2010s Carvalho Cavaquinho

This adorable Portuguese-made cavaquinho was a gift from a blog reader (thank you so much!) and I tidied-it-up last week and strung it like a 4-string mandolin tuned GDAE low to high. The traditional tuning is like a 5-string banjo's "main" strings up an octave -- DGBD low to high. Some folks tune it "guitar-style" DGBE. All this is with steel strings for these modern instruments, but this pitch and tuning is how the original Portuguese instruments that became the ukulele immigrated to Hawaii (albeit with gut strings, then).

I've had ukes strung-up with steel in that tuning and also GCEA before, so I knew I wanted something different to make use of this guy. I had to give the frets a light level/dress, enlarge the saddle slot, and make a fully-compensated new bone saddle, but I think it was worth it because strung this way I've been noodling around on this after-hours all week. There's a deep love for mandolin-family instruments in me that's been there since I first started playing, but sometimes I just do not want to tune 8 strings -- even with good tuners! This little fella ameliorates that bad urge and also lets me explore a bit more into jazzy chord voicings as the string spread is wider.

With a 13 1/2" scale length and peanut-uke-style-body, this is one small little box, but I think that makes kicking-back in the rocking chair and picking tunes all the more fun.