DGBE or GCEA

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VickS

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Hey all,

I was wondering if I should keep my tenor at the reentrant GCEA or restring it to DGBE. What will sound better? I know that most arrangements are made for GCEA but will DGBE sound better? What are the pros and cons for each?

Thanks
 
You'll just need to buy a second uke so you can have both . . .
 
DGBE will sound more guitar-like, if that's what you're after. It will be easier to move arrangements written for guitar over to that tuning. You will lose that re-entrant, uke-like sound.
 
OregonJim said:
DGBE will sound more guitar-like, if that's what you're after. It will be easier to move arrangements written for guitar over to that tuning. You will lose that re-entrant, uke-like sound.
Click to expand...

You can however, tune it re-entrant dGBE (yes with a high-D), if you do a search, you will see that this has also been discussed here on UU previously. This is more common than one might think.

In fact, I have one of my baritones tuned this way, and I prefer it, because it sound LESS like a guitar and more like a uke.
 
I do mess around with uke tunings of all sorts, not just those two. I do like a tenor down a half step for something different. It's all good!
 
Tuning is strictly a matter of what works best for the musician and what size strings can be found. Have all my ukes (sopranino through baritone) tuned CGDA to match up with my other stringed instruments. The ukes sound fine (sound samples on SoundCloud).

Have no fear trying out different tunings. It's roughly a $5-10 issue, depending on where you get your strings. You can always return the instrument(s) to original tuning.
 
If you tune DGBE, you can play arrangements for Low G and it will sound fine, just a bit lower. Also, re-entrant arrangements that don't use the 4th string for melody notes generally also sound fine. I recently picked up a 19" baritone and have it tuned DGBE. I'm really liking it and am just noodling around with the arrangements I already know (all re-entrant GCEA) and for many, it sounds fine. So, I'd say give it a whirl. Have fun. Explore.
 
I think I'll experiment with the different tunings. I want to play with other Uke players, so will the other tunings still work?
 
If you tuned to Bb and want to play with others add a capo on the 2nd fret to bring it back up to C tuned. Or, play the chord shapes; like a D chord shape will be a C, G chord shape would be an F and a A7 would be a G7 etc. Tuning to D a Chord shaped C would be a D, F shape a G and a shaped F7 would be a G7 etc.
 
SteveZ said:
Have no fear trying out different tunings. It's roughly a $5-10 issue, depending on where you get your strings. You can always return the instrument(s) to original tuning.
Click to expand...

That is, if you haven't torn the bridge off the instrument from trying a tuning with too much string tension. :)
 
OregonJim said:
That is, if you haven't torn the bridge off the instrument from trying a tuning with too much string tension. :)
Click to expand...

Agree. Some common sense and instrument-awareness is always required before messing with any instrument. There are a slew of websites with all sort of technical info on various instruments, all written in layman-ese. One should always research what they would like to do and learn from other's mistakes before making their own.
 
I dropped my standard tuning 2 half steps, and now it sounds so much better. The issue is, I don't know the chord shapes
 
You can use the chord shapes you already know. They are just a tone lower.

So, a C shape (0003) is now a Bb
a F shape (2010) is now Eb
a G shape ((0232) is now F and so on.

You can construct yourself a conversion table like this:

Code: 
C6  tuning: C  D  E  F  G  A  B
Bb6 tuning: Bb C  D  Eb D  G  A

Note: C6 tuning refers to GCEA. Your new tuning is Bb6 - FBbDG
 
VickS said:
I think I'll experiment with the different tunings. I want to play with other Uke players, so will the other tunings still work?
Click to expand...

Any tuning will work regardless of how others are tuned. A "C" is a "C" across the board. The only difference is the chord fingering. Occasionally I sit in a ukulele club group session where almost everyone is GCEA and I'm CGDA. A couple of folk look at me strangely when my chording fingers are in a different position than theirs, but the output is still the same. Follow the music and not the other folk's fingers and all will be fine.
 
Although this post is about tuning a tenor lower, I thought I'd toss out that Aquila makes a set of cGEA strings that put baritone ukes into the same tuning as the typical soprano/concert/tenor. I tried it out and it was a lot of fun - it made my $25 Lanaiki reject from Butler Music pick up some (but not all) of the qualities of my Pono MT. Sustain was way up and it had a crisp, clean sound.

Half the fun of ukes for me is messing around and learning about sound production.
 
PTOEguy said:
Although this post is about tuning a tenor lower, I thought I'd toss out that Aquila makes a set of cGEA strings that put baritone ukes into the same tuning as the typical soprano/concert/tenor. I tried it out and it was a lot of fun - it made my $25 Lanaiki reject from Butler Music pick up some (but not all) of the qualities of my Pono MT. Sustain was way up and it had a crisp, clean sound.

Half the fun of ukes for me is messing around and learning about sound production.
Click to expand...

Agree! Part of the problem for me is I'm getting such good (and fun) results from my lower priced instruments that the higher priced ones go idle.
 
Playing with other uke players will work fine as long as you are both playing in the same key. You won't be making the same shapes, but you will be playing the same chords.
When the gCEA tuned ukes are playing a 0003 C chord, if you are tuned DGBE, you will be playing a 2010 C chord. If you are both in tune, it should sound fine.
 
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