I tuned to AEae and I love it! I don't think I can ever go back...so many awesome tunes in AEae.  I have another fiddle I can keep in standard though.

Must be something about Sunday night! I just tried adae for the first time (not wildly adventurous I'll admit lol) and even scales were fun! What tunes were you playing?

quote:

---

Originally posted by withnall

Must be something about Sunday night! I just tried adae for the first time (not wildly adventurous I'll admit lol) and even scales were fun! What tunes were you playing?

---

I was messing around with June Apple, Kitchen Girl, and Cold Frosty Morning.

Fiddling in that strange modal universe of sawmill tuning! You'll have to put some samples up when you get em ready!

Now try GDgd. : )

There's something about the looser strings that -- well, just try it and tell us what you think!

I love sawmill tuning too.  Just something about that old-timey sound.  I usually tune mine down though (GDGD) unless playing with others and have to be in A.  My favorites to play in that tuning right now are Jimmy Johnson and Sugar In The Gourd.

Part of the reason I did it is because I love Tommy Jarrell's version of June Apple. Although I'll never play it like him, but I can sure have fun trying.

Peggy-I will for sure.

I'll try GDGD soon because I want to learn some tunes that Lester McCumbers plays and he mostly plays in that tuning it seems..

You can also tune that E string to C# and try out Tommy's version of Drunkin' Hiccups and also Black Mountain Rag.

uh oh .... now you all are on that slippery slope.

As Dante wrote centuries ago as he was trying to learn to play the fiddle and discovers cross-tuning:

(Note: This was a recently discovered manuscript of apparently one of his first drafts of the Inferno.)

Canto I

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself with a fiddle dark,
For the straightforward tuning of the Italians had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this fiddle tuning savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the joy.

He continues....

Canto III

Through me you pass into the realm of woe: 
Through me you pass into eternal pain:

...

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Welcome to Hell.

It is an incredible journey!

quote:

---

Originally posted by NCarolinaFiddler

Part of the reason I did it is because I love Tommy Jarrell's version of June Apple. Although I'll never play it like him, but I can sure have fun trying.

Peggy-I will for sure.

I'll try GDGD soon because I want to learn some tunes that Lester McCumbers plays and he mostly plays in that tuning it seems..

---

Try FCFC, if your fiddle can stand it, and you'll sound like Rayna Gellert and Bruce Molsky in no time.   :-)

I love cross tuning, too. There are a lot of awesome celtic tunes in GEAE, AEAE, and AEAC#. 

Black Mountain Rag is awesome! The fingerings in the 2nd part are a little tricky for me due to the cross tuning, but it's awesome non the less.  

I love the effect that cross tuning has, namely the ringing sound that you get from the lower strings. It makes it sound a like a haardingfele, or hardinger fiddle, from Norway, which is awesome for shetland and more northern Scotch tunes (it's called "scordatura" there, I believe).

A little intimidating, at times, but overall, cross-tuning is a cross-cultural-slightly-coniption-causing-idea-concieving-cacoethes that will, indeed, never be jejune.

One of the joys of having 2 fiddles is leaving one somewhere else beside standard tuning. The joy of having 3 fiddles is leaving it in another cross-tuned world. The joy of having 4 fiddles, well...my wife would kill me! 

3 fiddles,

2 banjos

2 dulcimers

1 guitar (maybe 2 some day)

1 English Concertina

I think I'm done.

quote:

---

Originally posted by FiddleJammer

quote:

---

Originally posted by NCarolinaFiddler

Part of the reason I did it is because I love Tommy Jarrell's version of June Apple. Although I'll never play it like him, but I can sure have fun trying.

Peggy-I will for sure.

I'll try GDGD soon because I want to learn some tunes that Lester McCumbers plays and he mostly plays in that tuning it seems..

---

Try FCFC, if your fiddle can stand it, and you'll sound like Rayna Gellert and Bruce Molsky in no time.   :-)

 

 

---

Hmmmm, so THATS their secret.!!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by NCarolinaFiddler

Part of the reason I did it is because I love Tommy Jarrell's version of June Apple. Although I'll never play it like him, but I can sure have fun trying.

Peggy-I will for sure.

I'll try GDGD soon because I want to learn some tunes that Lester McCumbers plays and he mostly plays in that tuning it seems..

---

You should also try Goldilock's cross tuning:

GDGD is too slack,

AEAE is too tight-

AbEbAbEb is JUST RIGHT!!!