On a

stringed instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

, a break in an otherwise ascending (or descending) order of string pitches is known as a re-entry. A re-entrant tuning, therefore, is a tuning where the strings (or more properly the courses) are not all ordered from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch (or vice versa). Most common re-entrant tunings have only one re-entry. In the case of the ukulele, for example, the re-entry is between the third and fourth strings, while in the case of the Venezuelan

cuatro Cuatro is Spanish (and other Romance languages) for the number four. Cuatro may also refer to: * Cuatro (instrument), name for two distinct Latin American instruments, one from Puerto Rico (see Cuatro) and the other from Venezuela (see Cuatro) ...

it is between the first and second strings.

Instruments

Instruments usually tuned in this way include: * Baroque (5-course) guitar *

Five-string banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

* Charango *

Cittern The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is d ...

* Venezuelan

Cuatro Cuatro is Spanish (and other Romance languages) for the number four. Cuatro may also refer to: * Cuatro (instrument), name for two distinct Latin American instruments, one from Puerto Rico (see Cuatro) and the other from Venezuela (see Cuatro) ...

Laouto The laouto ( el, λαούτο, pl. laouta ) is a long-neck fretted instrument of the lute family, found in Greece and Cyprus, and similar in appearance to the oud. It has four double-strings. It is played in most respects like the oud (plucked ...

Lirone The lirone (or lira da gamba) is the bass member of the '' lira'' family of instruments that was popular in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It is a bowed string instrument with between 9 and 16 gut strings and a fretted neck. When play ...

* Mexican Guitarrón *

Mexican vihuela The Mexican vihuela is a guitar-like string instrument from 19th-century Mexico with five strings and typically played in mariachi groups. Description Although the Mexican vihuela has the same name as the historical Spanish plucked string i ...

Rajão The rajão ( pt, machete de rajão) is a 5-stringed instrument from Madeira, Portugal. The instrument traces back to the country's regional folk music, where it is used in folklore dances of Portugal in addition to other stringed instruments fr ...

Sitar The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form in ...

Theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending ou ...

Tonkori The is a plucked string instrument played by the Ainu people of Hokkaidō, northern Japan and Sakhalin. It generally has five strings, which are not stopped or fretted but simply played "open". The instrument is believed to have been developed ...

* Soprano and concert

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

s * Tres Cubano/Cuban Tres Instruments often (but not always) re-entrantly tuned include: *

Tenor guitar The tenor guitar or four-string guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string relative of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument was initially developed in its acoustic form by Gibson and C.F. Martin so that players of ...

* Ten string classical guitar * Tenor and Baritone (occasionally) ukuleles * 10-bass Gibson Style U

Harp guitar The harp guitar is a guitar-based stringed instrument generally defined as a "guitar, in any of its accepted forms, with any number of additional unstopped strings that can accommodate individual plucking." The word "harp" is used in reference to ...

Instruments not usually considered re-entrant, but which have common re-entrant alternate tunings: *

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

( Nashville high tuning and

Joe Beck Joe Beck (July 29, 1945 – July 22, 2008) was an American jazz guitarist who was active for over 30 years. Biography Born in Philadelphia, Beck moved to Manhattan in his teens, playing six nights a week in a trio setting, which gave him an opp ...

's alto guitar tuning) *

Pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

( C6 tuning and

E9 tuning E9 tuning is a common tuning for steel guitar necks of more than six strings. It is the most common tuning for the neck located furthest from the player on a two-neck console steel guitar or pedal steel guitar while a C6 neck is the one closer ...

) The standard tunings for instruments with multi-string courses, such as the

twelve string guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in o ...

, eight string bass, or

Colombian tiple The Colombian tiple (in Spanish: ''tiple'', pronounced: ''tee-pleh''), is a plucked string instrument of the guitar family, common in Colombia where it is considered one of the national instruments. About three-fourths the size of a classical ...

are not considered re-entrant, as the ''principal strings'' of each course are ordered from lowest to highest.

Ukulele

Ukuleles other than the tenor and baritone are most commonly tuned in re-entrant fashion; the tenor often is as well, and occasionally the baritone. These conventional re-entrant tunings G₄–C₄–E₄–A₄ are sometimes known as ''high 4th tunings'' or ''high G tuning''. Non-re-entrant tunings, also known as ''low 4th tunings'', exist for these instruments.

Charango

The Andean charango, a small 5-course, 10-string guitar frequently made from an armadillo shell, is most usually tuned in re-entrant fashion, with re-entry between the third and second courses. Other members of the charango family, such as the hualaycho and

charangon The Charangón is a small lute-like fretted stringed instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some ...

are usually similarly tuned; the

ronroco The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, from the Quechua and Aymara populations in the territory of the Altiplano in post-Colonial times, after European stringed instruments were introduced by the Spanish during co ...

is often, but not always tuned re-entrantly.

Ten-string guitar

The ten string classical guitar was originally designed for a specific re-entrant tuning invented by

Narciso Yepes Narciso Yepes (14 November 19273 May 1997) was a Spanish guitarist. He is considered one of the finest virtuoso classical guitarists of the twentieth century. Biography Yepes was born into a family of humble origin in Lorca, Region of Murcia. ...

, now called the ''Modern'' tuning also. Both this and other re-entrant tunings, such as the ''Marlow'' tunings, are now used, as well as non re-entrant tunings such as the ''Baroque''; nevertheless the advantage of the Yepes re-entrant tuning over the other tunings is that it provides sympathetic resonance over all the 12 notes of the scale while the rest do not. These tunings may also be used on related instruments, such as ten string electric and jazz guitars.

Cuatro

The Venezuelan cuatro is a member of the guitar family, smaller in size and with four nylon strings. It is similar in size and construction to the ukulele. The traditional "Camburpinton" tuning is re-entrant (A–D–F–B), but with the re-entry between the second and first strings, rather than between third and fourth as in the ukulele. The results are very different in tone. Other tunings of the Venezuelan cuatro are not re-entrant, however they are not as popular as the "Camburpinton" tuning. The Venezuelan instrument is one of several Latin American instruments by the name of ''cuatro'', which is Spanish for ''four''. Despite the name, not all instruments called 'cuatro' have four strings. The ten-string, five-course

Puerto Rican cuatro The Puerto Rican cuatro (Spanish: cuatro puertorriqueño) is the national instrument of Puerto Rico. It belongs to the lute family of string instruments, and is guitar-like in function, but with a shape closer to that of the violin. The word ...

is not tuned re-entrantly, but in straight fourths. The ''cuatro Cubano'' also is not tuned re-entrantly.

Tenor guitar

A variety of tunings are used for the four string tenor guitar, including a relatively small number of re-entrant tunings. One example of a re-entrant tuning for tenor guitar is D₄–G₃–B₃–E₄ with strings 3–1 as for the normal 6-string guitar, but string 4 tuned to D an octave above the 4th string of the 6 string guitar.

Banjo

The fifth string on the five string banjo, called the ''thumb string'', also called the "drone string", is five frets shorter than the other four and is normally tuned higher than any of the other four, giving a re-entrant tuning such as the bluegrass G₄-D₃-G₃-B₃-D₄. The five string banjo is particularly used in

bluegrass music Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ...

and

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combinati ...

. The four string plectrum banjo (more often used in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

) and the four string tenor banjo (common in

Irish traditional music Irish traditional music (also known as Irish trad, Irish folk music, and other variants) is a genre of folk music that developed in Ireland. In ''A History of Irish Music'' (1905), W. H. Grattan Flood wrote that, in Gaelic Ireland, there w ...

) lack this shorter string, and are rarely tuned in re-entrant fashion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reentrant Tuning Musical techniques String instruments