Get Up John and tuning

[CarlM]

Are there any other songs, aside from Get Up John, Monroe or anyone else did in the Get Up John tuning?

[sblock]

Yup, pretty much the only Monroe tune is "Get Up John," tuned to F#A-DD-AA-AD (low to high). But Sam Bush was evidently inspired by this to tune his four-string resonator mandolin to A-D-A-D, which is practically the same. He uses this for lots of slide playing.
from: https://www.premierguitar.com/articl...o-mando?page=2

Q: What’s your slide tuning?

Sam's A: From the first string to the fourth, it’s D–A–D–A. [Editor’s note: Bush is describing his tuning high to low.] There’s no defining major or minor third in that tuning, so you can’t really play chords, though I do play some rhythm on it. That tuning is a 4-string version of Bill Monroe’s open-D 8-string cross-tuning for “Get Up John.” Bill Monroe never played blues slide mandolin, but he sure influenced me.

[tree]

I gotta think Tim O'Brien "split tuned" tuned his E course to something like that for his breaks in Pow Wow The Indian Boy, which (IMHO) are 2 of the most brilliant, bada$$ed mandolin solos EVER. It sounds to me like he just plays on the G, D and A strings (staying off the "split tuned" course) until the end of his breaks, and just sucker punches us with them at or near the end of each break. Makes me stand up and holler every time.

[sblock]

I gotta think Tim O'Brien "split tuned" tuned his E course to something like that for his breaks in Pow Wow The Indian Boy, which (IMHO) are 2 of the most brilliant, bada$$ed mandolin solos EVER. It sounds to me like he just plays on the G, D and A strings (staying off the "split tuned" course) until the end of his breaks, and just sucker punches us with them at or near the end of each break. Makes me stand up and holler every time.

Are you referring to these two breaks that Tim O'Brien takes with Hot Rize? Great mando work, as ever -- but I don't hear any split tuning. He does, however, perform some string bends out of standard tuning towards the end of the break. Maybe that's what you're hearing?

[Phil Goodson]

I think we discussed once that Skaggs did "Daniel Prayed" using GUJ tuning on the video with Patty Loveless. Sounds great. (his break is at 50 sec.)

[tree]

Are you referring to these two breaks that Tim O'Brien takes with Hot Rize? Great mando work, as ever -- but I don't hear any split tuning. He does, however, perform some string bends out of standard tuning towards the end of the break. Maybe that's what you're hearing?

I agree there is no "split tuning" in the live clip posted, but the iTunes version I have is from their debut album Hot Rize (I think), which also includes a fiddle break, and I do hear the split tuning there. On both mandolin breaks, at or near the end. And I think it's just the E course that is split, and he bends that split course at least once. He just KILLS it, man - plain unvarnished genius!

[dhergert]

There is a pro who is known to use a lot of alternate tunings, might be worth it to listen to some of his work...

Frank Wakefield

[CarlM]

Thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking that as long as I am retuning a mandolin to learn Get Up John that I could pick up something else at the same time.