I love playing in scordatura... an old technique for violin where you return your instrument to something other than the regular fifths tuning. It gives different chordal possibilities and a completely different colour for the instrument as it is under radically different tension! And it generally means that you are reading from a type of tablature (fingering chart) instead of the regular sounding pitches.

Now, most modern Classical violinists don't even know that this technique exists... and many Early Music ones balk at doing it. So, it is pretty rare to find someone who is willing to try it out... and then likes it so much that they keep coming back for it!

I recently sent a message to a colleague asking if this particular tuning for a Pachelbel Partia would work for her. The lower two strings are tuned quite a bit higher... a third sharper, and the A moves up a single semitone, and as a "compensation" the E drops a little bit. This is a moderately heavier tension for the violin, and it should make it sound a little bit more strident than usual.

Anyway, they replied saying that they now keep one of their violins strung up with appropriate gut strings on the off chance that they will have to play in scordatura tunings! I said... oh, are you doing it a lot more now? To which they said, no you are the only person that asks for it!

So, we will play this later in the year... looking forward to it! It is a decent sonata, tuning tricks aside!

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