DGBE Tuning (Chicago style, baritone uke) – AKA mud

So I picked up this guitar thinking that I would just use something similar to the baritone uke tuning. Seems like a good idea right? I’m already an amazing uke player so once those skills transfer to the guitar, I’m going to be getting laid twice as much (Some quick math skills: 2*0 = 0). Well let me tell you, this was a terrible idea. It just doesn’t work. Have you every played a baritone uke? You’re always super exited to try one and in your head, your thinking maybe this will be the one that really speaks to me. And it’s always fun to fiddle with but once you give it back to its owner, you go on with your life thinking maybe I’ll pick one up if I ever find a deal I can’t refuse. It’s mud man, mud. All the notes get muddy when they are lower. It is just too narrow of a scale range to sound nice. It seems to work for high ranges but totally fails for low to mid range tuning.

It is very hard to recognize this without actually trying it out. Here’s an example where you can kind of hear it. This guy is great, and good skill can definitely bypass some limitations. Once he starts stumming (time 6:20), it begins to get muddy.

What? You don’t believe me? Try this one then. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound muddy. This guy also is giving er a good go too. Nothing against the skill of these two, just the tuning doesn’t really show off the instrument (or the player).



If you are still dead set on Chicago tuning, there’s hope. It sounds fine as long as there aren’t a ton of chords. It could be good for lead so long as you are always playing with other folks. The first few minutes are DGBE tuning. However, I recommend you wait until 2:40 and it starts to point to a better option.

CGDA normal tuning – the win

I really did not want to learn a whole not set of chords and fingering patterns. But there is a reason why this tuning sticks around. It covers a much larger scale range than Chicago style and to my ears, that means a fuller sound.

The previous examples show how muddy it is when strumming. Check out this simple video. Just some stums. He starts with C. Doesn’t that sound fuller to your ears? This is the tuning you really need to learn.

How about some nice lead + chords?



Here’s another example of chording with normal tuning.



GDAE

This is just a transposed version of the CGDA tuning. I don’t have much opinion about this one since I’ve not yet tried it. It is less common then CGDA but I would imagine has similar properties in terms of full sounding chords.

Other options (GDAD, DGDG) – specialized for sliding, celtic

There are a couple other options. It is harder to find tabs and info for these tunings so that’s one reason to avoid them initially. The other reason is that they are meant for very specialized types of music and tend to have drone strings. This means they are great for music that is always in the same key and playing style, but don’t transition well to other keys or styles. They seem very well suited to Irish/Celtic songs and given my Nova Scotian roots, I’m going to have to give this tuning a shot some day.

GDAD



DGDG



DADA is used in ways similar to DGDG