Black Sabbath · Paranoid · song 8
Fairies Wear Boots tuning.
Fairies Wear Boots (Black Sabbath, 1970) is in E Standard at concert pitch (A 440), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
At concert pitch
Measured on this song itself.
Black Sabbath · Paranoid · 1970
About Fairies Wear Boots
The closing song of Paranoid (1970), with an instrumental opening that American copies listed as Jack the Stripper. The intro, the swinging main riff and the long solos are all in E Standard, like the rest of the album.
This is the song where tuning to the album would mislead you. TuneLit measured the 1986 Castle CD: the rest of Paranoid sits about 25 ¢ sharp, but Fairies Wear Boots is at concert pitch, about 3 ¢ sharp, stored as A 440. It has its own value, so Tune gives plain E Standard. Every CD edition we checked shows about the same gap between this song and the rest of the album.
If you play the whole album in order, lower the reference from about A 446 back to A 440 for this song. TuneLit's check from the audio could not decide the low string here (the riff spends little time on the open E), but nothing points away from the standard tuning in the tabs. Hand of Doom, two songs earlier, may sit near concert pitch too: its reading is weak.
Tip: Switch the tuner back to A 440 for this song; keeping Paranoid's A 446 leaves you a quarter tone sharp.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E Standard, the notes Fairies Wear Boots was recorded in.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Fairies Wear Boots sits at concert pitch on the record, so the tuner stays at A 440.
- Then play Fairies Wear Boots along with the record: its lowest open note and your String 6 should ring together without a wobble.
Or the other way round
Move the record into your tuning
Rather keep your guitar as it is? Let Play along move Fairies Wear Boots instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in E Standard. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Fairies Wear Boots moves down 3 cents, at its own speed. Slow it down or loop a few bars to learn it, and save the result as a WAV file.
Questions
What tuning is Fairies Wear Boots in?
E Standard: E A D G B E, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.