Strange tuning

[Bslot0622]

Does anyone have any ideas on weird or different ways to tune a mandolin, meaning other than standard GDAE tuning?

I'm messing around with tuning the individual strings differently. It makes for fun experimentation, but not so easy playing.

[mandroid]

never mind, Paul covered it better while I was composing ..
:popcorn:

[Paul Kotapish]

One quick way to get a different sound is to split the lower courses (G and D) into octaves--like a 12-string guitar. Joe Craven does that and it sounds great. I can't remember which gauges work best, but some I believe an unwound .018 will work for the G and a .012 or .014 will work for the D.

Bill Monroe used a couple of altered or cross tunings to get harmonies within a single course. He may have used others, too, but these are commonly known:
"Get Up John" (F#A DD AA DE)
"My Last Days on Earth" (G#G# C#C# G#B C#E)

And of course you could use any number of common fiddle cross tunings. These are mostly used in trad Appalachian fiddle-and-banjo music, but are adaptable to the mandolin. The altered tunings facilitate open drone strings and on a lot of the tunes the melody is restricted to just a couple of strings with the adjacent open strings bowed for an ongoing drone.

FCGD = Cajun Tuning (one whole step down from GDAE)
GDGB = Open G Tuning
GDGD = Sawmill Tuning or "Cross G"
GDAD = "Gee-Dad"
DDAD = Dead Man's Tuning, or Open D Tuning, or Bonaparte's Retreat Tuning, or "Dee-Dad"
ADAE = Old-Timey D Tuning
AEAE = Cross Tuning, "Cross A", "High Bass, High Counter" (or "High Bass, High Tenor"); similar to Sawmill Tuning
AEAC♯ = Black Mountain Rag Tuning, Calico Tuning, Open A Tuning, or Drunken Hiccups Tuning
AEAD for Old Sledge, Silver Lake
EDAE for Glory in the Meeting House
EEAE for Get up in the Cool

This list is from the Wikipedia article on Scordatura--a pretty good intro to the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scordatura

I'd say the AEAE, AEAC#, and GDGD tunings are pretty commonly used--the others perhaps a bit less so. Note that in the DDAD tuning, the bottom D is a full octave below the standard D on a mando or fiddle. It works on a fiddle but can be tricky to keep in tune. On a mando, you might need to swap out gauges to make it work.

If you were going to use any of these regularly for performing, you'd probably want to use a second mandolin. Retuning this radically--and getting back to standard again--would really take some time.

Have fun.

[Mike Bunting]

Paul. is there a recorded reference you could point me to for Glory in the Meeting House? Thanks

[Paul Kotapish]

Paul. is there a recorded reference you could point me to for Glory in the Meeting House? Thanks

Here's a nice video performance of Glory in the Meeting House on fiddle in EDAE--with the G string dropped to low E. That low string isn't noted--it's a drone against the notes fingered on the D string. It helps to see how it's bowed to get how the tuning is used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk0-0y_IeMc

Bruce Molsky recorded a great version of it on Contented Must Be:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bruce+Molsky/Contented+Must+Be

I've recorded several versions over the years--with the Hurricane Ridgerunners back in the '70s and with Kevin Burke's Open House in the '90s. I can't remember whether Armin Barnett dropped the low string for that or not, but Kevin played--and still plays it--out of standard tuning. I do, too, although on some occassions I actually capo to get drones on the D string.

The tune is in E.

[Mike Bunting]

Thanks, there appears to be two versions.

[Paul Kotapish]

There are many variants of the tune--often associated with Kentucky fiddler Luther Strong--although I think the three parts (or two parts plus octave variant) are pretty much the same structurally in most versions.

The purpose of the links was to show how the retuning on the low string works. In the examples I gave, Bruce plays a more fully articulated version of the melody and the the order and length in which the parts are played is different in the two examples--neither of them the way I play it.

I think of it as an AABBAACC tunes, with the B in the low octave and the C an octave higher--which requires playing it up a few positions or having a big shift in the middle of the phrase. The setting we recorded with the Hurricane Ridgerunners was copied by a lot of bluegrass folks over the years, including Laurie Lewis, who quite generously gave us credit for it.

The guy in the video--I don't know his name--starts with the part I consider the B part.

There's a whole bunch more info about the provenance and variations of the tune--including ABC notation for at two settings of it here: http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/GLA_GLU.htm

Scroll down.

Have fun.