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uke violin

I am building a cigar box violin but at the moment i do not know how to play it. I was thinking of tuning it like a ukulele in standard re-entrant tuning. I do not read music or understand much of its theory but does anyone know if a violin tuned like this would even be playable?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on June 20, 2009 at 3:48pm

Tenor ukulele, mandolin, and standard violin all have very similar scale length. Many mandolin players double on fiddle, the fingerings are essentially identical.

I just built my first uke, using the "tenor" scale length of 13 5/8" Basic chord shapes are pretty easy.

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on June 20, 2009 at 3:53pm

I am only a fair player of the fiddle, but for me the beauty of the standard tuning (GDAE) is that you can play the string on either side of the "intentional" string and get a delicious drone. Takes a bit of working it out to learn if you want the higher string or lower string in any given melody. In most cases, you play the higher one and you've automatically got a power chord 5th.

So long as you have that arched fingerboard and arched bridge, you can easily catch just two strings at a time.

That being said, I say give the uke tuning a try!

I'm building a cbfiddle just now, too. I just started to cut off the top corners/edges of the box for bow clearance when hitting the high and low strings, and those will be the soundholes, too. I was nervous about cutting f's anyway!

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on June 20, 2009 at 4:51pm

I don't think it was my idea, I think I saw it somewhere here, but I just did a search and nada. I was all set to cut a waist through both top and bottom. Whew! I'm hoping it'll give enough clearance, I know I need every bit of the 4.5" of my "real" fiddle, and I still clip the edges now and again.

I'll post photos soon, I'm not working for money this week so will be spending at least some time in the shop.

Maybe I"ll start a CBFiddle group? Ukeplayer, Tinyguitars?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on June 21, 2009 at 5:02am

Hehe- Tenor, baritone, concert...I get 'em all confused. My avatar pic is a mandola, which I decided to build as a mandolin wouldn't have had much "neck" on that big Cohiba box.
When I was researching these things, they went into mandolin, mandola, Irish Bozouki, Citern.... Jeez....