Thoughts about Tunings

I have been experimenting with G tuning my Tenors and even D tuning my Soprano. The G tuned Tenors are working out quite nicely but the D tuned Soprano is going back to C, 'cause the tension on the strings restricts the volume range of my Little Filly.

String Tension on the tenors is much lighter on dGBE tuning. The sound is deeper but still bright due to the High d String. It makes fretting easy and barrs less hassle.

Another interesting thing is the chord forms in G make a lot of songs easier to play than the same key on a C tuned instrument. "City of New Orleans" is an example.

When I first started the experimentation I just played using my 'normal' chord forms and ignored the key change. But then I began to get familiar with the names of the "baritone" forms. Now I am actually trying to play in the original Key and found that it is easier to play songs written for the guitar in the key they were written for, because song writers tend to use easy chord forms and since dGBE is just like a guitar, Paul Simon is a lot easier despite the obscure chords he uses.

The Tenor was meant to be in G, why did they change it, Who is the they? Has the "Club Tuning" idea gone too far?

You can try it yourself easy, just detune your tenor. The string tension may be too low depending upon what strings you use, but Nylguts work Ok and most of the fluorocarbon strings I've tried are reasonable. Play like you would normally and listen to the change in your music and the instruments response. Down loadd a Baritone chord chart and see how the forms are the same just shifted down a fourth. Play your C-F-G7 song forms and hear G-C-D7 and see how you like the feel of the tuning.

Don't like it? Just retune to C and sing high!

JackLuis said:

The Tenor was meant to be in G

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Where do you get that idea? The tenor is based on the standard (soprano). And having the strings tuned to dGBE is not really an advantage when adapting modern guitar music, unless you intend to discard any notes below G3. Otherwise you still need to arrange the song for the ukulele's smaller range.

Dirk from South Coast strings attacks it from a different angle. He is an advocate of tuning the instrument to the natural tonal resonance of the body, this is determined by size. He feels even a baritone is too small for DGBE and suggests tuning up one or two full steps. Tenor is suggests tuning down 1/2 to a full step. Concert seems to be suited to standard C tuning and soprano he suggests tuning up.

Of course these are just guide lines and we all have a personal preference for the tone we like to hear. I tune one spruce top baritone up to E A C# F# and an all mahogany up even farther to F A# D G. This is just the way I like to hear these two different instruments.

If you love the sound and string feel of the way your tenor is tuned that is what counts.

JackLuis said:

When I first started the experimentation I just played using my 'normal' chord forms and ignored the key change. But then I began to get familiar with the names of the "baritone" forms.

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If you go further with this experiment, you'll have so many tunings that you go back to "just play the normal chords and ignore the key". At least that's what I did. See my signature. With ukes in G, Ab, Bb, C, and D currently, no way am I learning 5 names for the same shape.

Like DuD says, matching strings to the instrument and the tuning is the real fun of the "experiment" and there is no need to be dogmatic about it. Whatever feels good to your fingers and sounds good to your ears is "right".

I think that the tenor was always to be tuned to C like a concert and "most" sopranos. I say most because some are tuned to D. In this way someone who plays a different size ukulele can pick up any of them and be able to play them in the same key. When the ukulele craze in the 20's started, I don't think there was widespread UAS as we see today. I highly doubt that a lot of people had a stable of ukulele sizes to choose from. UAS, and any other form as AS, is a more recent phenomenon. If you had a soprano, you played a soprano, etc.

I had a tenor that I tuned to Bb for a number of years. While others may disagree, if you play with others or sing in specific keys, having ukuleles tuned in different keys will bring nothing but headaches if you have to transpose on the fly. I have tried the... if I see a G, I play an A chord, etc. and for me it doesn't work. If you play instrumentals, or by yourself you can tune as you like.

After many years of chasing the perfect string-key combinations, I have concluded that at some point it is just not worth it. I now try to find the best combinations that require the fewest comprises.

For me a baritone is that one exception because I came from guitar, so I had years of the guitar names for chord shapes.

As for your sing high comment... I can sing, of sorts, while playing a guitar but I have a tough time with a ukulele regardless of the chords I play (to be in the same key). I know that it is psychological, but it is what it is. So I can sing with a baritone where I can't with a soprano. But that one is on me and not the instrument.

John

Soundbored said:

Where do you get that idea? The tenor is based on the standard (soprano). And having the strings tuned to dGBE is not really an advantage when adapting modern guitar music, unless you intend to discard any notes below G3. Otherwise you still need to arrange the song for the ukulele's smaller range.

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I read it on the South coast page. Yes you do have to adapt for the smaller range of the Uke, but it is not that big a deal for fooling around with Ukes.

Jim Hanks said:

If you go further with this experiment, you'll have so many tunings that you go back to "just play the normal chords and ignore the key". At least that's what I did. See my signature. With ukes in G, Ab, Bb, C, and D currently, no way am I learning 5 names for the same shape.

Like DuD says, matching strings to the instrument and the tuning is the real fun of the "experiment" and there is no need to be dogmatic about it. Whatever feels good to your fingers and sounds good to your ears is "right".

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I'm still learning my way through C and G, because I bought a Baritone. I had an idea to to try A or maybe Bb, but I agree with you that learning every chord forms name in every key would be excessive. Still it might be fun for a while to try a different tuning, just because I can.

C and G are easy for me, as I can use standard chord charts. I haven't found any other chord charts in any other tuning, and I'm too new to figure it out for myself.

I leave my concerts in C but am thinking of moving one back to re-entrant. My Ohana spruce topped booms a lot in low G.

I play once a week with my neighbor and after I re-learn to play something in key want to try recording on his four track, with a Tenor in re-entrant G, a tenor in Linear C and a baritone in linear G, with maybe his guitar as an accompaniment. That should be interesting.

I think I'll end up leaving my tenors in re-entrant G and just learn how to play in Key. It will help my baritone playing and I like the sound.

Soundbored said:

Where do you get that idea? The tenor is based on the standard (soprano). And having the strings tuned to dGBE is not really an advantage when adapting modern guitar music, unless you intend to discard any notes below G3. Otherwise you still need to arrange the song for the ukulele's smaller range.

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JackLuis said:

I read it on the South coast page. Yes you do have to adapt for the smaller range of the Uke, but it is not that big a deal for fooling around with Ukes.

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I've come across this elsewhere but I can't remember where. Supposedly the reason it didn't take off with this tuning was a lack of suitable strings but I find that hard to believe given that a 1930s tutor I have recommends the use of violin strings for a ukulele.

Dirk from South Coast references this page: http://ukuleles.com/?page_id=820

If you look at the data there, it suggests that low G is fine for a tenor. That same G is the G you use for re-entrant dGBE tuning and it's my preferred tuning for tenor. I have never understood this "tune them all the same" idea. You're not making the best of the different body sizes.

I currently have my tenors tuned dGBE, Concert tuned linear GCEA and sopranos mostly gCEA but with one tuned ADF#B. I find it better to learn the actual chord names for each shape in the different tunings. That way, you can use any chord or lead sheet without transposing though I often do transpose but in order to match the key to my voice. I don't believe you should necessarily play a song in the original key. You should find a key that works best for your voice. That is what the pros would do - except, perhaps in classical music where the original key is often sacrosanct. Even then, arrangers who arrange music for different a combination of instruments than the original was written for will often transpose to another key to take advantage of the new instruments' characteristics.

A set of chord diagrams for pasting in to songs instead of the chord names is invaluable. I created my own in Google Docs here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...UKgVA54xD-cvuEkaeh48r6o/edit?usp=docslist_api

Tootler said:

Dirk from South Coast references this page: http://ukuleles.com/?page_id=820

If you look at the data there, it suggests that low G is fine for a tenor.

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No, what it suggests is that Low G (196 HZ), matches and is likely to excite the natural resonance of a tenor body, causing "boominess". Ideally you want the lowest note of the instrument to be well above the resonance frequency.

And since only two out of the five examples shown match, there doesn't even seem to be the solid correlation between resonant freq, body size, and lowest instrument note, that they are trying to demonstrate.

Another variable is the Uke itself. My full size Tenor responds very differently than my slim line Travel Tenor. Both carry dGBE strings well but do not sound the same. Some Ukes may not do well with G tuning. Then again the string type may be a difference, the Worth Brown FATS seem to give more volume than D'Adarrio Carbons on my uke. I chalk that up to a slight increase in oscillating mass, or the slight increase in tension?

Interesting discussion.

In my 6 years as a Uke player, I have been all over the tuning spectrum. As a beginner, I certainly did not want to stray from "standard" C tuning. Even when i got my first baritone, i tried tuning it re entrant gcea. I hated the feel of those strings, and the tension was not what i liked at all. ( Now, I have a baritone tuned the same way again, but with Southcoast strings, and it sounds and plays great, but that is another story)

I have tried open tunings, plectrum tuning, machete tunings, and linear and reetnrant tunings up and down the scale. It depends on what you want. I you want to play music and not think about the chords or notes being different than written, probably C tuning is the way to go. It will likely be good to find strings that suit the body size and scale length, but only so far as it matters to the individual.

If you want to sing, and sing well, you have a couple of choices, unless the keys of all songs you want to play and sing happen to fit your vocal range as published.

You can transpose the song into a different key, and use those other chord shapes, or you can have your Ukulele tuned in a way that lets the chord shapes as written sound lower or higher, to suit your voice.

Right now, my main instrument is a baritone tuned linear A tuning, EAC#F# I occasionally play and sing in church, and twice a month at a nursing home nearby.

One song I lay at the home is "Always" by Irving Berlin. it is in the Daily Uke book Volume 1. As written, it is in the key of F. I can barely screech it out, so that is not going to work for me. When I play the same F chord shape on my A tuned baritone, that chord is now a D. The song fits my voice, and I play all the chord shapes I did when i first learned the song in F. ( I actually did figure out all the new names once, but I don't really need to know that, unless I have to play the song on a C tuned Uke in the key of D someday.)

When i first started using that song, my baritone was tuned DGBE, so I had to use a capo, or else I would have been playing in the key of C, which is a bit too low for my voice.

That is another thing, if you tune your Uke, especially a tenor or baritone down a bit, the capo can let you change keys while still allowing you to use music as written, or to use the easiest possible chord shapes. this can be really helpful when playing and singing. The easier the instrument is to play, the more bandwidth you can give to your singing and interaction with the audience.

Another song I play is "Sentimental Journey", which in the daily Uke is in the key of A. A bit too low for my voice. I used to capo up a full step from C tuning, to get to the key of B with the easier chord shapes. But, I was capoing all over the place, retuning a lot, and I felt it hurt my presentation a bit. So, I though, well, I know the baritone chord shapes and names too. So, with my baritone tuned EAC#F#, if I play the baritone version of the chords to Sentimental Journey in the key of A, I am now in the key of B, without using a capo.

One final thought, and i hope some or any of this is of some use to someone.

What we can do is learn to ply in different "positions", as I hear guitarists use that phrase. What this means is that the main chord of the song, such as F for a song in the key of F, is known as the I (Roman numeral 1) chord. And the other chords are based off of that. (I am talking chords on a C tuned Uke for purposes of this discussion. guitars and traditional tuned baritone Ukes would call it playing in C ) over time, you learn that in F, the IV (4) chord is Bb, and the V (5) chord is C. So even if my Uke is tuned lower, the chord shapes and order of the chords is the same. They just sound lower or higher. The benefit of seeing things this way is you get used to how the chord shapes flow from one to another.

When I play a G shape, on my uke that is an E. I have played so many songs, and written a few, in the key of E, using that shape, that certain chord changes are almost automatic. And if I need to pay one of those songs in F for some reason, I am not relearning the chords. i am putting a capo on the first fret and my fingers will do their thing.

trying to sum up, if you are able to consider getting out of C tuning ( and you don't have to or need to) there are ways to do it. If your Uke sounds best tuned lower, it is easy to get back to C tuing with a capo if you want to play along with others and not play different chord shapes. If you have a small er Uke that sounds best above C tuning, go for it! It is pretty easy to play in the keys of D, G, A, and even E in a D tuned uke. learning the baritone chord names might give you extra versatility and limit the need for a capo.

Above all, have fun!

As with any stringed instrument, keeping string tuning within the design capabilities "acoustic envelope" will give the best response. I've found that keeping strings for soprano and sopranino within the G3-E5 range seems to sound best; and tenor and concerts within C3-A4 range. The baritone seems to handle anything below A4 well.

Have tried several tuning formulae within those ranges and find that as long as I stay within the instrument's acoustic envelope, it doesn't matter what formula I use. Coming from mandolin and tenor guitar I'm a "fifths" fan, so for convenience my ukuleles are also tuned fifths (sopranino GDAE (like my mandolin); soprano and concerts "reentrant C" CGDA; and everything else standard CDGA (like my tenor guitar and tenor banjo).

So, I guess the bottom line is "do what feels good to you." It all works!

jimavery said:

A set of chord diagrams for pasting in to songs instead of the chord names is invaluable. I created my own in Google Docs here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...UKgVA54xD-cvuEkaeh48r6o/edit?usp=docslist_api

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This is great! Thanks for sharing this. I stumbled on this thread after finding and reading Southcoast's lenghty article about tunings. Sure speaks to a lot of the questions I've had about tunings since starting on the uke.

All of this tuning talk is making me even more excited to get my baritone soon! It's tuned dGBE.

Ive been playing my Risa soprano stick tuned eADG with a set of Aquila reds. The low G red isn't happy on my soprano due to the design. The strings are a bit floppy so it makes it a bear to play well. It is much fun running through my RP360 and sounding as metal as my old 80's warlock @ 1/16 the size and weight. Of course the Warlock looks metal the Risa well it looks like a Risa.

~Al~

Inksplosive AL said:

Ive been playing my Risa soprano stick tuned eADG with a set of Aquila reds. The low G red isn't happy on my soprano due to the design. The strings are a bit floppy so it makes it a bear to play well. It is much fun running through my RP360 and sounding as metal as my old 80's warlock @ 1/16 the size and weight. Of course the Warlock looks metal the Risa well it looks like a Risa.

~Al~

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I've got my RISA concert at "Reentrant C" CGDA (C4-G3-D4-A4). That gives me "fifths" playing with "standard low-G" uke strings with a simple swap of the G and C, and a minor detune of the E. I don't have any string sag this way. The wound G holds up well.

For at least the last couple of weeks I've been playing my tenors dGBE using Worth Brown Fats and Fremont Black lines (Hi G). Yes the strings don't have a lot of tension, compared to them C tuned, but they are way easier on the fingers and sound pretty good. Intonation doesn't seem to be a problem and volume is as good or better that when C tuned. Th G strings (#3) are a bit floppy and could probably stand to be a bit thicker.

Being re-entrant give them more of a Ukulele sound rather than guitarish sound of the low D.

But I thought that a dedicate string set might be better. I bought a set of Aquila dGBE strings for a tenor and today put them on my neighbors spare spruce topped tenor. After tuning up for a hour or so the strings started to settle down and I found that they had a bit more tension than the Worth/Fremonts and that they had the sound of Nylguts, even though the #3 was a red. Now we had retuned (to dGBE) a set of hi g Nylguts on this uke before and it didn't sound too bad so we shall see how they sound after they settle down.

Overall I think that the Tenor sounds a lot better dGBE than GCEA. The three tenors I've tried this with have shown no signs of acoustic problems. So the 'acoustic envelope' has not been breached I guess.