gCEA - Why the Small G?

As the title says, why is the g lower case?

It's to indicate that the g string is higher than the other strings in re-entrant tuning. Linear tuning, with a low G, is generally written as GCEA.

RichM said:

It's to indicate that the g string is higher than the other strings in re-entrant tuning. Linear tuning, with a low G, is generally written as GCEA.

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Thanks! Lower case for higher sound. Makes perfect sense.

It came about because normal linear tuning used capital letters, so it needed to be different to differentiate it from the way that normal tuning was written.

Croaky Keith said:

It came about because normal linear tuning used capital letters, so it needed to be different to differentiate it from the way that normal tuning was written.

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Got it! Understood!

RichM said:

It's to indicate that the g string is higher than the other strings in re-entrant tuning. Linear tuning, with a low G, is generally written as GCEA.

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If this is true, then I've been doing it all wrong for 4 yrs now.

IIRC re-entrant tuning was first with A-D-F#-B on soprano uke, and later when other sizes came out that had longer scale length, it was lowered to GCEA to lessen the 'then-excessive' string tension on gut strings and later nylon, and as such there were no wound strings yet for ukulele...

again IIRC, later, after Baritone uke came out with DGBE like guitar, folks wanted GCEA linear tuning as well, and the went lower-case gCEA to signify that the lower-case, meant low-g as opposed to the original, normal default way of all caps of hi-G with GCEA.

:wtf:

Jerryc41 said:

Thanks! Lower case for higher sound. Makes perfect sense.

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I know, right? Just like tuning is GCEA but going by string numbers, it would be AECG...:shaka:

UkerDanno said:

I know, right? Just like tuning is GCEA but going by string numbers, it would be AECG...:shaka:

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Back in the days of lead print and manually loading the presses, the small letters were kept lower - in the lower cases. The capitals were kept above them - in the higher cases.

Jerryc41 said:

Thanks! Lower case for higher sound. Makes perfect sense.

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Lower case for thinner string, then it makes more sense.

Five string banjo (one of the other instruments that use re-entrant tuning) tuning is written gCGCD or gDGBD or gCGBD . . . depending on the tuning being indicated. I have just showed my three favourite banjo tunings, but there ae many more. In all of these tunings, the lower case string is the fifth string of the banjo and the re-entrant string.
A Nashville tuned (High-strung) guitar, also a re-entrant tuned instrument, is indicated like this: eadgBE. indicating that the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th strings are an octave higher.
I think most folks understand that gCEA means re-entrant and GCEA is linear tuning.

Booli will be misunderstood by most folks if he uses the lower case "g" for linear tuning and the upper case "G" for re-entrant.
Similarly, some folks use pitch when using "direction" terms to talk about stringed instruments. When these folks say "top strings" or "high strings" they're referring to highest pitched strings. When they say "up the neck" they're referring to closer to the bridge, producing higher pitches.
Other folks use gravity when using "direction" terms to talk about stringed instruments. When these folks say "top strings" or "high strings" they're referring to the strings that are furthest from the floor, or the thick strings. When they say "up the neck" they're referring to closer to the nut or further from the floor.

Both are correct, but if it's not made clear, many conversations will be quite confusing.
When I teach guitar, I try to make it clear right at the start that if I talk about tuning or playing your "bottom" string, I'm referring to pitch and mean the 6th string and "up the neck" means closer to the bridge.

This becomes more confusing with ukulele or banjo students, so with these instruments I try to refer to the strings by their number rather than pitch.

Misunderstandings can certainly happen as with almost everything related to music, for the reasons mentioned in previous posts. I prefer to speak of normal/standard/re-entrant uke tuning and then low G (or linear tuning).

Scientific pitch notation is in my opinion a bit easier in this computer age than the traditional Helmholz pitch notation for someone like me without much classical music schooling background, to remember. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch_notation

So G4 C4 E4 A4 as normal ukulele tuning and G3 used in low G ukes.
Baritone or guitar's 4 highest strings: D3 G3 B3 E4.

It's funny that a small g lowercase is actually physically represented as a LOWER character but means a high G. Just to add to the confusion, my new nomenclature would make more sense since it shows that anything higher than G is a capital letter and the rest are lower notes. hehehe

GceA

Petey

I’m with Booli. Always thought GCEA was high-G and gCEA was low-g.

NoyBoy98 said:

I’m with Booli. Always thought GCEA was high-G and gCEA was low-g.

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Me too. Seemed standard should be upper case G4C4E4A4 and low G as gCEA since it's a lower tone G3C4E4A4
Seems like so many places (including books) list standard as GCEA.

Speculating: Linear tuning on a guitar would likely use all capital letters. So translating this to an uke, GCEA would be linear. So in high G the G string is higher pitched then the C so the option to designate this would be the lower case as the only other option.

For me gCEA indicates re-entrant tuning. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

John Colter

I heartily agree with Jarmo_S: G3 C4 E4 A4 for linear (low G) and G4 C4 E4 A4 for reentry (high G) -- where "4" denotes the middle-C octave on a piano. This annotation is much clearer than caps & lower case (IMO).

ukantor said:

For me gCEA indicates re-entrant tuning. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

John Colter

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bellgamin said:

I heartily agree with Jarmo_S: G3 C4 E4 A4 for linear (low G) and G4 C4 E4 A4 for reentry (high G) -- where "4" denotes the middle-C octave on a piano. This annotation is much clearer than caps & lower case (IMO).

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John, you have been doing it right.

bellgamin, it is technically more specific (especially for musicians), but ponderous to write or say. And then you have to explain to every single newbie what the digits are. They may nod but many will still not get what it means.

Always thought gCEA represented that the g was different from the rest. But a “g” is a “G” with only difference in pitch to separate them. If the other strings are linear that leaves only a high g string as the difference.

ukantor said:

For me gCEA indicates re-entrant tuning. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

John Colter

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Me too. When I typeset ukulele tablatures I start with
A |--
E |--
C |--
g |--
meaning a re-entrant tuning
By the way, for the guitar I do this
e
B
G
D
A
E
for standard tuning, implying e is higher than E