"Early Americans Disliked Great Britain Exceedingly" is a mnemonic device to remember the sequence of pitches for tuning a guitar (disregarding alternative guitar tunings and sticking with the conventional tuning used in classical music), beginning from the guitar's rightmost (bass) string and ending on its leftmost (treble) string: E, A, D, G, B, E.
The reverse of this mnemonic, to remember tuning starting from the left and traveling to the right, is "Early Britons Gave Democracy Ample Experience."
The following are mnemonics for tuning several other stringed instruments according to their most common tuning conventions:
- ukulele - "Giant Crabs Eat Amelia," G above, C, E, A
- violin and mandolin - "Grand Duchess Anastasia Escaped," G, D, A, E
- cello, viola, and mandola - "Canon, God Dammit, Again?" C, G, D, A. The reverse mnemonic from treble to bass, used with children, is the chant "Ants, ants, ants; digging in the Dirt, dirt, dirt; digging in the Ground, ground, ground; all the way to China, China, China."
- bass guitar and double bass - "Every Accompanist Deserves Gratitude," E, A, D, G
- concert zither and alpine zither, fretted strings only - "Ask Anton During Guitar Class," A, A, D, G, C
Because many stringed instruments have five strings or fewer, mnemonic devices for tuning are generally more useful for a composer or band director, who needs to mentally juggle the capabilities of many different instruments at once, than they are for the instrumentalist, who only needs to keep track of the one instrument. Please feel free to send other tuning mnemonics you have encountered, and I will update the list.
Iron Noder 2022, 5/30