Estimated reading time 7 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you want to know how Alex Lifeson tunes his guitar in the sci-fi rock opera 2112? How does experience with playing the violin or viola impact how guitarists tunes? This space opera may be the only example of a guitarist’s tuning being included as part of the finished product. At the beginning of the section entitled Discovery the hero finds a guitar, then tunes and plays it. Read more to learn about 2112’s guitar tuning.
- Briefly, the story centers around a man who lives in a repressive theocracy where the arts have been suppressed. The main character finds a guitar behind a waterfall and has no idea what he has found. He tunes the guitar and teaches himself to play.
- He can’t contain his delight as he imagines telling the priests of the wonderful thing he has found. However, the priests dismiss the guitar as nothing and destroy it.
- The part of the rock opera that concerns us today is the song Discovery (Part III). The video below has the original album’s audio combined with images that tell this part of the story. Particularly, notice how Lifeson uses 4ths and 5ths for his test intervals.
This article uses technical musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
Part III: Discovery Graphic Novel Video
2112’s Guitar Tuning
Tuning Using 4ths, 5ths, and Harmonics
We’ll start with discussing the song Discovery, which is the heart of 2112’s guitar tuning. Try to focus on the sound and ignore the visuals. If you listen carefully to the beginning in the video above, you will hear:
- The song’s hero starts playing the open strings one at a time, letting the sound of each string overlap. The instrument’s tuning is in standard tuning in the sense that the guitar strings sound roughly like E6, A5, D4, G3, B2, E1. (Letters indicate the notes and the numerals indicate the string numbers with E6 being the fattest string.) However, the strings sound out of tune in the sense that you can hear beating.
- Next, he plays D4 and G3 one after the other.
- Then, he plays A5 and D4 twice. You can hear the beating become less as he alternates between strings and tunes them. He plays a sequence of three notes: A5, D4, and then the A on the 3rd string, 2nd fret.
- Then, he plays A5 and the octave on the 3rd string again, followed quickly by A5 and D4.
- Next, he plays the harmonic on the 5th string, 5th fret (A) and compares it with the harmonic on the 4th string, 7th fret (A).
- He uses this to tune up the two strings. Once again, you can hear the beating diminish as he tunes the harmonics.
- After this, he plays E6, A5, and D4 in sequence twice. E6 sounds really out of tune with fast beating. He uses the harmonics on the 6th string, 5th fret (E) and the 5th string, 7th fret (E) to tune up E6, making the beating go away.
Lifeson Tests His Tuning
Then, he uses a series of open strings and 5ths to check how well he has done his job so far tuning 2112’s guitar.
- He checks these paired strings: E6 and A5, A5 and D4, D4 with the A on the 3rd string, 2nd fret. Then, he checks D4, the A on the 3rd string, 2nd fret, and the D on the 2nd string, 3rd fret as a trio of notes.
- Finally, happy with his tuning job, the character plays a series of melodies, chords, and harmonics to try things out.
- Now that he has fully tested his tuning, he starts the song proper.
During the song the hero ponders the strange and wonderful device that he has found: a guitar.
Part III: Discovery Guitar Video
This video shows you how Discovery looks on the guitar.
- However, it starts with the guitar in tune, so it sounds different than the studio album’s audio.
- It’s more like a reenactment that an exact replica of the guitar tuning in 2112.
- You can use the 0.5 and 0.75 Playback speed function (under the Settings gear icon) in YouTube to help yourself learn the song.
Just take it slow and break the song into smaller sections to help yourself better master each part.
Exploring Lifeson’s Guitar Tuning in 2112
Drawing Conclusions
Looking at how Alex Lifeson tuned the guitar in 2112, we can draw some conclusions about his tuning process:
- First, he tuned the strings to standard tuning. This is different than the other tunings we’ve studied so far.
- Second, he tuned strings 5 and 6 using the 5th and 7th fret harmonics (very common in rock guitar).
- Third, he used 4ths, 5ths, and (once) an octave as test intervals.
- Fourth, he tested the tuning by playing chords and scales.
- Fifth, he used open harmonics to check the tuning. (Likewise, the Hawaiian guitarist Keola Beamer likes to use harmonics to check some of his tunings.)
- Sixth, he checked the tuning by comparing the adjacent open strings, especially in groups of two and three strings. (Keith Richards and the Hawaiian guitarist Ray Kane both tune by comparing adjacent open strings.)
- Seventh, since he played the test intervals one after the other, but let the notes overlap, he used both melodic and harmonic components as part of the tuning process.
Finally, he never compared unison notes to check or tune the strings.
- Comparing unisons gets used a lot in guitar method books to teach tuning.
- As an example of a unison comparison, you take the A on the 6th string, 5th fret and compare it to the open A5.
- Using unison comparison forces the strings into equal temperament.
Not comfortable getting into standard tuning without using the frets? Try this free online guitar tuner to prepare for playing Rush songs!
And the Final Tuning Is…
What would the final tuning exactly look like?
- That’s a difficult question to answer.
- However, I’ll take a stab at defining the 2112 guitar tuning.
- Sadly, I could not get good enough frequency readings from the CD to be able to nail down the precise tuning.
The following cent values are theoretical. (For a review of cents, click here.) The actual string values may vary due to string inharmonicity.
I gave the 6th string, as our starting point, an equal tempered value of 400 cents.
- Lifeson tuned the 5th and 4th strings using the 5th and 7th fret harmonics.
- These will make prefect 4ths containing 498 cents each.
- Also, Lifeson tuned the 3rd string to a perfect 5th, much as a violinist would do, by comparing them directly. (It makes sense that he’d tune this way, as he studied viola until age 12.)
- This would yield a 5th of about 702 cents.
- Likewise, he tunes the 2nd string to a perfect 4th, once again by direct comparison, also yielding a 4th of around 498 cents.
- He doesn’t spend much time on the high E string.
- However, I suggest you tune the 1st string to the 2nd string using the 5th and 7th fret harmonics, yielding an E of 394 cents. This will give you better major 3rds on some of the open chords.
Sum it up and the open strings would look like this:
E1 = 394 cents
B2 = 1096 cents
G3 = 698 cents
D4 = 196 cents
A5 = 898 cents
E6 = 400 cents
Notice that this doesn’t yield an equal tempered tuning, mainly because of the lack of unison comparisons. The tuning makes for better major 3rds (398 cents) in many (but not all) open and bar chords. For example:
Mobile users: for best results reading the charts, tilt your screen 90o to the right.
More on Lifeson’s 2112 Guitar Tuning
Equal Temperament vs the 2112 Guitar Tuning
Equal temperament (ET), or at least an approximation of it, happens on guitar and guitar-like instruments when the open strings get compared to unison fretted notes.
- The frets force the open strings into ET.
- However, a fretted note compared to an open string an interval of a 4th or 5th away will not yield ET.
- Thus, Lifeson’s tuning doesn’t give us ET in 2112’s guitar tuning.
Even octave comparisons don’t necessarily yield the same exact results as unison comparisons.
- When the guitar gets tuned using chords, intervals, or harmonics, something other than ET will be the result.
- Yet the results sound good – good enough for a studio album put out by a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band.
- A record which turned out to be their breakthrough album, and which paved the way for their later success.
DADAAD Tuning
I find it interesting that Lifeson used 4ths and 5ths as his main test intervals. Why? In an interview in the November 2012 issue of Guitar Player magazine. Lifeson said:
I’ve got my J-150 in the other room tuned to DADAAD and I can play in that tuning for hours and not get board (154).
Notice that DADAAD consists of 4ths and 5ths.
- In the rock opera, the character heavily relied on 4ths and 5ths as test intervals for the 2112 guitar tuning.
- Likewise, in the 2012 interview, Lifeson says that he enjoys playing in the tuning DADAAD.
- This, along with his viola experience, could explain his favoring 4ths and 5ths when tuning.
Does Lifeson think about these things consciously? I doubt it. It sounds like he goes on instinct:
I don’t think in terms of what kind of scales I’m playing. I’m not trained that way, and I don’t give it much thought… Ged and I start playing, we pick a tempo and a key, and we play and play and play until we lock into something and slowly start to develop the structure of what it is. (p. 78 -79)
Concluding Thoughts on Tuning 2112’s Guitar
2112’s guitar tuning is in standard tuning, yet it still remains different than ET.
- Many of the chords have a little better tuning for their major 3rds.
- Nevertheless, they still retain more flexible voice leading than what we find in the alternate tuning found in Sound Like a Rock Star.
- On the other hand, the open G , D, and E tunings used in the Rock Star posts have better tuned major chords.
This means that the type of tuning you choose for your guitar depends on what you want to achieve with the tuning. Have fun playing!
© 2022 Geoffrey Keith
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