Has anyone tried tuning a tenor uke to mandolin tuning; if so what were the results; pros and cons? Thanks.
Has anyone tried tuning a tenor uke to mandolin tuning; if so what were the results; pros and cons? Thanks.
Thanks for your support?
The slightly longer scale will make fretting some chords harder but the soprano uke makes a decent mandouke. I use one as a quieter practice "mando".
There are Aquila Nylgut strings for fifths GDAE tuning -- but they're designed for soprano uke. Would they take being tuned to the same pitch on the longer tenor scale? You might try a set and see.
Don't put steel mandolin strings on your tenor ukulele, for sure. That would do damage.
Allen Hopkins
Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
Natl Triolian Dobro mando
Victoria b-back Merrill alumnm b-back
H-O mandolinetto
Stradolin Vega banjolin
Sobell'dola Washburn b-back'dola
Eastmn: 615'dola 805 m'cello
Flatiron 3K OM
From my personal experience, there is ZERO chance of tuning the Aquila GDAE Nylgut set to mandolin pitch on a tenor ukulele scale of around 17 inches. The E string will pop well below the mandolin pitch. It will even break trying to tune GDAE on concert 15 inch scale. However, I've had excellent results with tenor and concert ukuleles at mandola CGDA tuning using the Aquila 31U Nylgut Concert (Mandolin Tuning CGDA) Ukulele Strings. Two sets on 8 string tenors at mandola tuning is especially pleasing.
Tenor ukes work great in CGDA mandola tuning. GDAE, not so much - you need a shorter scale uke.
bratsche
"There are two refuges from the miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer
GearGems - Gifts & apparel for musicians and more!
MandolaViola's YouTube Channel
Ukulele tenor are typically strung GCEA either linear with G as the lowest note or Reentrant with C as the lowest. The C may be able to be tuned up to D. The two highest strings (E and A) would pose a problem, but probably not insurmountable.
Bookmarks