What's a good tuning for country?

**Mandolin_Mayhem** · Mar-24-2006, 5:32pm

I was just wnderin what a good country mando should be tuned. i have it GDAE and i cant find that country sound. Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks!

**GTison** · Mar-24-2006, 5:59pm

what have you sound have you found?

**Jim Broyles** · Mar-24-2006, 7:21pm

Mayhem, what specific country sound are you looking for? The mandolin that you hear in, say, Alan Jackson songs is tuned GDAE. Are you trying to get a sound for strumming chords? If so, I don't think a mandolin will ever sound particularly "country" that way, due to the fact that the guitar is so prevalent in country strumming.

**Mandolin_Mayhem** · Mar-27-2006, 4:40pm

ive found blues/jaz, classical, and contimerary styles but nothing with a good country twang to it. i have it tuned GDAE but maybe im not usin the scale.

ill try to find some alan jackson music to derive from.. as long as its free.

Thanks for the help!

**ShaneJ** · Mar-27-2006, 5:03pm

I think what you're hearing may have more to do with the particular scale and playing style rather than a particular tuning. Tremolo-ing double stops and some other common "country" mandolin background are commonly done in standard GDAE tuning. If you havn't discovered the scales and exercises at http://www.mandozine.com/ yet, you might check those out. There are some double stop and scale exercises there that might possible help. You need TablEdit software, but there is a free viewer version. The link is available on the mandozine site. Good luck!

**celtic_knut** · Mar-27-2006, 9:04pm

You mentioned wanting more twang, so I wonder if you might need to experiment with different strings, or even different instruments to achieve a twangier tone.

If you want to hear a mandolin with twang, check out the Reckless Kelly video linked from this thread. The guy is playing an Rickenbacker solid-body 8-string electric, and that thing has some major twang going on...

**250sc** · Mar-28-2006, 6:49am

Don't change tunings.

Try using "HOPO" s (HammerOn PullOff) with double stops. When I get home and have a mando in my lap I'll find some examples to post.

Your musical roll in country music is going to be to provide support for the vocals. Other instruments will form the foundation of the bed track and the mando will most likely just be used to fill between vocal phrases or as a lead into the next section of the song. Keep it simple. You can get a lot of milage with a harmonized major scale on 2 strings.

**mandopete** · Mar-28-2006, 10:00pm

Even if you're playing country music, yes, the mando should be tuned.

**John Flynn** · Mar-29-2006, 9:09am

Originally Posted by

Even if you're playing country music, yes, the mando should be tuned.

Darn! If I had only known. All those years I've wasted!

**celtic_knut** · Mar-29-2006, 1:32pm

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Q: Why does a mandolin have 8 strings?

A: To double the chances that one of them is in tune!

**Mandolin_Mayhem** · Mar-29-2006, 4:00pm

Thank you all who have helped me. ill look into the double stops and hopos and i watched the vid clip u left and thats the sound i was lookin for; you are golden.

Yall are so groovy, youd put disco outta style... oh wait, too late.