Van Halen · Van Halen II · song 2
Dance the Night Away tuning.
Dance the Night Away (Van Halen, 1979) is in E♭ Standard, about 28 cents sharp (A ≈ 447), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
28 ¢ sharp
The album's value, measured on the CD: Tune moves every string +28 ¢.
Van Halen · Van Halen II · 1979
About Dance the Night Away
Dance the Night Away was the hit single from Van Halen II (1979), a breezy, Latin-tinged pop song with a bright chord riff. It is in E♭ Standard like the rest of the album, played in ordinary open-position shapes that ring a half step lower. Where a guitar solo would normally go, Eddie left it out and played a riff of tapped harmonics instead.
TuneLit measured Van Halen II about 28 cents above E♭ (A ≈ 447.3), and this song reads about 26 cents, right with it. That makes it the clearest example of Van Halen's 'between E♭ and E' sound: a guitar in plain E♭ at A 440 is about a quarter of a semitone flat against the record. The audio check hears E♭ as the lowest open string.
Tapped harmonics are unforgiving: they ring at the exact pitch of the open strings, so if those are off, the chimes are off too. Don't be tempted to tune to E because the record sounds high for E♭; at 26 to 28 cents above E♭ it is still much closer to E♭ than to E, and every human-made tab agrees on the half step down.
Tip: Tap Tune, check String 6 against the low E♭ the bass leans on, then play the tapped harmonics with the record; if they shimmer against it, adjust Fine-tune rather than single strings.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard, every string +28 ¢, the notes Dance the Night Away 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. Dance the Night Away sits 28 cents sharp on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much flat against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Dance the Night Away 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 Dance the Night Away 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 +28 ¢. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Dance the Night Away moves up 72 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 Dance the Night Away in?
E♭ Standard +28 ¢: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.