Who Tunes down their mando?

[Stone soup]

My mandolin always seems too high strung. Maybe its just me but i like the strings looser. I tuned my breedlove down to F C G D and found it easier to play, better sustain and the scale progressions seem easier. im in the process of transposing chords and that no big deal either. What say ye all of you about this?

[Phil Goodson]

Play a banjo.

[Stone soup]

ah....okay. thanks

[MikeEdgerton]

There's no right or wrong way to tune or play any instrument in my book, what works for you is what works for you. With that said the mandolin is not like the guitar or any other instrument. The guitar will give you pleasant sounding music of one sort or another with little effort. With the mandolin it's not going to give you anything. You have to go in and take it and when you get the hang of it it's a great thing. The problem with working around your own limitations is that you never get to know what the instrument will really do. If the strings are tough on your fingers the first thing I would do would be to try lighter gauge strings. If you're looking for a lower register try a mandola or a tenor guitar (or banjo). There are actually different fiddle and mandolin tunings that people use. I'm pretty sure you aren't the only person to try this tuning.

[Phil Goodson]

Okay Stone... you made me feel guilty.

I just wonder what always makes folks want to change stuff so much. A mandolin is tuned like a mandolin. Does anyone ever say, " I think I'll tune my violin down a half tone? I know that alternate tunings are done to facilitate certain songs etc. but just tuning down to make the strings looser? Why not use a lighter gauge at the same tuning?

Bottom line: do what makes you happy. Just don't tell me.

I stop at stop signs every time too.

[Stone soup]

thanks mike, my intention was to see who has tried this or thought about it. ive been playing for close to forty years and old age is starting to take away my tolerance for heavy gauge strings. i have tried the lighter gauges with some success, but nothing ventured nothing gained. i have already tuned back to concert pitch, ill just take longer to wArm up before a gig.

[Stone soup]

its all good phil, actually i play banjo quite a bit.

[stevedenver]

In reading the OP,
two things come to mind,
set up and string gauge
and
simply, they take a bit of practice to build the hands, and technique.

You need to do this daily, slowly, and not overdo it.

What gauge strings are you currently playing?

I think its fine whatever you do in the privacy of your own home ,which is what I assume (LOL), but, when it comes to playing with others or even recordings, you may find there are 'problems', like all those tunes you learned in G or A or D, which don't seem to fit with everyone else in a jam (although you can certainly capo-'cos they cant tune down practically speaking).

If your mando is tough to play, the first thing is a good set up (do NOT underestimate how important this to comfort and playability), and imho, the second is light strings, and, I find light or medium Tomastik flat wounds to be just the ticket, albeit pricey-decent sound, and very very nice on the hands.

IMHO, mando has a somewhat purposeful tonal range-ie the guitar past the 12th fret, sorta, and this can be important in the overall 'fit" in a band-i.e. every instrument covering a certain range-not that anything's written in stone, and I do love the mandola.

I find that too little tension makes the bass strings sound flabby when playing hard-otoh, I can see if you're playing fiddle tunes quietly, at home, it would be just fine.

Odd thing is, that after playing a lot, and about four years now, I find I actually like higher tension and heavier strings for the sound quality and driving the top hard-it IS harder on the hands however.

I'm all for experimenting, but, I would suggest that developing your technique might include playing the instrument at pitch. There's not a lot of neck to capo.

Do what you like and works.

[Stone soup]

Just a side note; i was reading some music journal and the subject was "Concert Pitch, and 440 tuning" appArently the standard tuning was lower at some point in history. thats all i remember about the article. probably bull, but it got me thinking.

[stevedenver]

Tt was once at 430/431 I believe-the definitive answer is on the siminoff mandolin site in the history of Loars.

[Wolfboy]

I just wonder what always makes folks want to change stuff so much. A mandolin is tuned like a mandolin. Does anyone ever say, " I think I'll tune my violin down a half tone?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact...sort of...

As has been mentioned, "standard" pitch has only been A440 since sometime in the early twentieth century. Before that it wasn't particularly standardized, but it was lower as a rule, and modern-day Baroque and Renaissance instrumentalists often tune to a lower pitch standard in the interest of historical accuracy (along with using gut strings, little or no vibrato, violins and cellos with shorter necks, etc.). I have several recordings by Baroque violinists like Rachel Podger and Baroque cellists like Pieter Wispelwey performing Bach at A415, for example, which is roughly a half step down from modern A440 (and on Wispelwey's most recent recording of the Bach cello suites he's tuned to A392, which is about a whole step down; his research has led him to believe that that was the prevailing pitch standard at the time and place the suites were composed).

My personal opinion is that if the tension of the strings is physically uncomfortable for you, there are other solutions besides tuning down - lighter strings, lower action - but if you're tuning down for a specific musical/sonic purpose, there's no reason not to, and plenty of historical precedent.

(Going the other direction, Flatt and Scruggs and other bluegrass bands tuned up a half step in the early '50s, for maximum power and projection in those days of little or no amplification - which I suppose is why the pitch standard gradually crept up to A440 anyway; they just took it that much further, reinforcing the idea that there's nothing sacred about A440 if you don't want there to be.)

[MikeEdgerton]

thanks mike, my intention was to see who has tried this or thought about it. ive been playing for close to forty years and old age is starting to take away my tolerance for heavy gauge strings. i have tried the lighter gauges with some success, but nothing ventured nothing gained. i have already tuned back to concert pitch, ill just take longer to wArm up before a gig.

If you've been playing mandolin for 40 years feel free to do whatever you want to. You know what you have, make it work for you and don't worry about what the rest of us have to say. You'll confuse the crap out of the young players at a jam that are trying to follow you and that's really ok with me.

[sgarrity]

It worked alright for Yank Rachell

[metrognome]

Not only is my mando tuned down a half-step, so are my guitars and my bass. That's just the norm for the musician's I perform with. I heard that it was the harmonica player's fault because he wouldn't know which harp to pull out if the guitars were tuned standard, and everyone likes the harmonica player to have the right harp
...

[Tom Coletti]

FBbFC:



DDAD:



GDGD:



Gives it a nice sort of mellowness or drone to it, neat to play around with in celtic, blues, etc.

--Tom

[Jim Garber]

Does anyone ever say, " I think I'll tune my violin down a half tone?

Cajun fiddlers tune down a full tone (as the OP does) but mainly to play more open strings in tune with the accordions who play in C, more or less.

And of course, old time fiddlers have a good handful of alternate tunings.

Another possibility for the OP is to play mandola.

[Josh Kaplan]

Paul McCartney plays Dance Tonight on a mandolin tuned one step down. I tried it and liked the jangley sound, for this song, anyway.

[Steve Ostrander]

I heard that it was the harmonica player's fault because he wouldn't know which harp to pull out if the guitars were tuned standard, and everyone likes the harmonica player to have the right harp

You can get a harmonica in any key you want, including minor. Sounds like your guy only owns one harp. Is he immune to HAS?

[Phil Goodson]

Cajun fiddlers tune down a full tone (as the OP does) but mainly to play more open strings in tune with the accordions who play in C, more or less.

And of course, old time fiddlers have a good handful of alternate tunings.

Another possibility for the OP is to play mandola.

Well, when I brought this up I figured I'd hear about the exceptions for sure.

My point was that down tuning just for comfort tends to cause confusion when playing with others and that there are probably better ideas.

Retuning up or down for specific musical reasons is another matter entirely in my mind. And more power to you in those cases.

Carry on.

[CES]

I'm just impressed that you're able to revoice your chords on the fly. I've only been doing this a few years and am very much in the learning phase, from both theory and method standpoints, and the thought of having to figure out and relearn my chord "library" makes my brain hurt! Just having to transpose mando and bass parts on the fly as the singers/guitar players in our praise band change song keys is bad enough!

More power to ya, man!! And, don't worry about what any of us think...work it out how you need to to keep playing, and run with it!

[ajh]

I got the bug for a mandola about a year ago after buying an old Bruno 16" scale electric tuned to ADGC and loving it. 16" is the normal scale for old Gibson mandolas.....a lot of the new ones are 17" and not as nice sounding to my ear. I then wound up finding a 4 string Darren Craig cutaway guitar shaped mando with a (approx.)15" scale tuned EADG (light strings) and started messing with it to try to get ADGC. Had to lengthen the scale and then do a bunch of messing with strings and recutting the bridge for intonation but finally got it pretty close. In the end I wound up with 15.5" scale and D'Addario PhBr 14/22/32/45.
THEN I decided to take the plunge and change over my Rossow mandolin (13.78" scale) and go totally to dola tuning as I don't play bluegrass and liked the lower range of tuning.....and could not make the mental changeover when switching back and forth from mando to dola fingering (that is fairly easy until you have to deal with muscle memory on the old E string). I got in touch with Rossow and he recut the old bridge, played around with strings and got the intonation right. I liked that for awhile, but didn't like the tone so decided to mess with it some more. I got a blank bridge from Cumberland as a backup (I knew I was going to mess up the bridge...and I did). It took some messing with, but I finally got what I wanted. In the end I wound up just using J72 strings with intonation of the bridge at C/356mm G/354.75mm D/355.25mm a/355mm. I love it and ain't going back....wound up selling my 24 Ajr because I couldn't bring myself to doing that mod to it. Just wasn't "right" to do it. I hope Glen is still enjoying it.

[Lord of the Badgers]

I used to have my spare mandolin in GDAD like my Bouzouki. Rather partial to that tuning, somehow feels quite logical. Sounds nice too.

[hippieNug]

So after reading this I gave it a shot. It took a while for the Weber to adjust to it but once it settled in I really dug it. The strings do seem to have more of that guitar "feel". I'm a rank novice to be sure, so it's taking some getting used to to finger out all my favorite fiddle tunes in G and A.

[mandroid]

Have used a tune down to F C G D pitch on my nylon strung banjoUke .. with a spruce 'head' .

So I guess you'd call it a classical guitar feel ..

[Astro]

Happens often...

...just not on purpose.