The same letters as a guitar, and almost none of the same notes
A Mexican vihuela has five nylon strings tuned A3–D4–G4–B3–E4, counted from the 5th string to the 1st. Those are the same five letters as the top five strings of a guitar, which is exactly why the instrument catches people out: the A, the D and the G are all an octave higher than a guitarist expects, and only the B and the E land where they would on a guitar.
Lift three strings by an octave and the order stops behaving. The 3rd string, G4 at 392 Hz, becomes the highest note on the instrument — above the 1st string, in the middle of the neck. The 2nd string, B3, falls below the 4th. In pitch order the five open strings run A3, B3, D4, E4, G4; in string order they run A3, D4, G4, B3, E4. Nothing about the instrument ascends from the 5th string to the 1st, and every instinct carried over from a guitar will be wrong about it.
The lowest note on the whole instrument is A3, 220 Hz— around where a guitar’s 3rd string sits. A vihuela has no bass register whatsoever, and that is deliberate: it lives above the guitar and the guitarrón rather than competing with them.
The first tab follows the strings in playing order. The second sorts the same five notes by pitch — the fastest way to see that the 3rd string is the top of the instrument. The third shows what a guitar does with those same letters, for comparison.
The string set proves the tuning
If the pitch order looks wrong, check the packet. A La Bella VM300 vihuela set runs E .032, B .040, G .028, D .032, A .040 — and once you line those up against the notes, the re-entrant tuning is written in the gauges:
| String | Note | Frequency | Gauge | Against a guitar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | E4 | 329.63 Hz | .032 | Same |
| 2nd | B3 | 246.94 Hz | .040 | Same |
| 3rd | G4 | 392.00 Hz | .028 — thinnest in the set | An octave higher |
| 4th | D4 | 293.66 Hz | .032 | An octave higher |
| 5th | A3 | 220.00 Hz | .040 | Two octaves higher |
The 3rd string is the thinnest string in the box and the 2nd is thicker than the 1st. Both facts are impossible under guitar tuning and inevitable under this one. If you are restringing and something does not match this table, the strings are in the wrong slots — that is a stringing error, not a tuning one, and no amount of peg-turning will rescue it.
Tuning routine
- Set the dial to A=440 and tune to it, not to the other players. A mariachi has trumpets in it. The strings come to fixed pitch.
- Start with the 1st string, E4. It is the one note that matches a guitar, so it is the easiest anchor, and from there you can hear how strange everything else is.
- Then the 2nd, B3. Also identical to a guitar. Those two are your familiar ground; the remaining three are not.
- Now the 3rd, G4 — up an octave. Watch the octave number, not the letter. It should end up as the highest-sounding string on the instrument. If it ends up below the 1st string, you are an octave out.
- Then the 4th, D4, and the 5th, A3. Both also above where a guitarist expects. When you are done, strum across all five: the chord should sound bright and compact, with no note obviously sitting underneath the others.
- Go round twice. Five strings at these pitches on a small vaulted body interact more than you would think, and a fresh nylon set will keep dropping for several days.
Where it sits in the mariachi
The vihuela is the rhythm engine. Together with the guitar it plays the mánico — the strum pattern that identifies the genre, a son from a ranchera from a bolero — while the guitarrón plays the bass line in octaves underneath. Because the vihuela has no bass and a hard, dry attack, it reads as percussion in the mix even though it is playing full chords.
Put the ensemble’s two re-entrant tunings side by side and they turn out to be mirror images. This instrument lifts its bottom three strings up an octave to clear the guitar; the guitarrón drops its top one down an octave to bring an octave pair under a single hand. Same broken pattern, opposite motives, and each one explained by the job it has in the group. Our mariachi instrument tuners page collects all three, and the requinto — the other Mexican instrument guitarists routinely mistune — is next door.
Equal temperament, nylon and a fretted instrument that fights back
The dial measures in equal temperament, which suits a fretted instrument: the frets are cut to the same grid, so open strings and stopped notes agree. Two things it cannot do for you here.
The first is the strum itself. A vihuela chord is five strings hit hard with nails within a few milliseconds, and no pitch detector will give you a useful reading of that — it needs one note at a time. The second is fretting pressure: this is a short-scale instrument with a raised action, and pressing hard behind a fret stretches the string enough to sharpen it audibly. If your open strings all read centred and your chords still sound sour, the cause is in your left hand or in the setup, not in the pegs. Our guide to cents explains how much of a shift that actually is.
Frequently asked questions
Which string on a vihuela is the highest note?
The 3rd, in the middle of the instrument — G4 at 392 Hz, above the 1st string E4 at 329.63 Hz. This surprises everyone, because on a guitar the pitches rise steadily to the 1st string and stop. A vihuela takes the same five letters as a guitar’s top five strings and lifts the A, D and G up an octave, which lands G4 above everything else and leaves B3 sitting below the 4th string D4. In pitch order the open strings run A3, B3, D4, E4, G4 — and in string order they run A3, D4, G4, B3, E4.
How do I know I have strung it correctly?
Compare gauges before you tune anything. In a La Bella VM300 vihuela set the strings measure E .032, B .040, G .028, D .032, A .040 — which means the 3rd string is the thinnest string in the whole set and the 2nd string is thicker than the 1st. If the string you have fitted as the 3rd is not the thinnest one in the packet, it is in the wrong slot, and no amount of turning the peg will fix that. The gauge order is the physical fingerprint of the re-entrant tuning.
Is this the same as a Spanish vihuela?
No. The Spanish vihuela is a Renaissance instrument, six courses, tuned like a lute, and it is a museum-and-early-music instrument today. The Mexican vihuela is a nineteenth-century Mexican development with five nylon strings, a deep vaulted back, and a job in mariachi: rhythm. Different instrument, different tuning, different repertoire. They share a name and an ancestor, and that is all — searching for vihuela tuning without qualifying which one is how people end up trying to tune a mariachi instrument to a lute.
Why does mine sound thin and percussive rather than full?
Because it is supposed to. The vihuela has no bass register at all — its lowest note, A3 at 220 Hz, is roughly where a guitar’s 3rd string sits — and its vaulted back and short scale are built for attack rather than sustain. In an ensemble that is exactly the point: the guitarrón owns the bottom, the guitar owns the middle, and the vihuela sits on top of them both playing the offbeat, cutting through outdoors with nothing but fingernails. It is a percussion instrument that happens to make chords.
Should I tune the vihuela to the guitarrón?
Tune both to a fixed A=440 instead. A mariachi has violins and trumpets in it, and wind instruments cannot bend to meet a flat rhythm section, so the strings come to the fixed pitch rather than to each other. Once everything is on the dial there is one useful check by ear: the vihuela’s open 5th string, A3, is exactly two octaves above the guitarrón’s low A1. Sound them together and listen: any wobble in that interval means one of the pair needs moving, no matter how centred each looked on its own.