This is the simplest kind of retune there is: every course moves the same distance, in the same direction, by a whole tone. Nothing about the instrument's internal geometry changes — the intervals between the courses are exactly what they were — so every shape, every figure and every voicing you already know keeps its fingering and arrives a step higher.
The retune, course by course
Derived from pitch arithmetic against standard GCE — each target octave is computed as the shortest move producing the named letter, not looked up:
| Course | Standard | A–D–F# | Semitones |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | G4 | A4 | up 2 |
| 2 | C4 | D4 | up 2 |
| 1 | E4 | F#4 | up 2 |
ADF# — 3 courses move (3, 2, 1).
What the open courses spell
The distinct letters now sounding are D, F#, A, which reads as D major. Standard G–C–E spells a C major triad; this spells the same triad shape a whole tone higher, which is the clearest possible statement of what a uniform retune does. Nothing became ambiguous, nothing lost a third — the instrument simply moved.
What survives, and what does not
The standard chord library does NOT apply here — a fretted course moved, so every fret in it that touches that course is off by the course's delta. That sentence is true and, on this particular tuning, misleading if you stop reading there. What it means in practice is narrow: the library's shapes are still correct, and the note NAMES attached to them are not. A shape the library calls C major now sounds D major. Every figure on the guajeo pages transposes intact for the same reason.
So the working rule is: keep the shapes, rename the results, and expect the chord and scale pages here to keep speaking in the standard tuning, because that is what the shipped voicings were generated for.
What it asks of the instrument
Six strings pulled up a whole tone is a real increase in tension on a small body, and every course goes up rather than one moving each way. Bring them up in stages rather than taking one course to pitch at a time, let the instrument settle before deciding it is in tune, and check each pair against itself afterwards — a doubled course that is a few cents apart is far more audible than a single string that is. The setup page covers what to look at if it does not settle.