lowest to highest. It's the way we see the strings when looking straight at the guitar sitting on a stand or hanging on the wall. Seems pretty logical.

[Baldwin Funster]

I think its because as beginners we all or most have first tried to pick out a melody on the high E string. So its the FIRST string we learned on.

[DocPate]

Interesting. I always referred to the high E as first string. So did most of our old pickers. Something about how we would tune up to each other without those fancy things I.e. tuning fork back then. We would tune to one player starting on the high e

[Baldwin Funster]

Interesting. I have ALWAYS tuned to another player starting from the low E before everyone had a tuner. Or actually get a reference from their low E then tune my guitar to itself. Then if no ones intonation is off you are in tune enough to play together. Sometimes even getting a reference from the 5th string A instead.

[desertbluesman]

I always thought the high E string should be string 6 as well, but over the years I got used to it as it is commonly known, string 1 through 6 high notes to low notes.

 

I always tune to an electronic tuner, standard A440 concert pitch E, A, D, G, B, E, low to high.

[J. Dan]

Nice to hear that I'm not the idiot I thought I was, lol.

[J. Dan]

Well, maybe I'm still an idiot.

[Larryz]

I take the idiot cake! The two sets of strings I ordered are on back order so Santa won't be bringing them to me tonight!

[whitefang]

Don't be surprised if they turn out to be BLACK DIAMOND strings. Remember, Diamonds WERE at one time COAL!

Whitefang

[Larryz]

That's what I'm looking forward to as I've been a bad bad boy, a lump of coal in my stocking LOL! Just kidding, it's been a fun Christmas with my family today!

[whitefang]

(a slight sidetrack...)

 

The last Christmas I talked with my brother(2010) I kiddingly asked him, "So, what did Santa leave in your stocking this year?" ( there's also an old family story about "stockings" connected to him, but maybe later... )

 

He said, "The usual lump of coal. Which I don't mind so much except that I'd wish he'd wait until I take the sock OFF first."

Whitefang

[d halfnote]

1stly, there are no stupid questions since a question is an attempt to learn.

There can be stupid answers, though.

 

The answer here is lost in the mists of time going back to European medieval or Renaissance times.

Somebody arbitrarily picked one (pardon the pun) & we best be glad they did.

 

The possibilities for confusion may not be obvious but when European scribes tried to translate Greek modes into more modern theory they got the pitch direction wrong, hence the modern names of modes & even their method of construction goes counter to that of the Greek originals.

[Larryz]

It's all Greek to me LOL! +1 no such thing as a stupid question...the string manufactures seem to agree with the numbering system but I couldn't tell you why they do or why the numbers were picked [pun intended] LOL! Then again, the standard tuning EADGBE and fret board layout really works out well for all of the intervals and fingerings of scales, chords, etc. Whoever figured it out when building the 1st guitars was a real whiz IMHO...A lot of lesson books and teachers also refer to identifying notes like: 1st string 3rd fret, 5th string 4th fret, 6th string 2nd fret, 3rd string open, etc.