I recently turned My 12-string guitar into an octave mandolin (or rather a bouzouki given the larger scale length) with an extra set of C and G strings on top. It's very fun to play now and sounds fantastic. I'll post some chord positions for this tuning when I'm done compiling them.
Here's what I did:
High E strings: stayed the same
B strings: tuned down to A
G strings: used slightly thicker strings, tuned to D
D strings: used thicker strings, tuned to G
A strings: used guitar "B" strings and tuned to C
E strings: replaced with the standard 12 string guitar G-string octave pair... one string at the standard guitar G string tone, and another one octave higher. This is the only string pair that isn't the same octave.
It actually sounds really good. I've never played the real thing, but I imagine my simulation is pretty realistic, to the ears at least. The bottom four strings pairs are for octave mandolining, and I can use all 6 pairs for some alternatively tuned acoustic guitar madness. Very fun. The G octave pair at the bass E spot is kind of cool, as it brings back a bit of the old 12-string guitar tone and provides a variation for riffs played on the regular G strings (ie you can mirror a riff played on the regular octave mando G strings by playing it again on the higher-pitched 12-string guitar G strings).
You could do something else with those bottom 4 string slots of course. I tried a variety of string thicknesses & configurations, and this seemed the most convenient to me.
Roger Tallroth of Vasen (Swedish supergroup of staggering virtuosity) plays a 12-string guitar tuned bouzouki style and gets wonderful range of effects. See Vasen's "Whirled," "Spirit", or others.
Very cool exercise, I'm glad you're having fun with it!
In your tuning you have discovered the basic tuning (CGDA) used for mandolas, cellos and plectrum banjos, with the additional E course on the high side.
Literally (it's slipperier in real life), an octave mandolin is tuned as a mandolin (GDAE low to high), just an octave lower. In actual practice, octave mandolins and bouzoukis are tuned in many different ways, such as ADAD, ADAE, GDAD, etc.
Players who play five-course octave mandolins or bouzoukis
(which are often called citterns when they have those five courses) often use part of the regular mandolin tuning and add either a low G or high E or B. There are lots of variations.
Have a look at the Mandolin Cafe website (www.mandolincafe.com) and go to the forum called "CBOM" which stands for Cittern, Bouzouki, Octave Mandolin. There is a good archive there that you can search for guitar variants on these instruments and tuning variations as well.
Conversions of gutiars of all sorts to some kind of double-course instrument are pretty common, folks do it all the time.
Thanks for the info... one other nice thing about this is it becomes a mandola simply by adding a capo at the fifth fret.
I was thinking, in your opinions, how difficult would it be to add a on the treble end of the fretboard a set of very thin strings tuned to a high B (a fifth higher than the tradition guitar's treble E)? Would that be too high and breakable? My reasoning is that plus with the high B plus the "octave mandolin" strings on the other side would make for a mandola/mandolin combination with the capo at the 5th fret, rather than trying to create a mandolin by capoing the 12th fret (which is impossible on my guitar). Thoughts?
My uncle, in preperation for buying a 5 course bouzouki, which he intened to tune (low to high) GDADA tuned a guitar to DGDADA (i think). The extra high A sounds really punchy in Dmaj and Gmaj chords, once the energy has built up a bit in the set. Need a very light guage though, considering it was a full scale length guitar. The zouk he's getting will be shorter scale length.
Here's another idea. Instead of G D G D A E, which emulates an octave mandolin in the top 4 strings (GDAE), tune to G D G D A D to emulate a bouzouki in those top strings. For melody playing, capo at 7 to get D A E on the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings. You rarely need the G string for Irish anyway and the closer fret spacing will make playing melody much easier than playing at the nut on a 25 inch scale neck.
Either way, capoed at 7 you get D A D A on the bottom 4 strings, for some nice modal tuning possibilities.
Of course, your intonation would have to be perfect to capo that high up and still be in tune.
I like the idea of putting higher gauges on the lower 2 strings. In guitar parlance, this is similar to a high-strung guitar.
Correction: I just noticed that Uma's tuning is GCGDAE, using a C on the 5th string. So my suggestion of GDGDAD changes two strings tunings from Uma's. With a C on the 5th string, at the 7th fret you get G D A E on the middle 4 strings; a full blown octive mandolin tuning.
Maybe, then, G C G D A D in something to be explored, giving the typical bouzouki tuning (GDAD) at the nut and the typical octave mandolin tuning (GDAE) at the 7th fret where melody is easier to play.
As I look at it now, isn't that a common cittern or 5-string bouzouki tuining, with an extra G for the 6th string?
GCGDAD.... that's interesting, I'll try that. The mandolin tuning capoed at the 7th would be in the middle four courses, yes? I'm not sure what's common to cittern and the like. I've only been playing ITM for about 8 months... principally on the mandolin. Someday I hope to purchace a bouzouki, but for now my re-stringed 12-string is doing the trick.
It seemed to me that a 12-string guitar tuned CGDAEA would be like a bouzouki with an extra pair of strings below and another pair above. allowing bouzouki style playing without having to stretch as far at the top and providing some extra bass notes. I tried doing this but, not being a guitar player, found that I couldn't tune up to the top A or the octave third (6th) string A without breaking strings, and I was using #8 plain steel, about the lightest I can find. Is there any way around this or should I just get used to another tuning? I thought to use this one because I'm already familiar with GDAE from tenor banjo and bouzouki, but I'll welcome any advice. Dan'l
12 string Octave Mandolin
12 string Octave Mandolin
I recently turned My 12-string guitar into an octave mandolin (or rather a bouzouki given the larger scale length) with an extra set of C and G strings on top. It's very fun to play now and sounds fantastic. I'll post some chord positions for this tuning when I'm done compiling them.
Here's what I did:
High E strings: stayed the same
B strings: tuned down to A
G strings: used slightly thicker strings, tuned to D
D strings: used thicker strings, tuned to G
A strings: used guitar "B" strings and tuned to C
E strings: replaced with the standard 12 string guitar G-string octave pair... one string at the standard guitar G string tone, and another one octave higher. This is the only string pair that isn't the same octave.
It actually sounds really good. I've never played the real thing, but I imagine my simulation is pretty realistic, to the ears at least. The bottom four strings pairs are for octave mandolining, and I can use all 6 pairs for some alternatively tuned acoustic guitar madness. Very fun. The G octave pair at the bass E spot is kind of cool, as it brings back a bit of the old 12-string guitar tone and provides a variation for riffs played on the regular G strings (ie you can mirror a riff played on the regular octave mando G strings by playing it again on the higher-pitched 12-string guitar G strings).
An illustration:
+--E---------------
+--E---------------
+--A---------------
+--A---------------
+--D---------------
+--D---------------
+--G-(low)--------
+--G-(low)--------
+--C-(high)------
+--C-(high)-----
+--G-(med)-------
+--G-(high)-------
You could do something else with those bottom 4 string slots of course. I tried a variety of string thicknesses & configurations, and this seemed the most convenient to me.
Thoughts? Has anyone here done something similar?
# Posted on October 8th 2005 by Uma Floresta
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Roger Tallroth of Vasen (Swedish supergroup of staggering virtuosity) plays a 12-string guitar tuned bouzouki style and gets wonderful range of effects. See Vasen's "Whirled," "Spirit", or others.
chris smith
# Posted on October 8th 2005 by coyotebanjo
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
You are one wild and crazy dude, Uma.
# Posted on October 8th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Good on you Uma, I love that sort of experimentation!
# Posted on October 9th 2005 by On Sabbatical
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Thank you. If any of you own a 12-string, you should try it. It's extremely cool-sounding.
# Posted on October 9th 2005 by Uma Floresta
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Sounds pretty cool maybe I can steal my Dad's 12 string, I already sotle my Mom's 6 string.
# Posted on October 9th 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Very cool exercise, I'm glad you're having fun with it!
In your tuning you have discovered the basic tuning (CGDA) used for mandolas, cellos and plectrum banjos, with the additional E course on the high side.
Literally (it's slipperier in real life), an octave mandolin is tuned as a mandolin (GDAE low to high), just an octave lower. In actual practice, octave mandolins and bouzoukis are tuned in many different ways, such as ADAD, ADAE, GDAD, etc.
Players who play five-course octave mandolins or bouzoukis
(which are often called citterns when they have those five courses) often use part of the regular mandolin tuning and add either a low G or high E or B. There are lots of variations.
Have a look at the Mandolin Cafe website (www.mandolincafe.com) and go to the forum called "CBOM" which stands for Cittern, Bouzouki, Octave Mandolin. There is a good archive there that you can search for guitar variants on these instruments and tuning variations as well.
Conversions of gutiars of all sorts to some kind of double-course instrument are pretty common, folks do it all the time.
Have some fun!
stv
http://cdbaby.com/Culchies
# Posted on October 9th 2005 by stv culchie
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Thanks for the info... one other nice thing about this is it becomes a mandola simply by adding a capo at the fifth fret.
I was thinking, in your opinions, how difficult would it be to add a on the treble end of the fretboard a set of very thin strings tuned to a high B (a fifth higher than the tradition guitar's treble E)? Would that be too high and breakable? My reasoning is that plus with the high B plus the "octave mandolin" strings on the other side would make for a mandola/mandolin combination with the capo at the 5th fret, rather than trying to create a mandolin by capoing the 12th fret (which is impossible on my guitar). Thoughts?
# Posted on October 9th 2005 by Uma Floresta
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
My uncle, in preperation for buying a 5 course bouzouki, which he intened to tune (low to high) GDADA tuned a guitar to DGDADA (i think). The extra high A sounds really punchy in Dmaj and Gmaj chords, once the energy has built up a bit in the set. Need a very light guage though, considering it was a full scale length guitar. The zouk he's getting will be shorter scale length.
# Posted on October 10th 2005 by kjay_bc_box
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Here's another idea. Instead of G D G D A E, which emulates an octave mandolin in the top 4 strings (GDAE), tune to G D G D A D to emulate a bouzouki in those top strings. For melody playing, capo at 7 to get D A E on the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings. You rarely need the G string for Irish anyway and the closer fret spacing will make playing melody much easier than playing at the nut on a 25 inch scale neck.
Either way, capoed at 7 you get D A D A on the bottom 4 strings, for some nice modal tuning possibilities.
Of course, your intonation would have to be perfect to capo that high up and still be in tune.
I like the idea of putting higher gauges on the lower 2 strings. In guitar parlance, this is similar to a high-strung guitar.
# Posted on October 10th 2005 by Craymcla
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
Correction: I just noticed that Uma's tuning is GCGDAE, using a C on the 5th string. So my suggestion of GDGDAD changes two strings tunings from Uma's. With a C on the 5th string, at the 7th fret you get G D A E on the middle 4 strings; a full blown octive mandolin tuning.
Maybe, then, G C G D A D in something to be explored, giving the typical bouzouki tuning (GDAD) at the nut and the typical octave mandolin tuning (GDAE) at the 7th fret where melody is easier to play.
As I look at it now, isn't that a common cittern or 5-string bouzouki tuining, with an extra G for the 6th string?
# Posted on October 10th 2005 by Craymcla
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
GCGDAD.... that's interesting, I'll try that. The mandolin tuning capoed at the 7th would be in the middle four courses, yes? I'm not sure what's common to cittern and the like. I've only been playing ITM for about 8 months... principally on the mandolin. Someday I hope to purchace a bouzouki, but for now my re-stringed 12-string is doing the trick.
Thanks for the hints!
# Posted on October 10th 2005 by Uma Floresta
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
The guy from Dervish does some similar experiment on his guitar.....its a 12 string too.....interesting
http://www.dervish.ie/seamus.htm
# Posted on October 10th 2005 by Hugo Chavez
Re: 12 string Octave Mandolin
It seemed to me that a 12-string guitar tuned CGDAEA would be like a bouzouki with an extra pair of strings below and another pair above. allowing bouzouki style playing without having to stretch as far at the top and providing some extra bass notes. I tried doing this but, not being a guitar player, found that I couldn't tune up to the top A or the octave third (6th) string A without breaking strings, and I was using #8 plain steel, about the lightest I can find. Is there any way around this or should I just get used to another tuning? I thought to use this one because I'm already familiar with GDAE from tenor banjo and bouzouki, but I'll welcome any advice. Dan'l
# Posted on May 15th 2008 by danlm