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need suggestions on tuning

Posted by Patrick on May 9, 2017 at 4:41pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

Hey all.  I'm currently building my wife a 4 string guitar and I'm trying to figure out what strings from a 6 string set to use and what tuning to use.  The guitar is basically a 4 string tenor guitar with 23" scale.  She has no experience playing but she would like to get a song book and try to teach herself.  But I'm not sure what tuning to use to make that easier on her.  I considered tuning like a tenor guitar/banjo (CGDA) because there are a number of books she could use to learn how to play.  There also seems to be a lot of baritone uke books (DGBE) available so that is another option.  Nice thing about the baritone uke is the tuning is the same as the bottom 4 strings of a guitar. 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. 

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Replies

  • Michael Zack May 14, 2017 at 3:12pm

    After trying many different 4-string tunings I have settled on DGBD/DGBE as my standard setup. This gives you a great open tuning that can be tuned up to DGBE (same as guitar high strings). It also means that you have access to chord charts online for these tunings. I always choose my strings based on recommendations from stringtensionpro.com, which gives you the ability to choose string tension and gives you a size based on your selection. I usually shoot for a tension of between 16-19 lbs. You can order appropriate string gauges from just strings.com.

    • Patrick > Michael Zack May 14, 2017 at 10:34pm

      Thanks.  I think that's what I'm going to do.

  • Jim Saraceno May 10, 2017 at 10:15am

    Justin Johnson has a video about 4 string tuning... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmD-KZ5uPbs

  • Ron "Oily" Sprague May 9, 2017 at 7:24pm
    Baritone Uke tuning would be the simplest, depending on your scale length, of course...
  • Tom T May 9, 2017 at 6:47pm

    Consider an Open tuning such as Open G (DGBD) which would be the lower four strings from a six string tuned to Open G.

    That would mean that a lot of 6-string tabs would be usable (just forget the two bass strings). There are a lot of free tabs for six strings, so your wife should be able to find songs that fit what she wants to play.

    Good luck

    • Patrick > Tom T May 9, 2017 at 9:00pm

      How does it sound to play like that, ignoring the 2 bass strings?  Do the notes still sound right?

      • Tom T > Patrick May 10, 2017 at 6:51am

        Many songs played in open G totally ignore the top (6th) string anyway. Since you still have a proper Open G tuning, things sound pretty normal to me.

  • Milt Haselmire May 9, 2017 at 5:56pm

    Start here Tenor Guitar Tunings 

This reply was deleted.