It's a common question we get. Whether you're a guitarist who wants to take up a bowed instrument without learning fingerings from scratch, or a seasoned violinist who wants to apply guitar chord shapes, scales, or the CAGED system to your violin playing, it is possible to mimic guitar 4ths tuning (and that pesky 3rd) using existing violin strings.
Now, a guitar's high open E string sounds an octave lower than violin's high open E string, so first you need to decide whether you want to play guitar tuning in the guitar's true (lower) range, or if you want to play the guitar tuning but sounding an octave higher, in the violin's range. Whichever you decide here are the strings you can use, and how to tune them...
Guitar tuning (at pitch)
- E: low F-string down a semi-tone
- A: octave G-string up a whole tone
- D: octave D-string
- G: violin G-string
- B: octave A-string down a whole tone
- E: octave E-string
Guitar 4ths tuning (octave up)
- E: G-string down 3 semi-tones
- A: G-string up a whole tone
- D: D-string
- G: A-string down a whole tone
- B: A-string up a whole tone
- E: E-string
