a e’ a’ c#” ; bb f’ bb’ d” ; g d’ g’ b’ ; c’ g’ c” e” ; d a d’ f#’

Together with its variants, the tuning a e’ a’ c#” is amongst the most common alternative tunings across a variety of music traditions.

It has been extensively used amongst baroque composers, with some of the most relevant examples being:

Giuseppe Colombi (1635 – 1694): Ciacona a violino solo and a couple other solo dance pieces;

 Giovanni Maria Bononcini (1642 – 1678): two sonatas;

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644 – 1704): Rosary Sonata no. 5 “Child Jesus in the Temple”;

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 – 1767): Concerto a due violini discordati.

The tuning a e’ a’ c#’ is a very popular tuning in Norwegian folk music, both on Hardanger fiddle and regular fiddle.

In Sweden many recorded tunes are played in this tuning. The tune Tyska Klockorna, with its many variants, is arguably the most known amongst these.

Irish fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and American fiddle player Dan Trueman both use the tuning in a number of their compositions.

A number of traditional Scottish tunes are notated in a e’ a’ c#, such as Macintosh’s Lament.

The same can be said of many North American music traditions, such as Appalachian old time music and Québécois traditional music.

The tuning is also present in Romanian fiddle traditions.