page_title: Bajo sexto
section_title: Construction and tuning
hierarchical_section_title: Bajo sexto / Construction and tuning
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of a Bajo QuintoEspañol: Foto de un Bajo Quinto
context_page_description: Bajo sexto is a Mexican string instrument from the guitar family with 12 strings in six double courses. A closely related instrument is the bajo quinto which has 10 strings in five double courses.
  In playing, the left hand holds the strings against frets on a fingerboard, while the right hand plucks or strums the strings. When played in older styles of music where the instrument assumes the role of a bass, the strings are usually plucked with the fingers. In modern chordal and melodic styles, a pick is frequently used.
context_section_description: The bajo sexto is a member of the guitar family, and physically looks like a 12-string guitar. However, there are important differences: The body is usually a bit deeper; the neck is shorter, joining the body at the 12th fret (modern 12-string guitars usually join at the 14th fret); and (being a bass instrument) the strings are thicker. Older instruments tended to have a larger body; modern instruments are more guitar-like, and the body is typically not more than an inch or so deeper than the guitar. Modern instruments frequently have a cutaway in the upper bout of the body adjacent to the neck, allowing easier access to higher playing positions on the neck, for the left hand.
  Since the instrument is tuned an octave below the guitar, the body on some instruments is not large enough for the lowest E to resonate well, and many players remove the sixth course, playing on only 10 strings (five courses). Luthiers eventually picked up on this practice and began leaving off the low E course during construction, producing instruments with only five courses — bajo quintos.
  Bajo sextos are traditionally tuned in fourths, what a guitarist would call all fourths tuning. The lower three courses are doubled at the higher octave (similar to the lower four courses on a 12-string guitar), and the upper three courses are doubled at the unison:
  E1-E2    A1-A2    D2-D3    G2-G2    C3-C3    F3-F3    (from lowest to highest course)
  The bajo quinto derives from the bajo sexto. Bajo quintos eliminate the low E course and are tuned as follows:
  A2-A1    D3-D2    G2-G2    C3-C3    F3-F3    (from lowest to highest course, notwithstanding the first two pairs listed here as "highest to lowest".)
  The manufacture of bajo quintos and sextos has reached a peak in quality and popularity in the 21st century, mostly in the states of Texas, California, and also regions of Mexico.
caption: The fretboard and 10 strings of a bajo quinto
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