Names are always challenging for new instrument designs, and while I think we'll continue to call ours "Classical Tenor Guitars", I also think Baritone Nui has got a great ring to it, especially for an Hawaiian Company.
Andrew mentioned the 5ths tuning - when you go "classical" that tuning pretty much goes by the wayside. Even with steel strings, traditional Tenor Guitar players always carry spare 1st strings. That
a' note is awfully high on that scale and the string gets awfully thin as a result. When steel strings break a lot, with Classicals, they'll break all the time.
That's interesting. So the Plectrum tuning has the following intervals between the strings: a fifth, a regular third, a minor third. Plectrum guitar/banjo is usually tuned: C, G, B, D.
I wonder what the reasoning was (at the time, when plectrum banjos/guitars were more common) for this particular tuning, as it is completely different from banjo tuning, tenor guitar tuning, or mandolin tuning.
Actually,
g' c g b d' was the original 5-string Banjo tuning. Now, of course, that
c note is customarily up a step to
d. Plectrum tuning just does away with the drone string from Classic tuning. What banjo players call "C tuning" or "Classic Banjo" tuning actually plays very nicely in the Key of C, so it usually works very nicely with the same progressions as a lot of modern Ukulele arrangements.
Besides the fact it just sounds great, the old Plectrum repertoire is absolutely incredible. A melding of Ragtime and Romantic era Classical styles. On our site, we have a "Tips" page, and there Archive #015 deals with these instruments in general as well as Plectrum tuning in particular. There's a beautiful sound sample of three pieces played by Rob MacKillop (on banjo, not Guitar or Nui).
Would any of your reentrant sets work?
What would be the lowest tension linear set be?
Thanks so much
You know, I hadn't thought about an Ukulele reentrant style set for these instruments - they wouldn't be at all traditional. But giving it some thought thanks to iDavid, these instruments, with a likely resonance of around
c, would actually make great fully resonant "Octave (reentrant, that is) Ukuleles", with a tuning of
g c e a (as opposed to the small line octave used on reentrant Ukuleles:
g' c' e' a').
Just when I thought we had a string set for every practical use! Oh, well, another set coming.