A twelve string guitar is, obviouisly, a guitar with twelve strings. It has the same six strings as the regular six string guitar, but each one has a friend, so that a twelve string looks like six pairs of strings. The lower four strings (E A D G) are doubled an octave higher, and the two high strings (B & E) are simply doubled. Twelve string guitars are used most commonly to play chord progressions and rhythm parts.

While the tuning that fricto suggests is the most common tuning for a twelve string, it is by no means the only. Many 12-string guitarists take great masochistic pleasure in tuning to all kinds of odd things (each string up a fifth, or a third from it's six string cousin).

Also older twelve strings are often tuned to down a whole step (thickest string is D rather than E). The tension caused by all twelve strings in standard tuning used to snap guitars in half. Apparently that's not an issue anymore.

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