Can i tune my guitar to practice mandoline parts?
It’ll work. Not that well, but it will work. It’ll play nothing like a mandolin and neither will it sound like a mandolin. The tension of the strings will either be too loose to play or might rip the bridge off your guitar. The nearest (and safest) will be to tune the strings DOWN and use a capo on a high fret. For example, a standard guitar will be tuned to G,C, E and A with a capo on the 5th fret using the strings you suggest. Using the middle 4 strings would result in the guitar tuned to D, G, C E with a capo on the 5th fret. I hope that you get it to work. An alternative would be a cheap ukulele that ( in standard form) is tuned to G,C,E.A. Even an inexpensive uke will take a D tuning on the 3rd string. Just remember that the uke uses re-entrant tuning in standard form but a set of low to high tuned stings is only a few quid. Why not solve all these problems and buy a mandolin.
