Roll call: Players of 5ths tuning

I am a new mandolin player and since I already play ukulele I researched the GDAE tuning on soprano uke as a quiet practice and travel mando. I already acquired a selection of Segaur flouro leader as uke strings so I should be able to use those.

I just ordered an inexpensive soprano and I will see what size line I have. I will likely need thinner size for the high E. I will try to let y'all know how it works.

I'm a bit late to this thread...

First I must offer a shout-out and giant kudos to fellow UU brother SteveZ, who helped me and answered like a million questions when I first became interested in fifths tunings. His support, encouragement, advice and enthusiasm, all helped me a great deal to overcome any of my (mostly self-inflicted) impediments, and without his support and generosity I never would have discovered and come to really love the sound of, and playing and writing music in fifths tunings -

so MAHALO SteveZ!!!! :rock:

I will have more details to contribute in another, later post, but since I heard about fifths tunings as an option on the ukulele, I've become kind of obsessed with it, and have the following currently:

1. a 13" scale Melokia soprano in GDAE with the Aquila 30U set

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2. a 15" scale Epiphone Les Paul concert in CGDA with the Aquila 31U set

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3. a 17" scale mango Fluke tenor in re-entrant C4-G4-D4-A4 with Martin M620s

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4. a 17" scale Kala KA-T tenor in a different re-entrant C4-G3-D4-A4 with D'Addario EJ99T-LG

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5. a 20" scale Lanikai LU21-B baritone in re-entrant GDAE (octave mando) with Worth Browns (BB) baritone strings

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6. a 22" scale Oscar Schmidt OGHS steel string acoustic guitar, converted from 6 to 4 strings, linear CGDA, with a custom string set made from D'Addario singles

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7. a 25" scale noname dreadnaught steel string acoustic guitar, converted from 6 to 4 strings, linear GDAE (mandocello), with single courses from the D'Addario octave mando set

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8. a 25" scale noname strat-type steel string electric guitar, converted from 6 to 4 strings, linear AEBF, with a custom string set made from D'Addario singles

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9. an 18" scale Zither-heaven tenor banjo uke, linear CGDA, with a custom string set made from D'Addario STEEL string singles

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10. an 18" scale Zither-heaven tenor banjo uke, linear CGDA, with a custom string set made from various classical guitar string singles
    

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and I must say now that I have typed this out in this post, HOLY CRAP, I did not realize that I have 10 instruments tuned in fifths, and I have another 10+ ukes in variations of uke tunings, as well as many guitars, basses, etc...

I don't use them to learn other tunes. I downloaded a mandolin (GDAE) and mandola/tenor-guitar (CGDA) chord chart PDF from somewhere, and printed them out, and have been using these instruments to write my own music.

I found the chord fingerings pretty easy (been playing guitar for over 30 yrs) and on some of the scale lengths easier than others. I love the symmetry of this tuning, and am discovering lots of movable chord shapes by ear, and loving this process and would hate to be subject to the dogmatic approach of some 'method books' because the aural discovery is part of the pleasure for me...

Discovery of the fretboard in fifths tunings compared to the modified-fourths we use on guitar and uke, or perfect-fourths used on bass has literally opened up a whole new landscape for me to explore.

I love the wide span of the pitches that compose chords in 5ths tunings, and a lot of my music is an adaptation of sort of a Flamenco meets Chord-Melody with a salting of Campanella and other fingerstyle nuances.

Some of the music I've written in fifths tunings, when played on an ukuele in standard GCEA just sounds congested and cramped due to the closer voicing of the chords, and some ukulele songs I've written sound too wide open when played on fifths-tuned instrument.

I don't solo or do runs or muted chunking at all, and trad. mando players will likely see these tunes as blasphemy because I'm not playing like Chris Thile or Sara Jarosz or Sierra Hull (btw, I love ALL their music).

All of my music here in fifths tunings is instrumental by design, and specifically so as there is NO REASON for me to sing, as the melody is already integrated into what I am playing.

I am NOT a great singer and I get much more satisfaction in letting the instrument speak/sing FOR ME.

There are no recordings yet to share, but at some point I hope to have about 2-3 albums worth of music that I've written available online through the usual platforms (CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, etc), but I have to actually record it all first (yes, home studio since 1985 in one form or other).

I've written way more than I though here. I dont have any of the string gauges in memory, but I will have to measure with a digital micrometer and record them, since otherwise I have no way to get replacements if/when a string breaks.

Sorry for my digression and sorry for rambling on so long. I dont even know if I properly answered the topic of this thread and right now feel quite drained, but hopefully this post will offer some insight or inspiration to anyone reading it.

...and thank you for reading all of these words...but now I will depart for a while...

I e had a couple of tenor guitars tuned in Chicago DGBE. Last week I got my Martin tenor strung as CGRA . I love it. Playing arpeggios , they sound so much better. I'm getting a Koolau CE1 in a few days and am considering GDAE tuning for it

What I think is cool is how there are so many iterations withing the construct of a "small 4 string instrument!" As a musician who normally does things abnormally, or non-standard, I applaud other players who have the courage to modifiy an instrument to match their style.

I doubt if I will have more than one ukulele tuned GDAE because the soprano is so close in scale to a mandolin. It's perfect for my application. I am jonesing for a better mandolin however!

My new soprano arrives tomorrow so I am excited to experiment with it but for me any new instrument gets tweaked anyway.

Not ready quite yet because I ordered another Soprano based on this thread.

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...EUR-X1-Soprano-Camp-Uke-Looking-for-a-bargain

I finished up sanding the nut/saddle on the Mahalo from GC and am putting a set of GHS black cheapo's I had (the hairbrush type) as a possible uke for my grandson when we visit next month.

The original plan using fishing leader is still on but with the Enya Soprano instead.

I switched my vintage generic tenor banjo from using reentrant fluorocarbon dGBE to light steel CGDA strings his week. I decided not to move any of my ukes to fifth tuning though.

I bought the Concert Aquila fifths tuned set and put it on my tenor uke tuned CDGA. Made a great uke even better!

Update. I put fluorocarbon leader on the Enya soprano I just acquired and it "works" but I will be getting the Aquila 5ths at some point.

The heaviest leader I have is 80# and it is way too loose for the G. Maybe ok for D. if I had 100# for the G it might be about right, but getting that would be as much or more as the proper set. If I go re entrant I could make it work for sure but melody is what I need to practice most.

Otherwise, it's a great little uke.

Update-

I got the Aquila 30U set and installed it. Took a couple days to tune to pitch and still stretching but it works! Very nice tone, these strings, this is the first time I have used the Nylguts. The strings are smooth and I bet in regular tuning they are not so tight.

Thanks again everyone for your ideas and tips on uke mando tuning!
:shaka:

UkeNukem said:

Update. I put fluorocarbon leader on the Enya soprano I just acquired and it "works" but I will be getting the Aquila 5ths at some point.

The heaviest leader I have is 80# and it is way too loose for the G. Maybe ok for D. if I had 100# for the G it might be about right, but getting that would be as much or more as the proper set. If I go re entrant I could make it work for sure but melody is what I need to practice most.

Otherwise, it's a great little uke.

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I've tried up to 130# fluoro leader, and also 100# leader, and neither worked well for me in tension, tone nor intonation, in trying to build an all-fluoro set in CDGA for tenor or GDAE on baritone.

UkeNukem said:

Update-

I got the Aquila 30U set and installed it. Took a couple days to tune to pitch and still stretching but it works! Very nice tone, these strings, this is the first time I have used the Nylguts. The strings are smooth and I bet in regular tuning they are not so tight.

Thanks again everyone for your ideas and tips on uke mando tuning!

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You might find my new posts linked below helpful for string selection:

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...ukulele-tuning-feasible&p=1988470#post1988470

and

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...ukulele-tuning-feasible&p=1988859#post1988859

Thanks Booli, I did see those.

I noticed this morning that the tension must be pulling the neck because the action is higher at the 12th fret. Not that I can see much bend in the neck. So, whenever I change strings I might sand the bottom of the saddle a wee bit.

The high E is very thin, compared to the line I used before, which I think was 20#. Makes it scary tuning it up, but it made it so far.

When I got the uke I did open up and polish the nut slots and polish both sides of the top of the saddle (based on comments I read here).

Hi. I have a tenor ukulele and want to string it in fifths like a violin GDAE. And I was going to order a 25lb Seaguar line for the E string. And just found your post. Very sad it is not working. There are other fishing line called Seaguar Fluoro Premier. They have smaller diameter for the same pound test value compared to Blue Label. Maybe they will work better for the E. What do you think?

Dmitriy said:

Hi. I have a tenor ukulele and want to string it in fifths like a violin GDAE. And I was going to order a 25lb Seaguar line for the E string. And just found your post. Very sad it is not working. There are other fishing line called Seaguar Fluoro Premier. They have smaller diameter for the same pound test value compared to Blue Label. Maybe they will work better for the E. What do you think?

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I think you're going to have a tough time keeping any E5 on a tenor from snapping. If GDAE on a tenor is the goal, you may have more success to go CGDA or DAEB and capo for it.

Dmitriy said:

Hi. I have a tenor ukulele and want to string it in fifths like a violin GDAE. And I was going to order a 25lb Seaguar line for the E string. And just found your post. Very sad it is not working. There are other fishing line called Seaguar Fluoro Premier. They have smaller diameter for the same pound test value compared to Blue Label. Maybe they will work better for the E. What do you think?

Click to expand...

I use Aquila 31u on my Tenor, tuning it to CGDA like a cello just an octave higher. Works great. All the music and fingerings for GDAE will work.

I have a concert banjolele, a concert uke and a tenor guitar all tuned in CGDA fifths. My tenor banjo and my mando banjo are tuned in GDAE fifths. I might change my DGBD baritone uke too, but I kinda like the way it is.

Though I usually prefer the lower tones, I like the CGDA sound better. Fifths tuning is fun to play I highly recommend it.

I just received two books of Bach’s Cello Suites. One in GDAE and one in CGDA. I’m banging away at the first Prelude now. It seems doable. The books are written in regular music and tabs, so I can play them on a flute too, if I choose to.

Most of the pieces have no chords or only a few easy ones. That suits me just fine. Chords are not my forte’. ld:

Very interesting thread. I come from a guitar background so linear uke came natural and I now also enjoy re-entrant. I have a second concert sized uke coming, and am contemplating a supplemental use for it. The 5ths tuning has potential, becuase I have many friends with mandolins and I am getting intrigued by that instrument but far from willing to buy and learn this, and I am also thinking about having my grandfather's old violin (he died 45 years ago) restored and figuring out how to use that. So a 5ths uke would be a baby step toward this. There are many string options discussed here already, but is someone able to sum this up for what might work for a concert?

Magic Fluke Flea Mandolin

New 4 stringed Mandolin (Magic Fluke concert Flea uke w/ mando tailpiece, hardwood fretboard)
https://www.magicfluke.com/Mandolin-p/flea_mandolin.htm

'Same look and feel of the Flea ukuleles, but set up as a four string mandolin. 14" scale, GDAE tuning,
D'Addario phosphor bronze steel strings, arched top with floating rosewood bridge, 19 fret hardwood fretboard,
Peghed tuners, side sound-port. Optional solid spruce top (pictured).
Choose laminate hoop pine or walnut top for maximum durability; or Adirondack red spruce for big, bright, traditional mandolin sound.
price: $395.00

Wukulele said:

New 4 stringed Mandolin (Magic Fluke concert Flea uke w/ mando tailpiece, hardwood fretboard)
https://www.magicfluke.com/Mandolin-p/flea_mandolin.htm

'Same look and feel of the Flea ukuleles, but set up as a four string mandolin. 14" scale, GDAE tuning,
D'Addario phosphor bronze steel strings, arched top with floating rosewood bridge, 19 fret hardwood fretboard,
Peghed tuners, side sound-port. Optional solid spruce top (pictured).
Choose laminate hoop pine or walnut top for maximum durability; or Adirondack red spruce for big, bright, traditional mandolin sound.
price: $395.00

View attachment 114313

Click to expand...

Good eye! I saw that last week myself.

I should point out the fact that this instrument has steel strings, which is a whole other world from the Aquila 30U GDAE or 31U CGDA string sets.

Because of the steel strings, this is going to be a very different experience for those that have only ever played on a nylon-type string instrument (3x more string tension, way brighter and louder sound, and cutting into the fingertips until heavy calluses form).

Wukulele said:

New 4 stringed Mandolin (Magic Fluke concert Flea uke w/ mando tailpiece, hardwood fretboard)
https://www.magicfluke.com/Mandolin-p/flea_mandolin.htm

'Same look and feel of the Flea ukuleles, but set up as a four string mandolin. 14" scale, GDAE tuning,
D'Addario phosphor bronze steel strings, arched top with floating rosewood bridge, 19 fret hardwood fretboard,
Peghed tuners, side sound-port. Optional solid spruce top (pictured).
Choose laminate hoop pine or walnut top for maximum durability; or Adirondack red spruce for big, bright, traditional mandolin sound.
price: $395.00

View attachment 114313

Click to expand...

How is it a mandolin with only four strings? Well, maybe a steel string flea ukulele tunned in 5ths — I dunno . . . ld:

Joe King said:

Good eye! I saw that last week myself.

I should point out the fact that this instrument has steel strings, which is a whole other world from the Aquila 30U GDAE or 31U CGDA string sets.

Because of the steel strings, this is going to be a very different experience for those that have only ever played on a nylon-type string instrument (3x more string tension, way brighter and louder sound, and cutting into the fingertips until heavy calluses form).

Click to expand...

edit take 3
Should be as easy as light steel-stringed guitar? A tiny bit tougher than a fiddle/violin? Bit more tough than nylon/fluoro-stringed ukes & way the hell easier than an actual mandolin? (is there such a thing as an easy on the fingers mandolin?)

Down Up Dick said:

How is it a mandolin with only four strings? Well, maybe a steel string flea ukulele tunned in 5ths — I dunno . . . ld:

Click to expand...

Personally I'm grateful it "only" has 4 strings...