What makes you love re-entrant tuning?

After playing a few weeks, I'm tempted when I get my own Uke to string it with low-g. I've found it interesting fretting some melody notes on the high-g, but ultimately just confusing. I know there's a tradition aspect to it (I've seen people on Uke-cosmos saying you might as well just play guitar if you have it low g), but I'm pretty sure there are other aspects and benefits to re-entrant tuning that I just don't see yet. Anyone care to enlighten me, before I wander off the straight and narrow?

Here are a couple of threads about high g/low g, you can find more using the search feature . . .
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74
http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1721

Thanks very much.

Actually, those don't really tell me what I want to know. They're full of "either is fun - try what you like!" And "No! Low G is just castrated guitar!"

What I really want to know is what people like most about playing in High G - what does it help them do better? The only thing I got from that was the "downstrokes sound the same as upstrokes", which is an interesting thought. It's got me thinking about 5 string banjo tuning too, and what the benefit is of the way those are tuned.

I've never thought about why I love the tuning. I just play.

I do admit that part of the reason that I use re-entrant tuning is because, to me, that's what makes it a ukulele. Maybe it's a cliche, but yeah, if I wanted the strings in order, I'd just play a guitar. (Check back with me in a year or so... I'll probably be jamming away on a low-G tenor and eating my words. )

But there are two musical reasons for the coolness of re-entrant:

1) It more easily allows for "campanella" style playing. You can often play scale adjacent notes more easily on two different strings (1st and 4th, usually), letting them both ring out, instead of having to play them on the same string, choking off one of the notes in order to play the other. John King's classical arrangements are probably the most famous example of how this style sounds.

2) It's also easier to get tighter, "cluster" voicings of chords. On guitar (or low-G uke), most voicings are “open”. That is, the individual notes of the chord are frequently spread out over two or more octaves, none of them usually close to any other note. The inner intervals are generally wide. On a re-entrant uke, every note in the chord tends to be all within one octave, which forces many of the individual notes to be smooshed up next to each other in whole or half steps. (Neither style of chord voicing is “better” than the other. They’re just different sounds.)

That's my two cents, anyway.


JJ

Good point re Campanella style, which I like. On guitar, I prefer open chord voicings, and playing Uke, I'm often frustrated by the doubling of notes in chords. It can be cool for melody, but it requires me to rewire my head to play that way, and I've actually found myself reworking tabs I've learned from so as not to use the G string.....

I use both tunings, but it all depends on the song on which tuning I'll play. I have a number of hymn arrangements that, imo, work best in reentrant. Old country blues works best, for me, with a low G 4th string.

My recent version of Safety Dance sounded better to me with reentrant tuning. I can't say exactly why, but it did.

When I make an uke arrangement, my goal is to present the song the best way i can, albeit with ukulele(s). I'll try both tunings to hear how they serve the song.

When it gets down to it, it's your decision. But I recommend using both.

Why do I like re-entrant tuning? 2 reasons: 1) you can do supercool chord inversions that are impossible with low G tuning. And 2) as a fingerstyle player, I do a lot of droning of the high g, or I alternate droning between the high g and the C strings, in an alternate thumb style. I have taught myself to use this style not only in open position, but all the way up the neck, in any key, while simultaneously chomping chords or playing solos or licks with the E and A strings. It's sort of like a Chet Atkins or Kelly Joe Phelps style done on ukulele. It can of course be done with a low G, but to my ears,the high g just sounds way cooler. :nana:

Got any examples of that sort of droning I can hear? I do a similar thing with pedal notes on guitar (using chord inversions that keep certain open strings, generally), but I've not found it so easy on Uke....

Check out what Gerald Ross does in this video from Bosko and Honey's Ukulele Safari.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLIWRfY66A0

He's playing in re-entrant, by the way.

I like the re-entrant sound because:

1. I have (in the main) a very percussive style of playing. Re-entrant tuning is perfect for this since strumming up and strumming down on a given chord usually sounds about the same.
2. It is that facet of the sound that most says "ukulele" to me. This is much the same reason why I like sopranos better than the other sizes.

drubin said:

Check out what Gerald Ross does in this video from Bosko and Honey's Ukulele Safari.

Click to expand...

Gerald's version of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" makes me ashamed of mine. And he's been playing uke about half as long as I have.

Unfortunately, he's a really nice fella so, no matter how hard I try, I just can't hate him.

Mr. Ross, you swing like a gate!

If there is a god, I'll be able to meet you in person someday and soak up everything my feeble little brain can from you.

Re-entrant is definitely more uke-like. The only times I wish I had a low G are when I'm trying to play songs based on the guitar part. With re-entrant tuning you just need to be creative and step out of the guitar mindset.

I never even heard the term "campanella style" until I read this thread, but I agree that the uke does facilitate that a lot better. I love playing fingerstyle, and sometimes it just sounds smoother to play a melody alternating across the G and A strings than to slide up and down the A. The way the two notes ring together reminds me of slack-key guitar style, which I love.

the best advice IMO is to buy a set of strings and try it. youll never know for real until you do. that goes for any string brand question.

I agree, that's exactly what I should do. I just felt like I wanted to know what the upsides of re-entrant were, and actually, this has been really helpful. I have an article to write in the next week or two, and I don't have the opportunity to try low-g before then.

You know what, that Gerald Ross video totally totally answers it. I need one in re-entrant, because I want to play what he was playing. Wow!

drubin said:

Why do I like re-entrant tuning? 2 reasons: 1) you can do supercool chord inversions that are impossible with low G tuning. And 2) as a fingerstyle player, I do a lot of droning of the high g, or I alternate droning between the high g and the C strings, in an alternate thumb style. I have taught myself to use this style not only in open position, but all the way up the neck, in any key, while simultaneously chomping chords or playing solos or licks with the E and A strings. It's sort of like a Chet Atkins or Kelly Joe Phelps style done on ukulele. It can of course be done with a low G, but to my ears,the high g just sounds way cooler. :nana:

Click to expand...

Number 2 is my main reason. I use the G, C, and even fretted notes on the E string to make drone or "bass" notes in my fingerstyle playing. It helps fill out the sound nicely, especially if you can get a nice run going with, say, double stops and a droning string. It's interesting, because on guitar, the approach to fingerstyle is straightforward--play melody notes on the treble strings and back them up with bass notes on the bass strings. With ukulele, you have no bass strings, so you have to figure out a way to add harmony notes in the same register as the melody notes, forcing you to use "closed" chord voicings (all the notes in the same octave), and rely on drone strings and double stops.

Now, the disadvantage of the low G tuning is that for solo fingerstyle, you're in the awkward position of having a little more bass range, but not enough bass range to consistently play bass lines with the same flexibility of a guitar. So for starters, in the key of C, the easiest, most flexible key on the uke, you have a low G as your lowest note, which is the fifth of the chord. If you were approaching it like a guitar, you would want a C, the root note of the chord, in the bass. There are relatively few open chords on the uke where the root note is played on the low G--so in many voicings, you have the 5th or the 3rd as your bass note, which gives you little ability to play bass notes the way a bass player or guitarist would (root note as bass note). You end up with a strange kind-of bass note going on on certain chords that isn't really contributing much to the chord. Reentrant tuning says, scrap that note, just keep everything in the soprano range.