Who Experiments With Alternate tunings....

mm stan

mm stan

Mystery Man
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It can be anything like up tuned or dropped tuned....I have always been intrigued by it and have been trying all sorts of tunings..
Such as in re entrent tuning of "C"... or such, has anyone tried hi "E" string? for the chord of "G" because the finger chordings are on the top three strings CEA...As For "C" tuning, in the chord of "F" I would prefer it the regular tuned cause it is in the 3 bottom Strings of GCE.....
much of this is for strumming though..:)
PS high E means a bit higher than the C string..
 
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Hey Stan, I always sing flat (and awful), so I have to play in B or B-flat tuning to compensate. :)
 
I don't do it regularly, but I've done it for a few particular songs. On one song, I dropped the G string to F# because one part of the song would be much easier to play if F# was an open note. I found that Richard Thompson's song "Uninhabited Man" became very easy to play if I dropped the G string all the way down to D -- but it took the string a couple of days for the tuning to stabilize when I took that much tension off it, and a couple more days to accept being tuned back to G afterward. And on a few songs, I've dropped the whole uke to Bb tuning so I could play the arrangement I'd already memorized but still manage to sing the high notes.

I think I tried various tunings back around 1980 because I was a big Genesis fan and I'd read articles about how all these early Genesis songs used unusual tunings. But I didn't find anything I liked enough to use regularly.
 
Just 5ths, GDAE with high and low G and E.
 
I play the old Machete material by tuning with low g GCEG and just imaging its tuned to DGBD machete tuning.
Looking forward, however, to getting a Machete dgbd set from SouthCoast and playing the machete music in the original key.

An added bonus of the GCEG tuning is the Slack Key and Slide Blues material, such as that of Mark Nelson, arranged for uke.
 
GCEA becomes FCFA or DGBE becomes CGCA, and if the first string is dropped a half step, one then has an open minor key. I like it better with the 4th string down.
0 1 3 ---- is the start of a nice 12 bar blues. repeat that pattern on 5 barred and again on 7 barred
--------------- For the 3 position, just lay the ring finger across them both,kinda on the side.
0 2 3-----
0 0 0-----

I have Jesus Loves Me tabbed out in this tuning. It puts a new sound to an old favorite.

The way this is posted does not separate the 4th string as being a single note between the 0-0 1-2 or the 3-3,but it should
be six picks, not just three.
 
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I clawhammer a few tunes with the top string tuned down to G, thus, gCEG, the two outer strings sound the same note. Some banjo tab will work with little modification in this tuning, which is effectively an open C chord. Other than that, I keep a soprano with a set of Aquila "5th's" tuned GDAE, there are hundreds of mandolin and fiddle tunes/tabs that use this tuning. A couple of days ago, I found a pdf for a "lute tune" transcribed for baritone ukulele tuned DF#BE, but I've yet to try that.
 
TheCraftedCow said:
GCEA becomes FCFA or DGBE becomes CGCA, and if the first string is dropped a half step, one then has an open minor key. I like it better with the 4th string down.
0 1 3 ---- is the start of a nice 12 bar blues. repeat that pattern on 5 barred and again on 7 barred
--------------- For the 3 position, just lay the ring finger across them both,kinda on the side.
0 2 3-----
0 0 0-----

I have Jesus Loves Me tabbed out in this tuning. It puts a new sound to an old favorite.

The way this is posted does not separate the 4th string as being a single note between the 0-0 1-2 or the 3-3,but it should
be six picks, not just three.
Click to expand...

Aloha CC can you put a dash in between to separate this thank you
 
uke4ia said:
I don't do it regularly, but I've done it for a few particular songs. On one song, I dropped the G string to F# because one part of the song would be much easier to play if F# was an open note. I found that Richard Thompson's song "Uninhabited Man" became very easy to play if I dropped the G string all the way down to D -- but it took the string a couple of days for the tuning to stabilize when I took that much tension off it, and a couple more days to accept being tuned back to G afterward. And on a few songs, I've dropped the whole uke to Bb tuning so I could play the arrangement I'd already memorized but still manage to sing the high notes.

I think I tried various tunings back around 1980 because I was a big Genesis fan and I'd read articles about how all these early Genesis songs used unusual tunings. But I didn't find anything I liked enough to use regularly.
Click to expand...
Yes I tried this sorta low G tuning also....
 
Luke El U said:
I play the old Machete material by tuning with low g GCEG and just imaging its tuned to DGBD machete tuning.
Looking forward, however, to getting a Machete dgbd set from SouthCoast and playing the machete music in the original key.

An added bonus of the GCEG tuning is the Slack Key and Slide Blues material, such as that of Mark Nelson, arranged for uke.
Click to expand...

Yes I often tune the first string down.....and yes it is a slack key style, even in B and Bb
 
Luke El U said:
I play the old Machete material by tuning with low g GCEG and just imaging its tuned to DGBD machete tuning.
Looking forward, however, to getting a Machete dgbd set from SouthCoast and playing the machete music in the original key.

An added bonus of the GCEG tuning is the Slack Key and Slide Blues material, such as that of Mark Nelson, arranged for uke.
Click to expand...
Yes let me know how the DGBD works with your southcoast strings...
 
I like to tune my baritone DGAD, kind of a ukulele version of DADGAD on guitar. It's really nice for fingerpicking.
 
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