should I try GDAE?

[Granger]

So my background has been baritone uke DGBe and tenor guitar with the same tuning now for 4 years. I play mostly songs written for guitar in a chord melody or solo flat picking style, some blues, some rock, some old time. Lately I have been drifting towards bluegrass and fiddle tunes. I have messed around with GDAE tuning in the past, but not seriously.

For those of you that have played these tunings, is the change to a 5ths tuning and the increase in the instruments range with low G to C# enough of a reason to seriously begin using this tuning for bluegrass and fiddle tunes?? I can leave one of my tenors in DGBE and change one or two to GDAE no problem.

[DavidKOS]

If you want to play any fiddle/mandolin repertoire in a tuning other than Chicago tuning (DGBE) then GDAE is the way to go.

It doesn't matter if it is bluegrass and fiddle tunes or Italian music or whatever - much of it was written for 5ths tuned instruments. The tunes very often lay under the fingers in 5ths tuning.

I really play 2 string tunings mostly....guitar/uk tunings and mandolin tunings. Both are great and worth learning.

[Granger]

[QUOTE=DavidKOS;1610231]If you want to play any fiddle/mandolin repertoire in a tuning other than Chicago tuning (DGBE) then GDAE is the way to go.

It doesn't matter if it is bluegrass and fiddle tunes or Italian music or whatever - much of the time The tunes very often lay under the fingers in 5ths tuning.

Thank you for this comment. That is a very useful way to look at it "The tune very often lay under the fingers". I had not thought of it in quite that way before. I have heard people say that 5ths tuning is "more instinctive" or "easier to learn a melody" with it. Sometimes folks describe 5ths as a more open sound, but they are referring to playing chords.

[EdHanrahan]

IMHO, folks are unnecessarily daunted at the prospect of learning a new tuning/instrument. Prevented by a shoulder injury from playing guitar for 18 months or so, I dove into mandolin where I had previously known only the basic chords. Mandolin (plus being out of work for half a year) led to exploring the music theory that I had assiduously avoided for the prior 4 or 5 decades. By the time I got back to (read: flexible enough to play) guitar, I was amazed at how much the mando & theory knowledge helped my grasp on guitar, simplifying the fingerboard. Doesn't sound like that should make sense, does it? Such is life!

[Granger]

Ed,

Thanks for your insight and experience with both tunings. I have done quite a bit of study on music theory, scales practice (I know huh!! But I'm retired and winters are long in Maine) as it applies to the guitar stnd tuning and hope that this will now be fairly easy to transfer to a 5ths tuning. You are encouraging me to take the plunge so that is perhaps the push I need.

Tom

[DavidKOS]

Thank you for this comment. That is a very useful way to look at it "The tune very often lay under the fingers". I had not thought of it in quite that way before. I have heard people say that 5ths tuning is "more instinctive" or "easier to learn a melody" with it. Sometimes folks describe 5ths as a more open sound, but they are referring to playing chords.

After all, fiddle tunes were written for fiddle tuning, other than the special ones in an open tuning...and you can re-tune the mandolin for those fiddle tunes too, if you want.

[David Colpitts]

As a recent (one and a half year) convert to strings, I must say, literally, that "I owe it all to GDAE tuning!" I never could grasp the intervals in standard guitar, nor uke tuning, but somehow when I read I might tune a soprano uke like a mandolin and play linear tunes, so to speak, the lights came on! I actually believe the fiddle players have had their deep secret for centuries, in short: It's easy! Well, of course it ain't easy, but it is logical, consistent, and approachable. My "fleet" now contains a classic Gibson mandolin-banjo, a banjo-uke, two "vanilla" wooden soprano ukes, my dad's 20's tenor banjo, a baritone uke and even a Merlin from Seagull Guitars. Everything is tuned GDAE (in the appropriate octaves) and the fingering opens them all up for me. I don't "do" chords, and realize they are easier in other tunings, but I love getting more fluent in melodies. Plenty of others do chords, anyway.

Have a great time!

David

[Granger]

David,

You have pushed me over the edge!! Restringing one now!

Thanks for the encouragement.

Tom

[Charles E.]

It will require some stretches to hit those notes when playing a fiddle tune (compared to mandolin) but well worth the effort.

Youtube has some good videos of folks playing fiddle tunes on tenor guitars tuned GDAE.

[mandoglobal]

Yes, you should try GDAE.

[fifths]

I drifted into playing melody on a low G tenor uke, and from there, learning fiddle tunes on it...switching to fifths tuning not only opens you up to those tunes being "under the fingers" but also just changes what melodies jump out when you are noodling or improvising.

[mandroid]

Particularly long scale TG, the tenor banjo CGDA Tuning may be a better feel .

Chord fingerings the same, only the names differ.

[SincereCorgi]

Keep in mind that the stretches are very large compared to a mandolin or violin- you can't use violin fingerings without lots of adaptions and compromises. I initially tried to learn CGDA tenor guitar using viola methods, but after a while it was impossible to use the fingerings as suggested, especially at faster tempos. Maybe try an easy cello book just to get used to it? There's almost zero TG-exclusive learning materials.

[Lord of the Badgers]

you should also try GDAD (normally zouk tuning) - lends itself to the longer scale length of a typical tenor IMO. But not always!
I love it for song writing. I do also tune CDGA to CGDG - bit addicted to that interval!

[Granger]

Great suggestions. I will be playing on the 21" scale so that will help on some of the streatches.

Tom

[Lord of the Badgers]

tis my favourite tuning variant because i'm a songwriter not a tune player. I'd like to get into ADAD, but haven't given that time (or indeed, DGDG for that matter).

[Granger]

Well gang, I restrung the Kala to GDAE then I took some graph paper and made a fret board map and began looking for triads for major, minor and 7th chords. Then looked at movable bar chord shapes that could be used for the basic chords, then looked at double stop combos. As they say "the light bulb came on". It really does make sense, the patterns are very repeatable, WOW.... not a lot weird exceptions like you find in DGBE tuning. I'm pretty excited to get started. I transcribed a simple blues piece in G that I had written for DGBE and played through it looking at how the fingering changed, particularly on the A/E strings vs the the G/B/E on the old Chicago tuning. So it all seems doable and now the work and fun begins.
I like having the nice bass G, The G/D double stops up the neck sound better than the using the D/G inverted double stops in the old tuning, particularly in blues playing.

Thanks for the input and the encouragement. I think this learning curve should be easier than just starting out as I did 4 years ago as so much of the basic knowledge and technique will be able to be transferred over, in addition to the fact that 5th tuning makes more sense to me already.

Tom

Tom

[Lord of the Badgers]

My only problem with Fifths is that you find it harder to find "odd" chords. Not that I don't know a bunch... they're just a little more simple in feeling. Do learn diminished sevenths though btw.. my stock in trade for spicing up a sequence.
(EA)DGBE is great for finding lovely jazzy chords which I adore. But... fifths is just as you say... logical.
I have never learnt six strings scales because I find it hard, but even with my appalling level of practice on a GDAE/CGDA instrument using FFcP i know most common scales all the way up to 12th fret. It's just four overlapping patterns after all for a major scale!
What's this FFcP business? It's this