# Octaves, Zouks, Citterns, Tenors and Electrics > Tenor Guitars >  tenor or new standard tuning

## fentonjames

i've been a guitarist for, oh, 40 years.  since starting the mandolin and fiddle a few years ago, guitar is less and less of an interest to me.

since it's in fifths, i'm considering a tenor guitar.

my situation doesn't allow, well lets just say money is extremely tight and i'd have to sell my guitar to get the tenor.  it's a really nice guild.

but, then i thought about tuning it in fifths and found out that a lot of people do that and call it 'new standard tuning' cgdaeb.

my question is, has anyone done this?  does it work well?  (ok, that was two questions)  changing strings to gauges that would handle that is inexpensive.  should i give that tuning a try, or just get a tenor and sell this one?  (yes, another question)

thank you in advance, 

jim

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## Steve Ostrander

I don't know what you're budget is, but I bought a new Blueridge BR40T for less than $400. I tuned it GDAE (mandolin) and had it set up after changing strings. It's fun to play but it doesn't replace the mandolin.

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## JeffD

I think what you will find is that it becomes very difficult to play like a tenor. 

A guitar is tuned in forths, making one finger per fret convenient in that the next string is about a hand span away. Tuning in fifths will really mess with this.

My tenor guitar did not have frets spaced as far apart as a standard guitar, and so I could use diatonic fingering (one finger for two frets as on a mandolin), which makes sense for fifth tuned instruments, in that the next string is roughly a hand span away.

Of course if you predominantly play chords I guess this doesn't matter as much.

This is separate from the string tensions and other technical matters that others are more qualified to address.

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## fentonjames

not looking to replace the mandolin.  looking for a way to keep myself interested in playing guitar.

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## Seonachan

Before I bought a tenor, I put new strings with appropriate gauges on the middle 4 courses of my 6-string to tune GDAE. It's not the same as a tenor guitar in terms of feel, playability, etc. but it does give a sense of how you'd take to it. You can also capo at the 2nd fret to more accurately reflect the 23" scale.

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fentonjames

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## Jacob

New standard tuning is ususally C-G-D-A-E-*G*. If your guitar is standard scale length, around 25.5 inches, high B on the 1st string is pretty much impossible. Even very thin strings will break before reaching that pitch. The practical pitch limit for the 1st string is most probably high G, as on a twelve string guitar.

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DavidKOS

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## fentonjames

> New standard tuning is ususally C-G-D-A-E-*G*. If your guitar is standard scale length, around 25.5 inches, high B on the 1st string is pretty much impossible. Even very thin strings will break before reaching that pitch. The practical pitch limit for the 1st string is most probably high G, as on a twelve string guitar.


you are quite correct.  typo on my part.

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DavidKOS

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## fox

It is difficult to keep up with the amount of tenor guitars available and their prices, although the blueridge is most peoples favourite there are cheaper tenor guitars around. In the UK you can buy a  23 or 21" scale tenor for around £130.
The other option might be a baritone ukulele tuned GDAE with three wound and one plain nylon string .. they sound fantastic!
There lots of 6 string, fithts tuned, threads on the site = not a easy option to get working well.
Trying to play fast melody on 23" scale is difficult enough for me!

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## DavidKOS

> New standard tuning is ususally C-G-D-A-E-*G*..



And that high G is the one part of the tuning that bothered me! All 5ths and one weird minor 3rd? What was Fripp thinking?

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## fentonjames

i'm going for the least expensive option, switching strings on the guitar and do the cgdaeg thing.

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## colorado_al

> I'd have to sell my guitar to get the tenor.  it's a really nice guild.


That would be a shame to have to sell an istrument just to try out another.
I recently bought a used Blueridge BR-40TCE for $280 and turned it into an Octave Mandolin. 
http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/sh...-OM-conversion
I liked it as a tenor, but like it even more as an OM.
I live in West County, about 20 min drive from Fenton. You're welcome to come check it out sometime.
Re tight budget, Ibanez is making a bunch of low priced tenors. I think the consensus around the mandolincafe is that the Blueridge tenors are better, but they are also more expensive.
You can pickup the Ibanez Performance PFT2 for $180
You can buy this one and have it shipped to the Crestwood, MO store and check it out. If it is not to your liking, you can return it within 30 days:
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Ibanez/P...15030762280.gc

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fentonjames

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## Mandophyte

See the NST Social Group: 

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=73

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Beginning, 

fentonjames

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## Nathan Kellstadt

> And that high G is the one part of the tuning that bothered me! All 5ths and one weird minor 3rd? What was Fripp thinking?


That always got me as well.

From the humble Wikipedia.

The original version of NST was all fifths tuning. However, in the 1980s, Fripp never attained the all fifth's high B. While he could attain A, the string's lifetime distribution was too short. Experimenting with a G string, Fripp succeeded. "Originally, seen in 5ths. all the way, the top string would not go to B. so, as on a tenor banjo, I adopted an A on the first string. These kept breaking, so G was adopted."

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Beginning, 

DavidKOS

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## Freddyfingers

Keep the guitar.  I dove head first into mandolin and almost stopped playing the guitar, except for gigs that were on the books.  Over the last two years I have made advances that took me many years to make on the guitar , and that is my primary instrument until now.  That being said, the guitar and mandolin are two different beasts.  When first trying a mandolin I foolishly approached it like a backwards guitar.  That made it ruff.  Eventually, with the help of a bacon and day banjo, I discovered the wonderful world of fifths.  But quickly learned that they are suited to the scale and size of their proper instruments.  Many have tuned a mandolin like a guitar, dgbe.  So they wouldn't have to learn the proper scales and chords.  It's doable, but I quickly found I could not play the mandolin like the guitar.  Felt off. I am guessing the same would hold true for tuning a guitar into fifths.  The neck length and distance between the strings would throw me off.  At times I wish my blue ridge br40t had slightly closer string spacing so I can pull off some easier one finger two sittings chords.   

Anyway, the guitar will haunt you if you sell it as you will want to pick it up again one day.  Hind site 20 20. Save for the tenor you want and be patient.  Gas will kill.

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DavidKOS, 

fentonjames

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## fentonjames

freddyfingers, i actually think i've owned more than 500 guitars.  i change them all the time, so if i got rid of it, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to me.  there's always another.

colorado al, $ is tight, i know i have car repairs on the horizon.  we may have to hook up sometime!

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colorado_al

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## ombudsman

I'm getting the sense that no matter the particulars of the instrument, even getting 5 strings tuned in 5ths to sound good and have consistent tension is very difficult unless you go with fanned frets. Particularly if it is a primarily acoustic instrument, since a pickup with adjustable polepieces can compensate for a quiet lowest string.

I like tenor guitar a lot, but before selling an instrument to jump over to it I would strongly recommend at least trying some different scale lengths on a tenor. I have 23" and 21" scale tenors and if I was doing a lot of single note melodic stuff I would always pick up the 21". On the other hand the 23" is louder and clearer (as you would expect) and there are lots of possibilities in that tuning as well. 

As a side note I play guitar exclusively in all fourths tuning and find that to help me relate to strings in fifths, both because of familiarity of intervals on the C string, and because of the symmetry. You could try that, without spending a dime; just throwing that out there.

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fentonjames, 

s11141827

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## fentonjames

got her strung up and played it for about an hour.  i DIG IT!

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## fox

That's great Jim, what gauge strings did you find to work for you?

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## Mandobart

Glad you didn't let the naysayers get you down.  Fanned frets a necessity?  NO! I have a 26" 10 string mandocello tuned C-G-D-A-E and it plays great.  I tuned my old 6 stringer F-C-G-D-A-E.  I used the heaviest guitar string I could find at my local shop, I think its a .077?  Still too floppy.  I really like the sound of the rest of the strings though.  I don't remember the gages, but probably same as my 'cello:
C- .074, G - .048, D - .034, A - .022, E - .010

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Beginning

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## fentonjames

fox- 11 13 24 32 46 56

mandobart- i thought the same about the fanned frets.

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## Verne Andru

I second the advice to string a standard 6-string as a 4-string tenor as the fastest and cheapest avenue to a tenor. I bought an Epiphone Wildkat specifically for that purpose - nice P-90's and a Bigsby are hard to come by on a tenor. I have it tuned to Bb-F-C-G and capo at the second fret to get C-G-D-A. That also gives me a 21" scale, which I prefer.

Another off-the-shelf option is to mod an Epiphone Les Paul PeeWee. I've done 2 of them and they work great. They have a full-size 6-string Les Paul neck done to a 19" scale. All the electronics and hardware are standard Les Paul, so swapping stuff out is super-easy. I have mine string to Eb-Bb-F-C-G-D so when I capo at the second I get F-C-G-D-A-E - which I call extended range tenor. And it's all in 5th's!

PeeWee's can be had for under $100 all day long because people bought them for kids. Most never got setup, so they never got played and become Craigslist fodder. It's a super cheap way to go if you want a 6-string all in 5th's.

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Beginning, 

Mandobart

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## zoukboy

I have tried various tunings on a 3/4 scale Cordoba travel guitar. The shorter 23.5"/59.7cm scale allows either a high A4 or B4.

Here are the tunings I have tried:

C2 G2 D3 A3 E4 B4

D2 G2 D3 A3 E4 A4

D2 G2 D3 A3 D4 A4

D2 G2 D3 G3 D4 G4

and they all work pretty well.

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Beginning

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## PiousDevil

I've picked up a set of the John Pearse New Standard Tuning strings, but couldn't get the high string up to G without popping it

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## mandroid

Brian Oberlin and Evan Marshall @ TGG 7 did another knock it out of the park  Sunday concert, 

Brian  saying,  again "I ought to get one of these" as he ripped out his part of a duet, 
playing a loaned  fan fret 4 string Tenor.
think it was Octave down ITB tuning ..

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## Eddie Sheehy

> Brian Oberlin and Evan Marshall @ TGG 7 did another knock it out of the park  Sunday concert, 
> 
> Brian  saying,  again "I ought to get one of these" as he ripped out his part of a duet, 
> playing a loaned  fan fret 4 string Tenor.
> think it was Octave down ITB tuning ..


Dang!  My flight out was Sunday afternoon...

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## Eddie Sheehy

> New standard tuning is ususally C-G-D-A-E-*G*. If your guitar is standard scale length, around 25.5 inches, high B on the 1st string is pretty much impossible. Even very thin strings will break before reaching that pitch. The practical pitch limit for the 1st string is most probably high G, as on a twelve string guitar.


I have the top strings on my 2 twelve-strings tuned to E, so I don't know what you mean by high G as on a 12-string...

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## ombudsman

> I have the top strings on my 2 twelve-strings tuned to E, so I don't know what you mean by high G as on a 12-string...


that would be the octave G string

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## Eddie Sheehy

Ahh, the .008"...

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## mandroid

Octave Down from the E next to it ?

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## jdchapman

I would think the scale would make a big difference.  A long scaled guitar tuned in fifths wouldn't allow some of the fingerings possible in a shorter scale instrument, obviously.  Even a long scale tenor can make some things difficult, which is why people like me like those little Regals so much.  No reason not to try the tuning, but I'm curious, are you mostly playing single string leads on it?  Or just two finger chords?  I've been getting back into tenor myself, but I have been opting for GDGD or GDAD.  New tunings make things fun again on every chordophone, I say.

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## fentonjames

mostly leads and 2 finger, some 3.

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## s11141827

Octave4Plus makes a .006 High B String that tunes up to B super fast w/o any issues

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## Explorer

> *Octave4Plus makes a .006 High B String that tunes up to B super fast w/o any issues*


Absolutely not true, friend. 

The string path has to be free of burrs, kinks and flaws. Any potential flaw can act as a knife edge, leading to the string snapping at that location.

The string has to be brought to pitch over time. I know people who tuned quickly, counter to the instructions, and then complained of breakage. Don't do it!

Here's a few topics wherein I post about my sucessful experiments tuning to (low to high) CGDAEB on steel-string instruments.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...-my-experiment

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...ndocello-Plus!

And a social group topic wherein I posted about an easy way to convert a nylon-string guitar to CGDAEB tuning with fishing line for the top string.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...#gmessage86786

Sorry to be nitpicky about this, but I think of the Café, as well as other forums, as resources for those who will come later. Bad information takes away from the value of that knowledge and information. If someone doesn't care enough about the forum to do more than occasionally drop spam and misinformation, at least future readers and members might appreciate being given alternative ideas and claims, and can consider for themselves what might be reliable.

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fox, 

Jill McAuley, 

Verne Andru

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## Verne Andru

> The string path has to be free of burrs, kinks and flaws. Any potential flaw can act as a knife edge, leading to the string snapping at that location.
> 
> The *string has to be brought to pitch over time*. I know people who tuned quickly, counter to the instructions, and then complained of breakage. Don't do it!


I second this and thank you for bringing it up. I have a short-scale 6-string I tune Eb Bb F C G D. To get the high D I need an .008. It took a lot of trial-and-error to realize I had to tune it in steps - tune up then let it rest, tune a bit higher then let it rest and continue until it hits pitch. Once there its quite stable.

A big part of getting strings to hit the higher pitches is, as you note, making sure the string path is clean and clear.

But I also think heat generated by the vibrating string is a factor. When I say I "let it rest" I'm usually considering a reasonable amount of time for the string to cool down before I go at it again. Whether true or not, the slow and steady method is the way to go.

PS - I have been able to get the high D up a semi-tone to Eb but strings always break before hitting the high E, even with a .007 gauge.

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## JeffD

> not looking to replace the mandolin.  looking for a way to keep myself interested in playing guitar.


Revisiting this thread because of a recent experience. A friend of mine, long long time guitarist, (and a rather good one) asked me very similar questions a couple of years ago about just tuning his guitar in fifths to play it like a tenor guitar, and for very similar reasons. While playing somewhat more mandolinny, his main goal was to do something that forced him into a new world, a new guitar with new problems to resolve and new ways to think.

Instead of going all mandolinish and tuning in fifths, I suggested he try perfect fourths tuning. Just taking the top two strings up a semitone so that every interval between open strings is a fourth.

This preserves the "hand span" for the next open string for chromatic fingering (one fret one finger), which a guitar is kind of optimized for. And one can revel in the amazing symmetries when all the string intervals are the same. Everything is portable up and down _and across_ the neck.

Not that my friend shouldn't explore tenor guitars tuned in fifths, or mandocellos, or mandolins, or anything he wants. Might be some advantage of course to using an instrument designed for the task, of course. But, I told him, if you are not looking to explore mandolinishness as much as to find a way to stay interested in guitar, it seemed to me that perfect fourths tuning was a better, and maybe more exciting and less frustrtating way to go.

Well he went to perfect fourths and fell deep into that hole. He has joined "the first church of Ant Law" as he calls it, and thanks me with free drinks whenever I see him.

FWIW-YMMV

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## Tracy Fleck

I made a mini telecaster from a Stew Mac kit during lockdown.  I tuned it to NST (FCGDAC) and have had some fun with it.  The low F string is a bit floppy, and I haven't gotten used to the high C.  It does make playing tunes in F and C quite fun.

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s11141827

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## Explorer

> Instead of going all mandolinish and tuning in fifths, I suggested he try perfect fourths tuning. Just taking the top two strings up a semitone so that every interval between open strings is a fourth. This preserves the "hand span" for the next open string for chromatic fingering (one fret one finger), which a guitar is kind of optimized for. And one can revel in the amazing symmetries when all the string intervals are the same. Everything is portable up and down *and across* the neck.


I had two 8-string guitars tuned in fifths, one with a 28.625" scale length (AbEbBbFCGDA) and the other with 25.5". The 25.5" lasted longer in full fifths tuning (BbFCGDAEB low to high), but the 28" was *hugely* vertical in approach. I eventually changed the 28" to what is sometimes called E Standard Extended, tuned low-to-high EADGCFAD. That gave me an extended bass guitar at the bottom, and the standard guitar tuning's intervals at the top, albeit dropped a full step. I was playing mostly combined funk bass/funk rhythm guitar, and the discontinuity of that third interval in the middle of guitar standard tuning makes workable barre chords possible.

Eventually the 25.5" 8-string also wound up in EADGCFAD tuning.

The experiment really cemented for me, and allowed me to fully appreciate, just how many advantages there are to standard EADGBE guitar tuning.

I almost went to a 9-string, which would have added one more string at the bass end, BEADGCFAD, but instead focused almost all my efforts on really mastering mandola.

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s11141827

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## Cornelius Morris

I recently tuned my 1931 Gibson TG-1 tenor one-half step below CGDA (starting with B).  This gives (on John Pearse strings) 11, 13, 22, 32.  Nothing breaks with this tuning and gauge of strings.  I can always capo to go back to CGDA, but this low voice is rather nice.  Spooky low tuning.

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s11141827, 

Simon DS, 

Verne Andru

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## Explorer

> I recently tuned my 1931 Gibson TG-1 tenor one-half step below CGDA (starting with B).  This gives (on John Pearse strings) 11, 13, 22, 32.  Nothing breaks with this tuning and gauge of strings.  I can always capo to go back to CGDA, but this low voice is rather nice.  Spooky low tuning.


Doesn't the TG-1 have a 22 13/16" scale length?

I'm asking because a plain string will tune easily up to G4 at a 25.5" guitar scale length, with the string at only 73% of breaking tension. Fretting at the second fret gives you A4 with that same tension. At the 22 13/16" scale length of the TG-1, the high A4 should only be around 74% of breaking tension.

Were you breaking the high A string a lot?

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## s11141827

> New standard tuning is ususally C-G-D-A-E-*G*. If your guitar is standard scale length, around 25.5 inches, high B on the 1st string is pretty much impossible. Even very thin strings will break before reaching that pitch. The practical pitch limit for the 1st string is most probably high G, as on a twelve string guitar.


But Octave4Plus makes a .006 Gauge High B String designed for tuning to B4 on a 25.5 in scale & you have to tune it gently so that it doesn't break

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## Explorer

> Octave4Plus makes a .006 High B String that tunes up to B super fast w/o any issues





> But Octave4Plus makes a .006 Gauge High B String designed for tuning to B4 on a 25.5 in scale & you have to tune it gently so that it doesn't break


And now we're to the point where he's contradicting himself. *laugh*

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Jill McAuley, 

s11141827

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## s11141827

Magma makes special 5ths Tuned Nylon strings:https://magmastoreusa.com/products/c...opper-gct-gh-1 you need to make sure there's no burs in the string path so tune it slowly & keep that nut lubricated.

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## s11141827

The string making technology for super thin strings that can tune super high on a longer scale length is currently going under improvements.

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## s11141827

My .006 High B didn't break cause I actually added some silk winding to both ends of the strings like they do with flat wound strings for bowed stringed instruments

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## s11141827

I use Nylon strings because I'm less likely to break a string as the tension is lower.

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## s11141827

> I made a mini telecaster from a Stew Mac kit during lockdown.  I tuned it to NST (FCGDAC) and have had some fun with it.  The low F string is a bit floppy, and I haven't gotten used to the high C.  It does make playing tunes in F and C quite fun.


You could also tune it C, G, D, A, E, B & because the B4 is a half step below the C5, no issues there.

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## maxr

If anyone's having trouble with high pitch strings breaking, it might be worth trying D'Addario NYXL plain strings. They claim these strings are better at resisting electric guitar abuse like long bends than vanilla strings. I tried tuning a 12 string in 5ths at one time, and that appears to be true. That doesn't mean you'll get away with a high .008 B (that's B above the standard highest guitar string) on a 25.5" scale tuned in 5ths, but it seemed to be OK with New Standard's high G top string.

My investigations of New Standard did lead me to the conclusion that many sound clips available of folks playing in that tuning can be categorised by what Frank Jappa called 'Jazz noodling' - I think he meant scale based improvisation that sounds like the scales and the music were in contention and the scales won  :Smile:  Nothing wrong with that if it's what someone adopts New Standard to play, and I don't know whether NS pushes people towards that style, or they adopt it 'cos they already play that. Just saying...

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## Verne Andru

> If anyone's having trouble with high pitch strings breaking, it might be worth trying D'Addario NYXL plain strings. They claim these strings are better at resisting electric guitar abuse like long bends than vanilla strings. I tried tuning a 12 string in 5ths at one time, and that appears to be true. That doesn't mean you'll get away with a high .008 B (that's B above the standard highest guitar string) on a 25.5" scale tuned in 5ths, but it seemed to be OK with New Standard's high G top string.
> 
> My investigations of New Standard did lead me to the conclusion that many sound clips available of folks playing in that tuning can be categorised by what Frank Jappa called 'Jazz noodling' - I think he meant scale based improvisation that sounds like the scales and the music were in contention and the scales won  Nothing wrong with that if it's what someone adopts New Standard to play, and I don't know whether NS pushes people towards that style, or they adopt it 'cos they already play that. Just saying...


Zappa would know - he was a master noodler but also super melodic when he put his mind to it.

Robert Fripp is the main proponent of 'new standard tuning' and he is best known for his work with groups like King Crimson, who are about as far from the mainstream as you could imagine. NST is a good way to get peeps thinking outside the box, but I think taking it's name as anything other than hyperbole is stretching.

I'm quite happy with my 'double-extended-range' Eb Bb F C G D tenor tuning. It's 19" scale 6-string, all in 5ths so mando/tenor stuff all works, goes lower than a standard-tuned guitar and higher than an electric mandolin.

I've found it works very well playing with guitars in standard tuning and if I need mando/tenor tuning I capo at the second fret to get F C G D A E.

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## Explorer

> My investigations of New Standard did lead me to the conclusion that many sound clips available of folks playing in that tuning can be categorised by what Frank Jappa called 'Jazz noodling'.' ...Nothing wrong with that if it's what someone adopts New Standard to play, and I don't know whether NS pushes people towards that style, or they adopt it 'cos they already play that. Just saying...


Once I had sorted out how to tune my 12-string mandophone to full fifths, I went to one of those NST guitar circles. I figured that they had been using the tuning for a while, and so they knew how to really leverage it.

Instead, I discovered that the established players would signal non-verbal approval when improv efforts sounded Frippian, and would frown and silently disapprove when non-Frippian elements emerged. It was fascinating to watch. At the end, when they encouraged questions from the newbies, I mentioned the sameness of the Fripp elements from the established members, and their non-verbal steering during the explorations. I then asked, with all the different styles and genres associated with full-fifths-centered tunings (Gypsy jazz violin, bluegrass mandolin, CBOM-centered music like Irish, and even Bach cello music), and with all the claims of wanting to break out of narrow thinking, why did all the guitar circle/NST stuff have to center on Fripp-style riffs?

If I recall correctly, as everyone was packing up, I was quietly and privately invited to not return. *laugh*

Although I use full fifths (CGDAEB) and not crippled fifths/NST, I've managed to play in different genres without sounding like the run-of-the-mill NST repertoire. There's probably a reason more than one person refers to Guitar Craft as Guitar Cult. (You might even find something about that idea by searching on "guitar craft" in quotes and then adding the word cult outside the quotes, if you're interested. I remember a few times reading journals that GC members had posted online, about deciding to keep practicing even though they were deathly ill, and so on.....)

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Verne Andru

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## maxr

Eek, 25.5 inch CGDAEB- what do you use for the B string? I tried that tuning on a Guild 12, and even NYXL 0.007s and .008s popped.

Your comments have inspired me dig out some of the jazz violin books I never got to grips with on fiddle, and try it on GDAE tenor  guitar.

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## Explorer

> Eek, 25.5 inch CGDAEB- what do you use for the B string? I tried that tuning on a Guild 12, and even NYXL 0.007s and .008s popped.


I use strings from Octave 4 Plus.

Here's a few topics on some things I did.

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...-my-experiment 

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...andocello-Plus! 

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/g...592&do=discuss

I also used to have a Tacoma Papoose tuned in CGDAEB full fifths, but that got retuned as a 19" scale length standard tuned guitar for someone who is a little person, so it went to a good cause. I think I also posted somewhere about using high-strength monofilament fishing line as the high string to get to full fifths on a classical Yamaha Silent Guitar.

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maxr

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