Another mandola tuning question...

[Mandocarver]

I recently borrowed a friend's (tenor) mandola (17 inch scale tuned CGDA) and loved playing it at home on my own for pleasure, but when it came to playing with other mandolinists, I found the mental gymnastics of playing in their key really difficult. I've been reluctant to buy a mandola for that reason. However, seeing Ted Eschilmann recommending Octave mando strings for a mandola got me thinking... Would there be anything to stop me buying such strings and keeping them in CGDA for home use and then retuning them to GDAE and using my mandola like an octave mandolin when playing in a group? The instrument has been returned so I can't try it out first.
Thanks for any suggestions/pros & cons etc.
Dean

[allenhopkins]

So every time you go out to jam, you want to restring your instrument from CGDA to GDAE? Sounds like a recipe for having two instruments, IMHO.

I'm a stick-in-the-mud in this regard: I recommend stringing instruments the way they're designed to be strung. An OM has a bigger body and longer scale than a mandola. Stringing a 17-inch scale as an OM means you need to use pretty heavy strings, or the G string is going to be terminally floppy. So you need to worry about the size and depth of the slots in nut and bridge, since if set up for mandola tuning, they may be too small for OM tuning.

Couple thoughts: I had the same "head transposition" problems starting to play mandola, but with practice this improved. Now when the group's playing in D, I just think "A" when playing mandola, and I can play along perfectly OK. (Well, maybe not perfectly...)

Secondly, I do have a Sobell with about a 21-inch scale that I've tuned as a mandola with light strings; I assume if I wanted, I could restring and retune it as an OM. But it wouldn't seem feasible to me to keep swapping out strings for different tunings and situations. Probably you should think about two separate instruments.

[Rvl]

Yes it is possible but.....the tension on the GDAE tuning would be very very low , about half the tension
Why not buy a octave mandolin
I have an octave mandolin , mandola , mandolin and bouzouki
None of mine were expensive
It is nice to be able to pick up and try to play something using different fingering

If you wanted to try it 12-18-28-42 is a very balanced tension

Thanks

Robert VanLane

[Eddie Sheehy]

Get a 10-string tuned CGDAE... best of both worlds...

[Mandocarver]

Many thanks to everyone for their helpful comments - looks like I'm shopping for another instrument as soon as finances allow...