Tenor guitar GDAE tuning, CGDA tuning and what strings to use.

How do you tune a tenor guitar and what strings should you use? Here I look at two different tenor guitar tunings and two different scale length tenor guitars. We cover tenor guitar GDAE tuning and CGDA tuning.

First is a traditional scale, and traditional tuning - a 22" Session King tenor guitar tuned CGDA. Next up is a long scale tenor guitar - a 24.75" plectrum guitar, tuned in "Irish" tuning GDAE.

The first part of the video is pretty much "by the book" - conventional tuning and conventional gauges. The second part is where I use much heavier strings than theory would suggest.

So - CGDA tuning and string:

C 0.035 or 0.036" phosphor bronze
G 0.024" phosphor bronze
D 0.016 plain steel
A 0.010 plain steel.

This is for a 22" scale guitar. If your guitar is 21", go up a gauge heavier. If the guitar is around 23" scale, drop down to 9s.


GDAE tuning and long scale -

I highly recommend, if following the second part of the video, that you start off using a conventional set of strings for GDAE - ie:

G 0.040" phosphor bronze
D 0.030" phosphor bronze
A 0.016" plain steel or even a 0.015"
E 0.011" plain steel

See how your guitar reacts - if the action doesn't jump up, you could work towards the heavier sets I use for my guitars. Keep in mind, your guitar may not be robust enough to use the heavy strings I use, so be careful.

You can read more about my work here:

https://www.nkforsterguitars.com/inst...