Experimental Tunings

Has anyone experimented with taking a sop down to the key of A or even G? I love tweaking with alternate tunings and this brings the uke down to some cool sounding Celtic keys. What is your take on it?

Aha!! a fellow tweaker!!! Have you tried F C F A? or low g string and also put one on the first string tuned as gCEa .

gDGE is a nice tuning also. Keep the intervals the same, and you can play anything that doesn't buzz frets or pull off the bridge

Yeah, I have tried them all, even drop tuning to be able to use some banjo clawhammer stuff. Lots of fun and as they say, it is my uke, I will tune it like I want! I always seem to come back to standard tuning and keep a couple set up like that all the time, but it is fun to tweak!

New concert size on the way! Please forgive me for going to uke that I can play my native music well with. I saw a quote, so long ago that it was good to take the uke and perform your own. I will now follow that advice. It has been a very inexpensive path. Mahalo!

Very true! I am a piper too and always think that way...will tweak some more and Merry Xmas!

I like to tune down to A for smallpipe backup, G for acoustic sessions, D for hardcore Irish and of course C for my own feature stuff. Allows for the same scales and some light chording. As far as staying in C and playing in G or A, that pretty much leaves the melody on just the A string, sort of like playing a dulcimer. D is doable, but you lose any open chording you might have if you just tuned up to D.

I can bar chord pretty well too, so in a quick key change, that is best, eh? That's where tuning lower helps, as it keeps you from getting too high up the fret board. Bari is inherently in that key, which is also fun to play, but my current experiment is using a sop in those lower keys. Light, plunky sound for sure!

And after last nights session...right back to standard tuning and working out scales in G and A! Thanks Bill1, it is fun tweaking pipe tunes out in standard tuning! Key of A chord progressions just fine, but G is still giving me a bit of a challenge...but just a bit,eh?