Howdy folks!
I have found this site to be very helpful in providing me with Christmas songs, and various other reels, jigs, hornpipes and waltzes to play in the two years I have owned a mandolin. Now that I have a decent bit of experience under my belt, I have a few questions to ask, specifically about tunin'.
I ask your pardon for any redundancy in this matter, and if such a thread already exists, please point me in the appropriate direction. I have done little research in this matter, though a fair amount of experimentation.
I have owned my Kansas K-MA1B mandolin for nigh on two years now (I believe the exact count is some one year eight months plus or minus a few days). In all that time I can assuredly say that I am happy with its performance, despite its relatively cheap price tag of $60 (when Ii bought it). There were a few bugs to it, specifically to the bridge but nothin' I couldn't handle.
For the first year I owned the little gal I wasn't too enthusiastic with it. I played it on and off, but with no real inspiration. When I felt the desire to play it, I'd pull it out of its soft case, check tuning off an old Banana guitar tuner (I'd tune it from open G, as that is the only note the tuner and mandolin can agree on, then do the rest off the 7th fret), then get to pickin'. I was fairly new to instruments as a general note, save a few months piano lessons when I was about nine year old, so my "musical ear" as it may be wasn't all that swell. As such, I can't assuredly say I was ever truly 'in tune', but it sounded as it should to me at the time.
However, now in my second year of owning the little cutie, I have become obsessed with good, true tuning. In my first year I usually picked and strummed all by my lonesome, where in being "exactly" in tune wasn't so critical. Now, though, I wish to branch out and play with a few friends.
I first noticed my mandolin out of "exact tune" when I began playing along with good ol' Jay Buckey's MP3 audio recordings of his site a few months back. Usually they were minor mistunings, so I just lived with it. But the more I played, the more inclined my musical ear became, and the more I tweaked with the instrument, those minor mistunings became more and more annoying. So I began searching for online mandolin tuners, and other instruments to tune off of. And that is when the real fun began!
Baring in mind that I used Jay Buckey as a spring board, I went from online tuner to online tuner trying to find the "right" one. There weren't too many to be honest, and I quickly discarded them all, as none of them got my little mando sounding just right to Jay's. (I'll hereby also admit that I am not musically inclined enough to tune on the fly to other mandolins. If I was, I wouldn't be writing out this short novel!)
So instead I turned to methods at hand. I have several musical friends, of which one plays the guitar, another the violin, and the other the piano. I started with the piano, because my old music teacher, back when I was nine years old, always advised the piano as a go-to instrument for finding proper tuning. Of all the methods I have tried so far, the piano has done second best to getting my instrument to sound like Jay's. Tuning the mandolin off of itself seems to be the best of all, but the A and E string are always too high.
When I began noticing the huge differences in string frequency between other instruments, I became curious about 'what is truly in-tune?'. As I said, the piano seemed the best, but compared to the guitar, they were two entirely different animals it seemed. And the violin, now that was a real shocker! Despite the same open string tuning of -G-D-A-E-, compared to what I was accustomed to as "proper tuning", the two were substantially off, and frankly just didn't plain sound right. In all cases, the G and D string always stayed more or less the same (as dictated by my musical inept ear). However, things got wildly out of sync with the A and E strings between all three sources, including even on the mandolin itself!
Of course I understand that there are differences between audio output between speakers, and as such what is 'in-tune' from one set of speakers may vary between another set. I am also aware that there are variations between mandolins brands and levels of quality, not to mention variations between fellow mandolinists. Jay Buckey simply serves me as a point of reference; something to take root in, mostly because I find my self playing with his recordings that any one else at the moment.
So what's going on here? Why is it that the tuning of my little $60 Kansas mandolin varies so much between so many known to be in tune instruments? The piano is an electric keyboard, and therefore, to my knowledge, can only be in tune. The guitar is of an respectable age and well kept, and tuned daily with the above mentioned, reliable Banana tuner. The violin comes with its own harmonica-like tuner, and numerous people have ensured that, according to the harmonica-like tuner, that it too is in tune. (As a note, even as I write this, I make mental note how I never compared those three instruments together to see how 'in-tune' they sound to each other.)
If it helps, I could see about recording my mandolin, when strummed all string open, when tuned to each instrument in turn so that you too may hear the differences. But otherwise, why are these variations occurring? And more importantly....
What, if such a thing exists, is TRULY in-tune fore a mandolin, and how can I obtain it?
A desperate, but eager mandoliner,
Venger Voldur
P.S.: Thanks to Pete Martin whose instructional beginner mandolin players video I just discovered. With in minutes I was able to match my little mando to yours. So here's to hoping you have it right!
P.P.S.: As an after thought I felt the need to mention that whenever I tune my mando off a source other than the mandolin itself, the previous string when held at the 7th fret does not match the string below it. For example, as of now I am tuned based of off Pete Martin. According to my ear, we are 'in-tune'. However, whenever I hold the A string down at the 7th fret, in comparison to the E string, the A string at the 7th fret is notably higher than E string open. If I were to correct this variation between the strings, I would be 'out of tune' according to Pete Martin's open E string. This ultimately led me to asking, what do I base tuned off of: the mandolin itself, and follow the 7th fret rule, or based on some one else's mandolin?
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