How to Tune the Cuban Tres

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Arie Pytel for Expert village, and we're talking about the Cuban tres. Next, let's talk a little bit more about the tuning of the Cuban tres. First of all, as we've discussed already, we have three courses of doubled strings. Now, depending on your preference, we'll generally be having to of those courses doubled in octaves, while the middle course is a unison C. We generally tune the tres from the lowest to the highest string: G, C, and E respectively with a doubled octave G, a unison C, and, in the most traditional manner, a doubled octave E. Although this can also be tuned in unison. The string sizes you'll want to use will depend on your tres. However, in general we use a size 9/10 in for the high G, 9/10 in for the high E, 22/10 in for the low G, 22/10 for the low E, then 11/10 in for the C. Now, you may have noticed that this tuning goes from G up a fourth to C, and from C up a third to E. This is much like the second three strings on a guitar in relative going from D to G, and G to B. This is important to note if you are used to the guitar tuning because it makes the tres much like those three strings on a guitar. However, with the double E string, we have what is called a reentrant tuning. So, you'll notice that when you play the tres, though you may go up the fretboard, you may go down in notes depending on what note you play. Notice that the E sounds lower than the C, though it is higher on the scale."