I tried tuning down

[357mag]

Interesting. The first thing of course was the relief I feel in playing in my left hand. Much easier.
The part that really suprised me was how vibrant the mando felt in my hand. There seemed to be alot more going on than when tuned standard. Could this be a way to help the opening up process along?

Thanks to the folks that encouraged me on another thread. With the guitar, I never thought twice about cranking them down, but I always think of the mando as being a little more sensitive. Delicate, if you will. Not to mentio working the strings and having them start popping on me. Perish the thought! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[swampstomper]

Why not just use lighter gauge strings at standard pitch? That will give you the same tension as tuning down.

For example the unit weights of the A strings of J74/5 are 0.00004984 / 5671 respectively. The tensions at standard pitch are 19.2 / 21.9 lbs. respectively. If you tune the J75 string down to ab'' you get a 19.5 tension, almost the same as the J74 (the lighter string).

BTW tuning down a full step to a'' gives 17.4 lbs. tension, that begins to feel slack.

So if you are using J74's you'd have to shop for singles if you want to keep PB strings, or just get J62's (80/20) or try something from GHS or Martin. The point is you just go down a a couple of 100ths in the string diameter and you can stay on standard pitch.

HTH