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For 6- & 7-String in Standard & Uniform Tunings
Introduction:  Major 3rds Tuning
 
 
In 1964, after studying guitar for nineteen years, jazz guitarist Ralph Patt began playing in the Major Thirds Tuning "to find a method for atonal improvisation for jazz".  He tunes his seven-string (from low to high):  E Ab C E Ab C E .  By simplifying the pitch and fingering schemas, this tuning facilitates playing of the guitar keyboardistically (or "pianistically"), i.e. with greater control of chord voicings (especially close ones) and multiple, independent voices (especially chromatic and altered ones).  Since the pitch classes repeat every three strings, the pitch schema for any particular position is only about half as complex as traditionally.  More importantly, since each pitch repeats on the next string only four frets away, each playing position need cover only four frets (instead of the usual five).  In other words, all chromatic pitches are available within four frets, and reaching to a fifth is no longer necessary.  This becomes increasingly advantageous to voice-independence as the number of voices increases.

E.g., consider the task of playing a chord and a moving melody line simultaneously.  Imagine the hand is holding a chord with two or three fingers, including a barre.  In the five-fret position of a fourths-based tuning (such as Standard Tuning or All Fourths Tuning), the remaining one or two fingers would be required to find the desired melody among three or four frets.  In the four-fret position of Major Thirds Tuning, the remaining one or two fingers will find the desired melody within two or three frets (as little as half the fret-space).  In the latter, the chances of success in such maneuvering are significantly increased.

(Diagram of example under construction.)

Major Thirds Tuning on a seven-string has at least one coincidental precursor:  The Russian guitar was a seven-string tuned (low to high):  D G B D G B D.  Just raising the Ds a semitone would have yielded the Major Thirds Tuning (albeit dropped a half-step from usual).  The Russian guitar appeared in the late eighteenth century and had a "golden age" from 1800-1850.  Its technique pioneered use of the left-hand thumb, the right-hand pinky, and artificial harmonics (with index finger and thumb a la modern seven-stringer Lenny Breau, rather than index and ring fingers as more commonly).  Its tuning may have been inspired by that of the "English guitar" or "guittar" of the late 18th century, which was just as close to Major Thirds Tuning, being tuned C E G C E G.  (Raising the Gs a semitone would have yielded a Major Thirds Tuning.)  The Russian guitar's repertoire was constituted mostly of adaptations of works not written specifically for guitar, for which it was well-suited.  In contrast, most of the repertoire of "Spanish guitar", i.e. guitar in the now-Standard Tuning, was written to accommodate that tuning, which accommodation it requires to a degree owing to its particular idiosyncrasies (e.g. the difficulties of close chord voicings and freely independent voices).  The popularity of guitar in general experienced a universal decline through the second half of the nineteenth century, from which only Spanish guitar has really been revived (principally by Segovia).  (Russian guitar is seeing some revival today principally by Dr. Oleg Timofeyev.)

Excerpts of some Russian guitar pieces in the original tuning, and in the only-slightly-different Major Thirds Tuning:

(Under construction....)

  
Compare to Standard or All 4ths Tuning

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