# Music by Genre > Bluegrass, Newgrass, Country, Gospel Variants >  Get up john - need tab

## TAD

I've been looking for the tab for "Get Up John" as performed by Ricky Skaggs. #I have not been able to find it. #I would appreciate it if anyone could help me find the tab for this song. #Thanks, TAD #

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## TAD

Doesn't have to be exactly Ricky's version.... TAD

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## bbjockey

TabEdit files at Mandozine has it as Skaggs version.

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## Jim Broyles

The first thing you need to do to play this one authentically is tune your mandolin as follows:
AF# DD aa ad 
Then go  here  and disregard the key the listing says it's in. It isn't C, it's D. If you play the frets tabbed out with the tuning I gave you, it will sound like Ricky.

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## TAD

> TabEdit files at Mandozine has it as Skaggs version.


Thanks... Tony

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## TAD

> The first thing you need to do to play this one authentically is tune your mandolin as follows:
> AF# DD aa ad 
> Then go  here  and disregard the key the listing says it's in. It isn't C, it's D. If you play the frets tabbed out with the tuning I gave you, it will sound like Ricky.


Mighty Fine!! Thanks,... Tony

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## Ivan Kelsall

I play 'Get Up John' in standard tuning. OK,it's not the same tonally as Bill Monoe's or Ricky Skagg's versions,but the tune stays the same & it saves a heck of a lot of re-tuning,unless you're one of those folks who don't mind spending 20 minutes getting your Mandolin back to basics. Is there anyone else who does the same ?. Just curious to know,
                                           Saska

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## Jim Broyles

Well, sure you can pay it in standard tuning. You could play "My Last Days on Earth" in standard tuning too, if you want, but it would not be the same, would it? I like to do "Black Mountain Rag" cross tuned the way Ronnie McCoury and Frank Wakefield tune for it - GG DD GG BD. But I never do it, and I will never play "Get Up John" in cross tuning either, until I have 3 mandolins available and I'm getting paid enough to keep two of them cross tuned and ready to go for one song each.

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## TAD

I had been messing around with _Get Up John_ in standard tuning and while it can be done, it doesn't sound the same. #I did tune the my mandolin per instructions except I left the G the same. #I pick up the sound I like on the high strings since it is easy to tune to A and D. #Sounds pretty good without messing with the A F#. #Thanks for the help as I have learned a new tool other than the GDAE tuning. #Tony

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## swampstomper

Oh man, you lose the coolest part if you skip the A/F# on the bass strings!! and they are easier to tune than the floppy ad.

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## Jim Broyles

TAD, even the tab shows that the mandolin is tuned ADAD, but it isn't authentic tuned that way. Tuning your G course to A/F# is easy. and it's easy to retune from this tuning, especially if your strings are in decent shape. Besides, if you leave your G's the same, the tab is wrong then for every note on the 4th string.

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## Scotti Adams

..and if you dont cross tune the mando when you play this song it sounds too much like Reuben...the banjo tune...which what Get Up John basically is.

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## TAD

> Oh man, you lose the coolest part if you skip the A/F# on the bass strings!! and they are easier to tune than the floppy ad.


Maybe I better go back and try. I've only being playing (attempting!) mandolin for about a year but I have been a flatpicker for 30+ years. #It seemed easy enough to transition to mandolin but boy, there is so much out there to learn and try!! #I love it  #I was just having a hard time trying to tune to A and F#, but maybe I'm missing the easy aspect of it, hehehe.. #I'll try again because I want my money's worth on this song! #Thanks, Tony

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## Jim Broyles

TAD - One G goes up a whole step, the other goes down 1/2 a step. The tension is more or less equalized by the opposite direction of the tuning.

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## Ivan Kelsall

One of the reasons that i leave the tuning on my Mandolin 'standard' is that years back when i played Banjo in a band,i used all sorts of tunings. One night i must have had a duff string or something. I re-tuned my Banjo to play a particular instrumental & i couldn't get the darned thing back in tune properly. It only ever happened once but it put me off re-tuning for ever. I was concious of my Banjo being out of tune throughout the rest of the set - not good !,
        Saska

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## Jim Broyles

I don't know anyone who would deliberately cross tune and retune just to play one or two songs at a jam, but if you have a gig and you get requests for a song - and owners and bartenders have been known to make requests which the band, if it has any desire to be back, will accommodate. My feeling is that if I have a mandolin I can designate for "Get Up John" or "Black Mountain Rag" because people like the tunes and want to hear them the way they know them, I'll do it, but GUJ is never called at our jam, and I just do BMR in standard tuning, because the fiddles want it in A anyway.

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## swampstomper

Tuning to A/F# is pretty easy if your D strings stay in tune -- it's an open D major chord so should really ring when everything is lined up. Many mandos are tap-tuned to D anyway (at least mine seem to be) and there is great resonance with that open D.

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## tree

I agree, the mandolin really rings in that open tuning, especially if you're quick enough to chime the whole open chord - all 8 strings - at the 12th fret, which to me is the coolest part of the whole tune. Spank that puppy and make it ring! I believe Skaggs does it that way at the end of the bass lick, right before the next instrument jumps in for their turn.

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## MikeOPFL

I feel pretty stupid. I'm new to this whole mandolin thing and I've been working my b*tt off trying to figure this version out..... I was all over the place trying to figure this out.... then I see this thread, follow the instructions from jbmando, and BAM! another Ricky Skaggs is born!  .... right

Okay, it all makes more sense now anyway.... 

Thanks!

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## Rick Crenshaw

Now play it as fast as Ricky on Live at Charleston. I have trouble moving my wrist that fast. Dang....

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## tamguitar1

> The first thing you need to do to play this one authentically is tune your mandolin as follows:
> AF# DD aa ad 
> Then go  here  and disregard the key the listing says it's in. It isn't C, it's D. If you play the frets tabbed out with the tuning I gave you, it will sound like Ricky.


Is there another source that has tab for it. I didn't understand the weird symbols there

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## Jim Broyles

Not that I know of. You have to get TEF Viewer to see it, and there is a Help file there to explain the symbols. What part of it do you not understand?

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