Any advice on tuning (and playing) a Mandolin tuned GCEA?

Wooley Bear

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Good morning/afternoon/evening chaps. (I hope that's covered all the time zones).
Still kind of in lockdown here in the U.K. Although we can now get out and about, still can't meet with my mates and play and sing-a-long together. So, with the extra spare time I am perusing the ''pre loved'' ad sites and picking up the odd instrument here and there. Just came across a local ad for a Modern style mandolin. Googled tuning one etc. and apparently they can be tuned GCEA like a uke. So, has anyone out there done this? How did it sound and how did it play? Is it easy(ish) for a klutz (me) to adapt? Any feedback welcome, I don't do much finger picking, am happy to strum away in a group and leave the fancy stuff to someone up the front. Thanks in advance, and stay safe.:cheers:
 
I would think much like a guitar or 8 string uke; the second string of G,C is tuned an ocatave higher with the E&A which are tuned the same .
 
Let us know how it works out.
I’ve thought about doing this — foggy as my memory is, I think you only need to tune up one whole step, tune down one whole step, maybe swap two strings. It seemed quite ‘doable’. And I’m into making each of my ukuleles ‘unique’ in their sound.
 
When I bought my tenor guitar, it came with strings tuned in fifths. I didn't change strings or anything; I just tuned it to DGBE and it plays wonderfully. No buzzing, really loud and resonant.
 
Wooley Bear, gcea tuning can be easily done on the mandolin. If you don’t want to learn different chord shapes and only want to strum, it makes sense. The close harmony of standard uke (or guitar) tuning makes a strummed chord sound a bit sweeter.

The fifths tuning of a standard mandolin gives you greater range and the symmetrical layout of the tuning makes it easy to play lead in any key all over the fretboard. Also chord construction is very easy. For example, with any root note, the third is always on it’s left shoulder and the fifth on it’s right side (3rd is one string lower and one fret toward the nut, 5th is same fret, one string higher.

I have been playing uke for almost 10 years and was tempted to use gcea or dgbe when I got my mandolin a few years back. I tried it briefly in both but ultimately decided on traditional mandolin tuning. Even though I had been playing uke 6 years and had good chordal knowledge, I hadn’t really learned my way around the fretboard yet. While you also play rhythm on mando, the emphasis is playing an embellished melody line and fills. This is something I wanted to learn to do, so keeping the traditional mando tuning made sense for me.
 
And, as it has already been suggested, the Venezuelan cuatro is another good possibility. I understand there are a lot of variations to the instrument, but the one I experienced had four double courses of steel strings tuned ADF#B which is just one whole step away from the ukulele. You could play it as is with all your ukulele chords or downtune it the GCEA. The only thing I found weird about it was that the first string was an octave lower. That would make it more difficult to play chord melodies. Other than that, it would be a ready-to-go steel string ukulele strummer.
 
Many, many thanks for all your input. After a lot of searching on the interweb thingy, there just seem to be too many issues with re-tuning to gcea. It can be done, easily apparently, but, having seen a clip on YouTube, I'm not so sure I like the sound it produces. Also, and I know this sounds really stupid, but I had forgotten that the width of a Mandolin fret board might just be a different size to my ukuleles. I prefer playing tenor uke, quite like a concert but really can't handle a soprano. Anyway, one for the back burner for now. One of our uke group has a mandolin, and plays it as a mando, so I think it best to wait until Covid disappears and I can get together with him and play around a bit. So, back to the drawing board. Thanks again.
 
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