2poor4Loar
Jul-21-2009, 4:19pm
was looking for some inspiration and found it by tuning the strings down a half step each. I used to do this alot on guitar. it mellowed out the high strings and evened out the tone of the whole instrument. I know it's commonplace to tune down a half step on guitar. Am I wrong to be doing it on my mando? Can anyone suggest other more alternate tunings I can fiddle with?
Flatlanderbilly
Jul-21-2009, 7:45pm
I was really hoping someone more knowledgeable than myself would have responded with some nifty ideas for open tunings on the mando.
I'm new to the instrument, but on guitar I play a lot in open D and open G. One thing I found with the mandolin that somehow made sense for me was dropping the E string down to a D, so that from lowest to highest pitch you have G D A D.
I've also heard of tuning one pair of strings differently - say, for instance, instead of tuning the E strings in unison, one might be tuned to E and the other to D. There's a term for this, but I can't recall it offhand.
Michael Gowell
Jul-21-2009, 10:08pm
Do a search - there have been several threads about this topic.