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Thread: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

  1. #26
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    Historically, how did GDAE tuning become the standard mandolin tuning? Was it simply a convenience for violin players who also wanted to play the mandolin? Or was it actually part of the evolution of the mandolin?
    I'd be interested to know that as well. As far as I know the mandolin evolved from the lute family in Italy around the 17th or 18th century. Then again I also thought the violin came from Italy, just a century or two earlier.

  2. #27

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Interesting thread! Here are some pieces (Christmas tunes) that I did with GDAD tuning. I really love that tuning and the possibilities it present for arranging.



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBMAIz4DM-g

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  4. #28

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings


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  6. #29

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by Explorer View Post
    I spent some time learning music for the mandore (the mandolin ancestor), using the tunings GDGD, GDGC and GDGB.

    I then spent some time learning some lap dulcimer pieces on the bottom three courses (equivalent pitch spacing to dulcimer's DAD tuning), and did other experiments to really understand how drones and open strings could be incorporated fully.
    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    So since we're talking about alternative mandolin tunings, let's complete the picture... Historically, how did GDAE tuning become the standard mandolin tuning? Was it simply a convenience for violin players who also wanted to play the mandolin? Or was it actually part of the evolution of the mandolin?
    Quote Originally Posted by MandoNina View Post
    I'd be interested to know that as well. As far as I know the mandolin evolved from the lute family in Italy around the 17th or 18th century. Then again I also thought the violin came from Italy, just a century or two earlier.
    François Chancy's Tablature de Mandore, published in 1629, reveals a mixed fifth-fourth-fifth tuning (CGCG, with some detuning to CGCF and CGCE here and there), and other mandole/mandore for four- and five-course instruments which also have mixed fifths-fourths tunings.

    Something of interest I learned from a 2011 article in the Lute Society of America Journal is that diatonic citterns/lutes, fretted in the same way as diatonic lap dulcimers, were actually common, and that many chromatic instruments even continued to mark the frets which were the diatonic frets with differently-colored wood inserts around those frets. The tablature for those diatonic instruments reveals some pretty hearty music. Again, the tuning, similar to the fifth-fourth tuning of lap dulcimers, is alternating fifths and fourths.

    The purely fifths-tuned Neapolitan mandolin came about many years after these earlier ancestors, and the earlier instances were meant to be sonorous and full, with octave stringing. I strongly suspect that violin emulation was the reason for the abandonment of the former fuller role of the instrument, abandoning the more chordally-capable role in pursuit of violin melodic work.
    ----

    Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.

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  8. #30

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    You are correct. I meant to say "seemingly arcane and seemingly arbitrary".
    Well, I just wanted to point out that there are reasons to use various tunings. Just as with other instruments (you mentioned the variety of fiddle tunings, for example) - the guitar, or guitar player, is no different. I'm not aware of any evidence that would lead me to believe that inherent differences exist between guitarists and other instrument players, vis a vis reasons for using various tunings.

    So if you understand this WRT fiddle/mndln, the guitarist's practice shouldn't seem any more arcane.

  9. #31
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    And what would be a blues tuning?

    I'd like to start playing around with a slide on the mandolin and I guess blues tuning could be a way to go.

  10. #32
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by sblock View Post
    Well, you folks seem to have omitted what may be the most idiosyncratic mandolin tuning of all time, namely, the tuning Bill Monroe used for recording "My Last Days on Earth," in the key of Dm. He tuned his mandolin to:

    AA DD AC DF

    note the 'split string' tunings on the first and second courses. I am not aware of any tune, besides this one, that uses this particular tuning.
    Well, here are four tunes from the parlor music era of the last century that are composed for split string tunings. Two use GG BD AA EE and the other two use GG DD AF# EE
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails parlorTunings.pdf  
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  12. #33
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by MandoNina View Post
    And what would be a blues tuning?

    I'd like to start playing around with a slide on the mandolin and I guess blues tuning could be a way to go.
    I've never tried bottleneck mandolin, but I'm going to guess here that, like with squareneck Dobro, you'd probably want an open tuning. One such tuning is the one I discussed earlier in this thread, which I use routinely for regular mandolin playing. It is GGCCEEGG (basically open C tuning).

    If you want to keep a mandolin tuned for this tuning, you may also want heavier 2nd and 1st string courses. I use .017 and .015 respectively for those string courses. On the other hand, if you use standard strings and plan to tune back to standard tuning, be prepared to have your E strings break due to repetitive stress at the tuner shaft.

    Good luck with this, you're breaking new ground!
    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


    2002 Gibson F-9
    2016 MK LFSTB
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    [About how I tune my mandolins]
    [Our recent arrival]

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  14. #34

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by MandoNina View Post
    And what would be a blues tuning?

    I'd like to start playing around with a slide on the mandolin and I guess blues tuning could be a way to go.
    In the interest of not hurting the instrument, the easiest slide tuning would be GDGD, just dropping the top two strings by a whole step. That lets you bar across the whole thing, or to use the lower strings as drones and to slide on the upper courses.

    I've also seen slide work just on the top two courses with no retuning, against the bottom two drone courses.

    The Mandocrucian has an alternate approach, as discussed in theis "Blues Mando" topic.

    https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...73-Slide-Mando

    Quote Originally Posted by mandocrucian View Post
    Glad you guys find my approach to slide interesting.

    I came up with the Two Slide Solution ten years or so ago. (Maybe it was even longer). This is a result of thinking function. The question was not "How much can I get out with the (conventional) slide)?", but rather, "What is it that I'd want to do, utilizing a slide type technique?" The first question concerned itself with mechanics, while the second is about overall sound without preconceptions of how it was to be done.

    Even in an open tuning (GDGD) your doublestops are 5ths and 4ths. #You've got the 5ths in standard tuning anyway. Unless there's 3rds in the tuning, there's going to be a lot of jumping around with the slide, unlike on (open tuned) guitar where you are only 1 or 2 frets away, in either direction, from the note you want. If you want to do that sort of Bob Brozeman 30's Hawaiian/swing stuff, it doesn't matter cause lots of fast single string lines moving up and down the neck with the slide gives you that sound.

    On single strings, slanting the slide of bar is standard technique, but if you do it on an 8 string mando, the slant is going to put the pair slightly out of tune, which is why Bush uses only 4 strings.

    Conventional slides also keep you from using open adjacent (higher) strings while playing a note with the slide. #Because I can use the rounded tip to play notes, I don't block adjacent strings. #It's like using a steel guitar "bullet" to play on just one string. #So I can do dobro licks and such. #I can also split strings with the slide.

    As far as barring, in standard tuning, it's pretty much perfect 5ths, so the slide doesn't need to be long. If it can cover 2 courses, that's as much as you need. #So, the question still remains: How can I get all those other intervals with a slide, whether it is blues guitar, or country lap steel vocabulary? Alternate tunings? That gives you a little bit more. #But that's still thinking inside the box.

    But TWO SLIDES ....... I can play a whole variety of doublestops including the 4ths and the major and minor 3rds. And when 5ths are included, triplestops with the slide(s). And because I'm not having to slant the bar/slide, I avoid throwing the courses out of tune.

    Plus because I have two slides, there is an alternative to the stacatto, lots of shifting one slide, approach. With two slides, I can transition in the 2nd slide fairly seamlessly (sonically), between notes or runs. Hence "Vigilante Man" ala Ry Cooder type stuff is now on the menu.

    Incidentally, the bottom half of the slides are cylindrical for playing on two strings. Keeping the hex edges on the top half, rather than grinding them down as well, was just to retain that little extra bit of weight/mass. It the slides are too lightweight, it's hard to get anything out of them. #The inside threads were drilled out and the holes enlarged so they can fit over the fingertips.

    Niles H

    <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>©2004 Niles Hokkanen</span>
    ----

    Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.

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  16. #35
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    If you want to keep a mandolin tuned for this tuning, you may also want heavier 2nd and 1st string courses. I use .017 and .015 respectively for those string courses. On the other hand, if you use standard strings and plan to tune back to standard tuning, be prepared to have your E strings break due to repetitive stress at the tuner shaft.
    Yes thats one of the things I'm afraid of. I've been advised in a different thread to only string my mandolin with light gauges, due to it's age and build, so heavier strings doesn't seem to be an option.

  17. #36
    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by MandoNina View Post
    Yes thats one of the things I'm afraid of. I've been advised in a different thread to only string my mandolin with light gauges, due to it's age and build, so heavier strings doesn't seem to be an option.
    If you're referring to my description of <<... you may also want heavier 2nd and 1st string courses. I use .017 and .015 respectively for those string courses...>>...

    These gauge selections in the GCeg tuning are based on an expectation of medium gauge wound .039 G and D .026 (tuned to C) strings. When those .017 and .015 strings are tuned to E and high G they are still far lower tension than standard medium gauge strings tuned to A and E. That .017 E is tuned five frets lower than the standard A and the .015 high G is tuned nine frets lower than the standard high E. With the consideration that the D string is also tuned two frets lower at C, this GCeg tuning is a pretty low tension tuning.

    If you're using light gauge strings and want to figure the ideal gauges out for this GCeg tuning, you'd want your 2nd course to be at least .007 lighter than your 3rd course, and your 1st course to be at least .002 lighter than your 2nd course.

    That said, I would agree with Explorer that this GCeg tuning may include a lot of changes on a mandolin that may sometime need to be re-tuned back to standard tuning -- I use GCeg all the time, but I never try to go back to standard tuning, so I don't break strings or have to readjust action.

    If you can use Explorer's tuning suggestion (GDgd) you'll probably find you don't have to use heavier treble strings. You may also have better luck making this change without breaking your light gauge E strings.
    Last edited by dhergert; Apr-05-2018 at 2:59pm.
    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


    2002 Gibson F-9
    2016 MK LFSTB
    1975 Suzuki taterbug (plus many other noisemakers)
    [About how I tune my mandolins]
    [Our recent arrival]

  18. #37

    Default Re: Alternative Mandolin Tunings

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    That said, I would agree with Explorer that this GCeg tuning may include a lot of changes on a mandolin that may sometime need to be re-tuned back to standard tuning -- I use GCeg all the time, but I never try to go back to standard tuning, so I don't break strings or have to readjust action.

    If you can use Explorer's tuning suggestion (GDgd) you'll probably find you don't have to use heavier treble strings. You may also have better luck making this change without breaking your light gauge E strings.
    Additionally, there's no huge advantage to limiting the tuning to an octave by including the third, whether a major or a minor. Blues are fluid in terms of the third, and if those who already played blues slide know that the sliding can center on that second and third fret.

    Just to give an example of a slide appiied to a fiths-tuned instrument, here's Carly Gibson playing a Warren Ellis model tenor guitar from Eastwood. The slide gets used after 6:15.



    She didn't change tuning at all, which is how I generally use a short, heavy glass knuckle slide on mandolin.

    I'm a big fan of not dong massive changes before giving things a more limited test run. In this case, just trying a slide on mando at the music store, and seeing if it's comfortable and usable in both standard and drop-top GDGD tuning, is a quick test for fitness of purpose.

    And, of course, you can then use slide guitar tutorials for Open A and Open F tuning, which will share the intervals on Drop Top GDGD on the botton four strings, should you decide to do the retuning route. Here's one such tutorial from a Mr. John Winter.

    https://www.guitarworld.com/acoustic...ng-open-tuning

    Good luck!
    ----

    Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.

    Love mandola?
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