E, B, F, B?

[Hazardan]

Every post I make seem to be in the wrong place lol. Anyways, i was checking out "Wait and Bleed" (http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/...bleed_btab.htm). It looks pretty easy, but I thought the strings were named E, A, D and G. FYI I'm new incase you coulden't tell lol.

[mutedeity]

The strings are represented according to the note produced when the string is played open. That means without fretting. Standard tuning on a 4-stringed bass is EADG, E being the lowest and G being the highest. The tab there shows the bass tuned B F# B and E, in that case B is the lowest and E is the highest. Different tunings are used on songs depending on a lot of factors, some might be playability and some might be chord manifestations when playing strings open.

[jollygiantchris]

A bass is normally tuned E A D G which is called standard tuning what this means is that each note is a perfect 4th apart from each other.

What Slipknot has done is they tuned down to C# standard which is C# F# B E then they dropped the C# an extra whole step (2 frets) down to a B (making it B F# B E). This tuning is now not tuned in perfect 4ths but the first string to the second string, B to F#, is a perfect 5th. However the rest of the strings are still tuned in 4ths.

Since you seem really new I thought I'd throw that out there. Oh and a perfect 4th and perfect 5th are just ways of describing the distance between two notes (an interval) a perfect 4th is 5 half steps and a perfect 5th is 7 half steps.

And I thought I'd add the reason you'd tune the low string a different interval then the other strings is usually so the guitar player can get different chord shapes and for a lot of bands it allows ****** guitar players the ability to quickly change power chords with one finger.

And if I am incorrect in anything I said above someone correct me.

[Hazardan]

awesome thanks