What does piano tuning on a guitar mean?

Question

Like standard tuning is EADGBe, what would be the tuning for piano?

I don't mean tune a guitar using a piano.

Answer 1

As a guitar player of 50+ years, I have never heard of 'piano tuning on a guitar'. It does not seem to be a meaningful expression.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

I agree with the others who say "piano tuning on a guitar" isn't a commonly used term. If I had to guess, I'd say it probably refers to "concert pitch" or A=440. A guitar can be in tune with itself, but not tuned to the same pitch as a piano. My guess is that "piano tuning" just means that the guitar is tuned so that the notes match. When you play an E on your guitar, it is the same pitch as an E on the piano. Generally, this is the way digital tuners are calibrated, so it pretty much goes without saying.

Answer 4

EADGBE is the standard tuning on a guitar. There are variants - the most common being 'drop d' - so DADGBE. There are also various 'open' tunings - so the open unfretted strings will play a chord. An example would be open D - DADF#AD.



Why is this relevant? Because the different tunings change the fingering (and sometimes the voicing, but that's less important for this explanation) of each chord. Take a chord of E major for example. In standard tuning you could play this 0022100. However in open D you could play it 222222. They'd sound similar (again maybe not the same, because the actual arrangement of E G# and B may be different) even though you're playing totally different frets/a different chord shape.



The piano never has to worry about this. They can play along with any standard guitar tuning because of the way the keys are laid out. Now, it may be HARDER to play some chords (for instance in open tuning you can get one low chord and one much higher one), but it'd still be possible - or the piano could simply play a different version of that chord.



So in short a piano will *ALWAYS* use standard tuning (because there aren't any others) no matter what tuning the guitar uses.

Answer 5

It doesn't mean anything - it's not a term that's used. Where do you think youve come across it?

Answer 6

I don't understand the question.  Can you expand on that?