Jimi Hendrix · Axis: Bold as Love · song 9
Castles Made of Sand tuning.
Castles Made of Sand (Jimi Hendrix, 1967) is in E♭ Standard at A 427, about 54 cents flat, measured by TuneLit from the record.
Song tuning
E♭ Standard A 427
About 54 cents flat (A 427).
Measured by TuneLit
54 ¢ flat
Measured on this song itself: Tune sets the reference A to 427.
Jimi Hendrix · Axis: Bold as Love · 1967
About Castles Made of Sand
A gentle song from Axis: Bold as Love (1967), built on clean chords decorated with hammer-ons, with a guitar solo recorded backwards: the tape is reversed, so the notes swell in instead of starting with an attack. Like the rest of the album, every main tab is in E♭ Standard, a half step down.
It is the hardest Hendrix song to tune to. On the 1993 MCA CD the record sits right between two notes: E♭ Standard 54 ¢ flat (A ≈ 426.5), or the same tuning 46 ¢ sharp, which TuneLit's second button names E Standard at A 427. The two readings sit a semitone apart, and neither the pitch measurement nor TuneLit's audio check can tell which one the strings were on, so the page offers both.
The songs around it on the album lean to the sharp side: Ain't No Telling, Little Miss Lover and One Rainy Wish all sit 33 to 41 ¢ sharp of E♭, with the audio check agreeing. So try the second button first, then the first, and keep the one where your open low string blends with the record. The reversed solo will not fit any fretboard shape, so judge the tuning on the chords of the verses.
Tip: Compare both Tune buttons on the first verse chords; the right one makes your open low string sound like part of the record.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard at A 427, the notes Castles Made of Sand was recorded in.
- From E Standard: Every string down a half step. No tuner that knows E♭ Standard? Clamp a capo across fret 1, tune to E Standard as usual, then take it off: every string drops to E♭ Standard. Check each string again afterwards, since a capo pulls the strings a little sharp.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Castles Made of Sand sits 54 cents flat on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much sharp against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Castles Made of Sand 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 Castles Made of Sand 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 at A 427. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Castles Made of Sand moves up a half step and 54 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 Castles Made of Sand in?
E♭ Standard at A 427: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.