Different tunings and intonation

[Dan Halen]

i am primarily a guitar player, and just picked up my first mandolin - i love it!
however i want to tune it differently, probably to E - my point is this..

can the mandolin be intonated to a different tuning than that which it was meant for? its a typical CGDE

[mandroid]

Typical for mandolin GDAE, or mandola CGDA , I have found with #a longer scale low E is possible... #with a 15-16" scale, the longer is better ..
E B F# C# would be the 5ths interval tuning for the open strings.

[groveland]

I have another suggestion you might try - It works great for me anyway.

IMHO, tuning in 5ths is a better way to tune overall than the 'almost all fourths' tuning you find on guitar. Ever consider retuning your guitar to mandolin? I'm serious. (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=16;t=40200)

There are a few ways to do this, but the advantages are huge for symmetry, chording, circle-of-fifths, applied theory, abandoning the old tired guitar cliches and habits, and joining the wonderful world of mandolin, bouzouki, violin, and on and on.

Guitar is what needs to change, not mandolin! (Just my 40-years-on-guitar opinion. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif )

[groveland]

Oh, and Dan - Welcome to the mandolin cafe!

[Eugene]

To clear up any ambiguity, mandolin tuning technically is g-d'-a'-e", specifying octaves in the most common shorthand.

I don't know that "better" is the adjective I'd choose to describe tuning in 5ths; I don't know that any qualitative judgement of any rather arbitrary series of open-string pitches is really appropriate. Of course, Fripp's "New Standard" tuning for guitar is mostly 5ths with an odd little minor 3rd tacked on top (C-G-d-a-e'-g'). Fripp can be pretty disparaging in talking about the 6-string guitar's real "standard" tuning, and I always thought his labeling of his newish concoction as some kind of "standard" to be just a little pretentious (and I actually like Fripp's work). Really, his "New Standard" essentially is 5-course liuto cantabile (a type of mando-cello that was semi-popular ca. 1900: C-G-d-a-e') with that extra high g'. ...And tunings to use mostly 3rds in "open" tuning aren't new either: baroque-citterns like English guittar, 7-string Russian guitar, even a minor 3rd in the case of d-minor lutes of the baroque era.

However, there is a logic to an interspersed 3rd in the midst of fourths. When you reach six strings/courses, the outermost are the same pitch name separated by a couple octaves making for convenient chording (especially in barre) that encompasses the instrument's whole range. The logic of mostly 4ths with an interspersed 3rd has been exploited on polyphonic chordophones for as long as there have been documented tunings. It's present on renaissance lute, vihuela, even the 6-course versions of the earliest gut-strung mandolins. For scalar passages on scale lengths comparable to guitars, tuning in 4ths lends itself to comfortable three-fingers-to-a-string, one-finger-to-a-fret scale fingerings.

There are more diverse styles and there is more diverse dedicated composed music for tunings in mostly 4ths than any human being could possibly explore in a lifetime. I don't necessarily think any of it is any more cliched than approaching music from a perspective of tuning in 5ths. I suppose it depends on where you started and if you've come to perceive yourself as in a rut.

All that said, I don't see much point to tuning modern 4-course mandolins in 4ths. It limits range and crowds fingerings.

...And welcome Dan! (That's not your real name, is it?)

[groveland]

Okay, so I was a bit overzealous. A little.

I think I may have messed around with tunings as much as the next guy. For me, 5ths makes the most sense as a general solution across a fretboard, even on longer scale instruments. Tetrachord per string fingerings, easily identifiable and repeating patterns, circle-of-fifths rotations, consistent interval layout, symmetry, an elegant, consistent solution... You can see I'm pretty enthusiastic about it! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif