Alternate Tuning

Having decided my soprano starter uke is a little too small for me I have ordered a Tenor which for some reason will arrive tuned a whole tone down...F, Bb, D, G.
I realize that I can simply retune to standard but I would like to experiment as the seller claims the lower tone gives a better, richer sound.
If I play alone I assume I can just ignore the alternate tuning and play using standard chords.
If I want to be in tune with others, what is the normally used procedure...
1. Use a capo
2. Transpose and play chords 1 tone higher i.e. play D if I want to sound a true C.
3. Other ???
The seller also claims that playing chords will be easier. Is this merely because the strings have less tension and are easier to press and hold down or am I overlooking something more fundamental. (Can't ask the seller because I think he is on a trip).

Yes.

I like Bb tuning as well because of the lower tone and lower tension. You can either capo at 2nd fret to get to C or transpose the chords up - or tell everybody else to transpose down

I have my tenor tuned to Bb. It does give a richer sound and the lower tension makes it more comfortable to play.

As Jim Hanks says, if you want to play with others, you will either have to use a capo or transpose up - or you could retune. I prefer to have other ukes tuned GCEA. I mostly use my Bruko concert or soprano flea when playing out.

I have one vintage soprano with tenor strings tuned to D-G-B-E , I lose volume and sustain but I love the PLUNK-PLUNK instead of the plink-plink

Jim Hanks said:

Yes.

I like Bb tuning as well because of the lower tone and lower tension. You can either capo at 2nd fret to get to C or transpose the chords up - or tell everybody else to transpose down

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You need not transpose, play the same chord as everyone else a "C" is a "C" no matter how you are tuned.

SailingUke said:

You need not transpose, play the same chord as everyone else a "C" is a "C" no matter how you are tuned.

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Yeah, but if I'm tuned to FBbDG then I have to play 2220 to get a concert "C" but I refuse to think of that as anything other than "D". My baritone is tuned to EACsFs and I still think of 2220 as "D" and not "B". I'm not learning different fingerings for chords based on what instrument I'm holding.

@neal - I get what you're saying but my goal is to get to more of a jazz style and I find my energy better spent learning new chords than whole new systems as you suggest. Plus it's not just two tunings. I have strung my baritone DGBE as well as the step up tuning it is in now (yes EAC#F#) and the tenor in GCEA. Plus every capo setting is a different tuning again. More power to you if you're able to keep all that straight. :bowdown:

I've tuned my tenor to Bb tuning a couple of times to play songs where I'd memorized how to play them, but they were a little too high for me to sing. It was easier to detune the uke than relearn the songs in a lower key. I didn't care for the sound of Bb tuning on my uke. But I use standard and low tension strings to start with, so getting a lower tension isn't a selling point for me. From various threads here about strings, my impression is that most UU members are using high tension strings.

I have a soprano tuned ADF#B. To be perfectly honest, I don't play it as much as I thought I would.

On this transposing issue... I don't know about the Bb tuning, but let me illustrate my take on this from my limited experience with D tuning. I think what was meant when you were told you would need to transpose your music is that you will need to find music that has already been altered to reflect the new chord structures or alter it accordingly so your tabs or chord charts are in the correct tuning. Unless you play with a group that has a playlist that they never deviate from, this will be problematic, at best.

For instance, 0001 on GCEA is a C. 0001 on ADF#B is a D and the fingering for a C is 3211. So, when you use music sheets that have the fingering printed on the page in CGEA tuning, you will be playing a D when everyone else is playing a C unless you have your own music sheets written to show the proper chord structure for ADF#B tuning, which would be 3211. Anyone using your music, would of course be playing in the wrong key though, because all of your music would need to be ADF#B specific...

I make it a point never to take my D tuned uke to any group sessions, which probably has a lot to do with why I don't play it much... But the reason I don't is that often, in the groups I'm accustomed to playing with, when people get lost they tend to look around and check other peoples fingering and follow along until they find their place again. They also look for simpler fingering if they can't quite make a chord properly, or if they are trying to see how someone is making a particular chord they aren't familiar with. It would be too confusing to anyone trying to see what I was doing. I could play everything in D with C chord structures which would throw people off for really obvious reasons. My only real choice would be to play the right chords for D tuning. Unfortunately, anyone looking at me as a reference would be completely lost...

Surely in a that case saying 'my uke is tuned differently, don't copy me' would suffice? Liked if you turned up with a barry, you'd say 'this is a baritone, I'll be using different chord fingerings, they won't work on your ukes.'

Pundabaya said:

Surely in a that case saying 'my uke is tuned differently, don't copy me' would suffice? Liked if you turned up with a barry, you'd say 'this is a baritone, I'll be using different chord fingerings, they won't work on your ukes.'

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Depending on the group, sure.... sometimes you could do that. If you are a strong, experienced player though, it renders you useless as a lead in the group since no one would be able to follow you. If you're still learning to play a tuning no one else plays, you're a burden to the group until you catch up. Plus you cannot follow anyone else if you get lost. Somewhere in between those two extremes there is probably some point at which that would be the perfect thing to say.

I’ve been tuning my homemade ukuleles down to Bb, mostly because to my ears they sound a little fuller and richer. I’ve even tuned down to Ab for a couple of songs so they would be easier for my vocal range. Any lower than that, and the strings get too floppy, and the sound gets duller.

I still think of the chord names as I learned them in C tuning, and with songs that have more than about five chords, after I’ve first learned it, I usually think of the song in terms of chord shapes rather than names. If I were to play with others, I would probably either tune back up, or use a capo.

SailingUke said:

You need not transpose, play the same chord as everyone else a "C" is a "C" no matter how you are tuned.

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In a formal sense you are right but in this case what is being referred to is transposition of the written chords so as to ensure everyone actually does play the same sounding chord. It's a widespread convention in plucked string instruments to name a chord according to how it sounds in the most common tuning of the particular instrument even though the instrument is tuned differently from the "standard", providing the pitch relationship between the strings remains the same.

A little explanation.

there are a substantial number of instruments that are collectively called "transposing instruments". In these instruments, the sounding key and the the key in which the music for them is written are different. A good example is a clarinet. The most common clarinet is a Bb clarinet, so called because when you play the note written as "C", it actually sounds as concert Bb, so if you are writing a part for a Bb clarinet which you want to sound in the key of C, you actually write the music in the key of D because the notes sound a tone lower than they are written. This has arisen because the basic fingering for clarinet, flute and oboe are the same but the clarinet is pitched a tone lower than the flute or oboe. This was convenient in the past because musicians often played all three instruments and they only had to learn one set of fingerings. The same is true today with saxophones as the various sizes of saxophone are pitched alternately in Bb & Eb so one set of fingerings applies for the whole family and the written music is transposed to accomodate this.

If you retune your ukulele to Bb or D tuning or use a capo but always call the chord fingered 0002 "C" then you are effectively using the same convention.

So if you have a song sheet for a song in the key of C, with the regular three chords, C, F & G7 and you play this on a uke tuned to Bb, using the C-tuning shapes for those chords, then the chords will actually sound as Bb, Eb and F7. If you're playing solo then that's fine but if you then want to play that song with someone else, then you will have to transpose the written chords up a tone. That is, you will have to play the C-tuning shapes of D, G & A7 in order to sound at the same pitch as the C instrument playing the normal C, F & G7.

Hope this clarifies things a little.