You may ask, “Why does it matter if we have a display that shows the cents?” In all of the open tunings discussed in the posts in the second section, the major third tunes low.
For example, the strings look like this when tuned to ET:
E1 = 400 cents
B2 = 1100 cents
G3 = 700 cents
D4 = 200 cents
A5 = 900 cents
E6 = 400 cents
If you held down an E major chord, it would then look like this:
E1 = 400 cents
B2 = 1100 cents
G#3 = 800 cents
E4 = 400 cents
B5 = 1100 cents
E6 = 400 cents
The third, fourth, and fifth strings on the second chart have different notes because the E major chord fingers the notes on those strings.
- When the major third (the G#) has been tuned low, the G# will range from 798 cents down to 778 cents.
- With the Snark, we can’t easily tune the major third low, because the display doesn’t give any clear clues on how low you’ve gone.
For this we need more precision, preferably using an extremely accurate guitar strobe tuner.