Four strings, one G major chord, and two notes called D
The standard Brazilian tuning is D–G–B–D, counted from the 4th string to the 1st: D4 · G4 · B4 · D5, or 293.66, 392.00, 493.88 and 587.33 Hz. Those four pitches spell G–B–D — a G major triad — which is the reason a bare downstroke across the open strings already sounds like harmony rather than a drone, and a large part of the reason the instrument works as the rhythmic and harmonic engine of a samba group.
Notice what the two Ds do. The lowest open string and the highest open string are the same letter, exactly one octave apart, so every open string on a cavaquinho fits inside a single octave from D4 to D5. That is a tidy design and a genuine trap: on a typical Brazilian set the 4th is a wound .023 and the 1st a plain .010, and a tuner that only tells you the letter will happily confirm “D” while you wind one of them a full octave away from where it belongs. The dial above names the octave, which is the whole problem solved.
The first tab is the standard Brazilian tuning used for samba and choro. The other three are the tunings you will actually meet in the wild — the guitar-style solo tuning, and the two reentrant tunings of the Portuguese minhoto, where the 3rd string, not the 4th, is the lowest note.
Which end of the name is the fourth string?
Cavaquinho tunings get written in both directions, and almost nobody says which one they are using. Portuguese and Brazilian teaching material names the strings from the 1st down to the 4th — ré–si–sol–ré, prima to bordão. English-language chord books, tab and tuner apps name them from the 4th up to the 1st — D–G–B–D. On the standard tuning this costs nothing, because the letters happen to mirror: read ré–si–sol–ré backwards and you get exactly D–G–B–D.
Every other tuning punishes the ambiguity. The Portuguese reentrant tuning is written mi–si–lá–ré by the players who use it and D–A–B–E by everyone else; those are the same four strings, and reading one as the other puts your lowest string at the top of the neck. The rule that always works: identify the 4th string as the one nearest your face when the instrument is in playing position, then match pitches string by string instead of trusting the direction of the letters.
There is a second, quieter version of the same confusion — the octave number. This tuner uses scientific pitch notation, where middle C is C4 and the 440 Hz A is A4. A widely copied instrument database lists the cavaquinho as D3–G3–B3–D4, one whole octave below what the strings sound; published sheet music for the Portuguese instrument, and every cavaquinho tuner app we could check, uses the notation this dial uses. Frequencies do not have dialects, so those are the numbers to trust:
| String | Note | Portuguese name | Frequency | Typical gauge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st (prima) | D5 | Ré | 587.33 Hz | .010″ plain |
| 2nd | B4 | Si | 493.88 Hz | .012″ plain |
| 3rd | G4 | Sol | 392.00 Hz | .018″ wound |
| 4th (bordão) | D4 | Ré | 293.66 Hz | .023″ wound |
The gauges are a standard Brazilian medium set on a scale of roughly 34 cm; light and heavy sets shift the numbers a little, but the pattern holds — two plain strings on top, two wound below, and the 4th more than twice the diameter of the 1st even though they are the same letter.
Tuning a cavaquinho, string by string
- Pluck with your thumb, not the pick. A plectrum on steel produces a hard, bright transient that any pitch detector has to sit through before it settles. A thumb pluck near the end of the fingerboard gives a rounder note with a stronger fundamental, and the needle stops hunting.
- Start at the 1st string, D5. Portuguese and Brazilian method books tune in the conventional order — 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th — and there is a practical reason to keep it: the thin plain strings drift the most and pull the neck the least, so setting them first means less to redo.
- Always arrive from below. If a string reads sharp, drop it clearly under pitch and come back up. A tuning machine and a nut slot both have slack in them, and a peg you stopped while loosening will keep creeping downward for the next ten minutes.
- Then 2nd (B4), 3rd (G4), and 4th (D4) last. Watch the octave number on the 4th — the one string on the instrument where an error costs you a broken string rather than a wrong chord.
- Check the two Ds against each other. Play the 4th, then the 1st. They must sound like one note in two registers. If they beat against each other, or if one of them sounds like a unison with the other, the dial and your ear are telling you two different stories and your ear is right.
- Go back to the 1st string and run through again. Four steel strings at full tension on a small, lightly braced top move the top itself; the last string you tune detunes the first. Two passes is the minimum, three on a new instrument.
- Finish with an open strum. The open strings are a G major chord — if it rings clean and settled, you are done. If something sours the chord while every string reads centred on its own, look at the 2nd string first (see below).
Portugal, Brazil, Madeira, Cape Verde — one name, several instruments
The cavaquinho left Portugal and became a different instrument nearly everywhere it landed, and the tunings went with it. The Brazilian cavaquinho — also simply called the cavaco, the same instrument under its everyday name — has the largest, deepest body of the family, 17 or more frets, and steel strings played with a pick. The braguinha or machete of Madeira uses the same D–G–B–D, and is the instrument Portuguese emigrants carried to Honolulu in 1879, where it became the ukulele. The Cape Verdean cavaquinho came from Brazil in the 1930s, keeps the Brazilian tuning, and typically carries the longest fingerboard of the lot.
The outlier is the original: the cavaquinho minhoto of northern Portugal. Twelve frets, a body around half a metre long, a vibrating string length near 33 cm, and four plain steel strings in the region of 0.23–0.30 mm — no wound bass string at all. Its traditional tunings are reentrant, which on this instrument means something very specific: the 3rd string, not the 4th, is the lowest note. The tuning associated with Braga and popularised by Júlio Pereira is D5–A4–B4–E5; the same interval shape a whole tone lower is C5–G4–A4–D5; and the tuning most often called the traditional Minho one is G4–G4–B4–D5, with the 3rd and 4th strings in unison — which is exactly why a minhoto string set gives those two strings the same gauge.
You will find that C–G–A–D described in places as running upward from a low C, and the string set rules it out. A 0.30 mm plain steel string on a 33 cm scale reaches about 3.8 kgf at G4, which is a sane light tension for a small instrument; the same string tuned down to C4 falls to roughly 1.7 kgf, slack enough to rattle on the frets. There is no wound string in the set to carry that note. Read the 4th as C5, above the 3rd, and everything is consistent — with the printed sheet music for the instrument, with the gauges, and with every Portuguese source that says plainly that the 3rd string is the lowest one.
What the needle can and cannot tell you
This dial measures in equal temperament, which is the right tool for a fretted instrument: your frets are cut for equal temperament too, so the open strings and the fretboard agree. But the open strings are a G major chord, and that puts a well-known rounding error right in the middle of your instrument. The 2nd string, B4, is the major third of that chord, and an equal-tempered major third sits about 14 cents above the pure interval your ear wants to hear. Strum the open strings and that third is the note that sounds a shade bright. It is not out of tune — it is the compromise that lets you play in every key — but if you are recording one open G chord and it bothers you, easing the 2nd string a few cents flat is a legitimate choice, not cheating. Our guide to cents covers why the two answers differ by a fixed, predictable amount.
Two other things the needle cannot see. On a 34 cm scale the frets are close together and the string is short, so how hard you press changes the pitch: pushing a steel string down onto a fret stretches it, and the effect is proportionally larger here than on a guitar. If your open strings read perfectly and your chords still sound sharp, that is your left hand, not your tuning. And a hard rasgueado strum stresses the strings far more than a single plucked note, so an instrument tuned delicately at rest can drift within one number played at full attack — which is why players who strum hard tune, play a chorus, and then tune again before anything that matters.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 1st string the same D as the 4th string?
Same letter, one octave apart — and this is the single most common cavaquinho tuning error. The 4th string is D4 at 293.66 Hz, the 1st is D5 at 587.33 Hz. They are the two ends of the instrument, not the same note. If the dial reads D5 while your hand is on the 4th peg, back it off at once: at double its intended frequency, a wound .023 is carrying four times its intended tension. Play the 4th and the 1st one after the other — they should sound like the same note in two registers, not like a unison.
My chart writes the tuning D–B–G–D and this tuner says D–G–B–D. Which is right?
Both, because they are counting from opposite ends. Portuguese and Brazilian teaching material usually names the strings from the 1st down to the 4th — ré–si–sol–ré — while English-language tab, chord books and tuner apps name them from the 4th up to the 1st, D–G–B–D. On the standard tuning nobody gets hurt, since the letters read as a mirror image either way. It matters on every other tuning: mi–si–lá–ré written from the 1st string is D–A–B–E written from the 4th, and if you read that one backwards you will put the wrong string on the wrong peg.
The string chart in my method book says D3–G3–B3–D4. Why does this tuner show D4–G4–B4–D5?
Octave numbering is not standardised across cavaquinho references. This tuner uses scientific pitch notation, in which middle C is C4 and the 440 Hz A is A4. At least one widely copied instrument database lists the cavaquinho as D3–G3–B3–D4, a full octave below what the strings actually sound. The frequencies settle it and cannot be argued with: the 4th string is 293.66 Hz, which is D4 in scientific notation, and the 1st is 587.33 Hz, which is D5. If your book and this dial disagree by exactly one octave on all four strings, it is a labelling convention, not a tuning problem.
Can I tune a cavaquinho like the top four strings of a guitar?
Yes, and many players do — D–G–B–E, which changes only the 1st string, from D5 up to E5. It is the tuning most often used for solo playing in Brazil and the one guitarists reach for first, because every chord shape they already know transfers directly. It is the baritone ukulele tuning an octave higher. The cost is the open G chord: in D–G–B–D the four open strings spell G major, which is why a bare downstroke already sounds like harmony, and raising the 1st string to E turns that into a G6. Standard samba and choro repertoire assumes D–G–B–D.
Does this work for a Portuguese cavaquinho, a braguinha or a Cape Verdean cavaquinho?
Yes. Nothing on this dial is locked to a preset — it names any note it hears. The braguinha of Madeira and the Cape Verdean cavaquinho both use the same D–G–B–D as Brazil, so the preset above applies unchanged. The minhoto cavaquinho of northern Portugal is the one to watch, because its traditional tunings are reentrant: in D–A–B–E and in C–G–A–D the 3rd string is the lowest note on the instrument, not the 4th, and in G–G–B–D the 3rd and 4th are the same note in unison. Pick the matching tab in the reference tones above and tune string by string rather than assuming the pitches ascend.