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need suggestions on tuning

Hey all. I'm currently building my wife a 4 string guitar and I'm trying to figure out what strings from a 6 string set to use and what tuning to use. The guitar is basically a 4 string tenor guitar with 23" scale. She has no experience playing but she would like to get a song book and try to teach herself. But I'm not sure what tuning to use to make that easier on her. I considered tuning like a tenor guitar/banjo (CGDA) because there are a number of books she could use to learn how to play. There also seems to be a lot of baritone uke books (DGBE) available so that is another option. Nice thing about the baritone uke is the tuning is the same as the bottom 4 strings of a guitar.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Milt Haselmire on May 9, 2017 at 10:56am

Start here Tenor Guitar Tunings

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on May 9, 2017 at 11:47am

Consider an Open tuning such as Open G (DGBD) which would be the lower four strings from a six string tuned to Open G.

That would mean that a lot of 6-string tabs would be usable (just forget the two bass strings). There are a lot of free tabs for six strings, so your wife should be able to find songs that fit what she wants to play.

Good luck

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Permalink Reply by Patrick on May 9, 2017 at 2:00pm

How does it sound to play like that, ignoring the 2 bass strings? Do the notes still sound right?

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on May 9, 2017 at 11:51pm

Many songs played in open G totally ignore the top (6th) string anyway. Since you still have a proper Open G tuning, things sound pretty normal to me.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on May 9, 2017 at 12:24pm

Baritone Uke tuning would be the simplest, depending on your scale length, of course...

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Permalink Reply by Jim Saraceno on May 10, 2017 at 3:15am

Justin Johnson has a video about 4 string tuning... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmD-KZ5uPbs

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Permalink Reply by Michael Zack on May 14, 2017 at 8:12am

After trying many different 4-string tunings I have settled on DGBD/DGBE as my standard setup. This gives you a great open tuning that can be tuned up to DGBE (same as guitar high strings). It also means that you have access to chord charts online for these tunings. I always choose my strings based on recommendations from stringtensionpro.com, which gives you the ability to choose string tension and gives you a size based on your selection. I usually shoot for a tension of between 16-19 lbs. You can order appropriate string gauges from just strings.com.