Jimi Hendrix · Axis: Bold as Love · song 6
Little Wing tuning.
Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix, 1967) is in E♭ Standard, about 8 cents flat (A ≈ 438), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Song tuning
E♭ Standard −8 ¢
About 8 cents flat (A ≈ 438).
Measured by TuneLit
8 ¢ flat
The album's value, measured on the CD: Tune moves every string −8 ¢.
Jimi Hendrix · Axis: Bold as Love · 1967
About Little Wing
The short ballad at the heart of Axis: Bold as Love (1967), recorded at Olympic Studios in London in October 1967. As Wikipedia notes for most Hendrix songs, the guitar is tuned down a half step, E♭ Standard: the chord shapes players know by name, Em, G, Am and the rest, sound a half step lower than those names on the record. Engineer Eddie Kramer fed the guitar through a Leslie speaker built for organ, and Hendrix added a glockenspiel.
On the 1993 MCA CD that TuneLit measured, Little Wing reads about 3 ¢ flat, close to the album's 8 ¢ (A ≈ 438), so it shares the album's setting: E♭ Standard 8 ¢ down. The audio check hears E♭ as the lowest open string, as the tabs say.
Many tabs and lessons are rewritten for E Standard so you can play without retuning; Songsterr even carries a separate standard-tuning version. Those put you a half step above the record. Either tune down, or keep your guitar in E and use TuneLit's Play along to move the record up into standard tuning. The embellishments around each chord lean on open strings ringing, so they only sound like the record once the tuning is right.
Tip: Tune to the album's button and check the open low E♭ against the first chord of the intro before working on the fills.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard, every string −8 ¢, the notes Little Wing 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. Little Wing sits 8 cents flat on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much sharp against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Little Wing 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 Little Wing 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 −8 ¢. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Little Wing moves up a half step and 8 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 Little Wing in?
E♭ Standard −8 ¢: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.