Alternate Tunings for Ukulele

johnnysmash

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I would like to know all of the alternate ways to tune a Ukulele. My Baritone is DGBE and my Tenor is GCEA. Is there many ways as there is with guitar? Does one have to buy different string sets?
 
I would like to know all of the alternate ways to tune a Ukulele. My Baritone is DGBE and my Tenor is GCEA. Is there many ways as there is with guitar? Does one have to buy different string sets?

Tuning in 5th's, as per a violin or mandolin, seems to be quite popular. I have a pineapple soprano tuned the same as a mandolin and my baritone is tuned an octave lower, like a tenor banjo. They are perfectly playable instruments in their own right but inevitably somewhat quieter that their steel-stringed cousins ... good for late night practice ;) For these tunings, some of the original strings can be repurposed, if they're long enough to reach, but the treble on the soprano and the bass on the baritone need to be acquired separately.

The only other non-standard tuning I use regularly is to raise the hi-G to an A for a couple of claw-hammer arrangements.

Don't forget the "old-fashioned" D tuning, A D F# B. Simply tighten a standard set of strings up a whole tone, some instruments can really "come alive" with a little more string tension!

Inevitably YMMV :music:
 
There are many ways to tune ukulele. If you buy the SmartChord app it has a long list of tunings available and will produce the corresponding chords and scales for review. For Hawaiian music there are also slack key tunings most notable C taropatch G C E G and C wahine G B E G.
 
I basically do two things in regards to tunings.

1. I adjust all my strings in unison. For example, instead of GCEA my ukulele is tuned EAC#F# (all strings are three half-steps looser than standard tuning)

2. I use open tunings. For example open A major would be AC#EA instead of GCEA.
 
As long as one realizes that most ukes acoustically respond best within the "traditional" tuning range for their sizes, anything goes as far as tuning each string. There is no "mandatory" tuning scheme. Tunings depend on what the musician (not the manufacturer) feels most comfortable and sounds acceptable.

There are prepackaged string sets for a couple different tunings. I've also taken extra strings from various string sets to create my own tuning experiments. The goal is a simple one - get the best sound out of the instrument within the dexterity limits of the musician.
 
For a soprano uke, music from the early 20th century was often marked up for tuning GCEA, ADF#B or BbEbGC. On a soprano, you can use the same set of strings for all those tunings, especially if you use a lighter weight set like GHS soprano ukulele nylon strings for hawaiian D tuning, or Worth brown lightweight
 
For a soprano uke, music from the early 20th century was often marked up for tuning GCEA, ADF#B or BbEbGC. On a soprano, you can use the same set of strings for all those tunings, especially if you use a lighter weight set like GHS soprano ukulele nylon strings for hawaiian D tuning, or Worth brown lightweight

This is the best.I used to scamper up and the tunings when I were a lad and couldn't afford more than a 30 bob kapok brand plywood topped uke. Them were t'days.
 
An old acquaintance of mine used to play his guitar and these days plays his ukulele "upside down", that is to say, he plays a conventionally strung instrument left-handed. Certainly allows him to make a slightly "different" sound.
Try re-stringing your ukulele "back-to-front" to see if it works for you ;)

:music:
 
An old acquaintance of mine used to play his guitar and these days plays his ukulele "upside down", that is to say, he plays a conventionally strung instrument left-handed. Certainly allows him to make a slightly "different" sound.
Try re-stringing your ukulele "back-to-front" to see if it works for you ;)

:music:

At least his strings are now numbered correctly as 1234 instead of that asinine convention of 4321.
 
Two new friends from Sweden just loaned me their ukulele songbook. Most of the songs are in Swedish and they are all in D tuning.
 
Nylon strings don’t have quite the same resilience as do steel, but you can try pretty much anything up or down a tone with most bog standard uses.

See if you can find a copy of The Uke Buke for a bunch of arrangements gc’e’g’ (Open C w/ Low G)
 
Two new friends from Sweden just loaned me their ukulele songbook. Most of the songs are in Swedish and they are all in D tuning.


You can either put a capo on the 2nd fret to play in the correct key relative to the D6 tuning, or otherwise completely ignore that and just use the same fingerings shown in the song books, in the standard C6 tuning, although you will not be playing in a key (or keys) with chord shapes that are very different to the standard C6 chord shapes, as the D6 chord shapes will have different fingerings for C, G, etc.

Also, if the chord had a named pictogram, and it shows a C chord, etc, just play that same named chord in whatever tuning you have. If someone is playing guitar, piano, uke etc and playing a C chord, and say looking at standard notation, that C chord will at least have the C, E, and G notes in it on every one of those instruments.

So the D tuning in the song book does not have to be an obstacle, unless you want it to. :)
 
I usually stick to C6 tuning, either gCEA or GCEA, but I sometimes tune my reso-uke to open C - GCEG to play slide or some Everly Brothers stuff, like Wake Up, Little Susie.
I have a flea-market Harmony soprano tuned D6 - aDF#B, because it seems to sound good up there.
 
I have some old songbooks that are in D so I just use the chord diagrams and play a note lower, which also suits my voice. The tricky part is when I want to use some piano parts as instrumental filler. Transposing that to uke tab is quite time consuming for me.
 
Thanks for that. It was interesting to see an open 5 chord tuning.

You bet! I tried playing this tuning with a low B and it sounds just as good, if a bit darker and bluesier. But I like that sound, so it's great either way. It's a strange and wonderful tuning, and reminds me a little of DADGAD for guitar--you can get both Celtic and blues voicings depending on the chords used.
 
I usually stick to C6 tuning, either gCEA or GCEA, but I sometimes tune my reso-uke to open C - GCEG to play slide or some Everly Brothers stuff, like Wake Up, Little Susie.
I have a flea-market Harmony soprano tuned D6 - aDF#B, because it seems to sound good up there.

Open C is just great for slide, isn't it?

I keep a number of instruments semi-permanently in different tunings as well. Some guitars and ukes just seem well suited for certain tunings--that's what I've convinced myself anyway. It's a good excuse for my GAS/UAS "problem." :D
 
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