5-STRING BANJO TUNINGS

Compiled by Anita Kermode

There's an enormous variety of "reasons" - musical necessities or conveniences, traditional contexts, personal choices or chances - bearing on any banjo-tuning or (just as important, when it comes to "atmosphere") pitch. The appended file doesn't get into the reasons. It merely unpacks some of the bare bones. And probably not in the best order. Pick through them as you will!

Paul Schoenwetter (Banjo-List member) actually used (!) the "Submit a Tuning" form to send me a quotation from Pete Seeger's 1948 mimeographed 1st edition of "How to Play the 5-String Banjo". Having mentioned Art Rosenbaum, who has made such important contributions to our understanding of old-time banjo styles and tunings, I feel I can't omit a few words, at least, from Pete Seeger, without whom, and whose ground-breaking manual, many of us might never have discovered the fabulous five-string. In my own (1962) 3rd-edition-revised, under the heading Harmony Lesson: "Mountain Minor" Tuning, Pete uses as an example of this tuning a version of "East Virginia" based on the playing of Walter Williams. But here's a bit from 1948 not in the 1962 edition: "Remember, you have to change all your chords now, to compensate for the change [from open-G]. Folk musicians do this, however, in order to play tunes that would be impossible otherwise...I learned ["East Virginia'] originally from a Library of Congress Record, though by now have gradually changed it a good deal...Treat it freely, and don't copy me note for note." Which was, and is, sterling advice! For those who started playing banjo (or are even now starting to play) with the help of earlier editions of this manual, I'll add a few comments Pete made in 1962. He says he never found time to revise it yet again, but that if he did, he'd start with the open-G, rather than the (standard) C-tuning. And: "What I call here 'the Basic Strum' I think I'd call 'a simple strum' and teach it not at the very beginning, but somewhere later on. For the first chapter I think I'd show the pattern I learned from old Bascom Lunsford..." (i.e. the 2-finger I-I-T pattern). He also says he'd include a picture of one of the great West African musicians singing and playing the Kora!

Thanks to Banjo-List member Carroll Smith, I've recently seen a copy of a fascinating little treatise, "Old Time Banjo Playing in Knott County, Kentucky", by George R. Gibson (now living in Florida). I believe this has not yet been published anywhere. George began on banjo in the late 1940s, learning by listening to and observing his father and other Knott County neighbors who played in (very various) old-time styles and traditional tunings. George lovingly describes these, paying attention, as well, to questions of pitch. (He suggests dropping down at least two steps for some of the tunings he discusses.) I've now incorporated in my list a number of the examples he gives, as well as adding one tuning (f#DABD, an alternative "Little Birdie" tuning) not there before. - As for what is now commonly known as clawhammer style, George considers this as only one version (which has unfortunately displaced many other old techniques) of what he prefers to call "stroke style". His own sterling piece of advice is that you should play in whatever style feels most comfortable for you; and that if you do learn a down-picking style, you should *also* learn a 2-finger style. - If/when George Gibson's piece becomes publicly available (on the Net or in print), a notice of it will be posted here, as well as on Banjo-List.

Though I've somewhat revised my original file to make it shareable on the Banjo-L Web page (thanks to Donald Zepp's efforts on behalf of all who would like to share), it's still personal and highly UNauthoritative. It was never intended as a piece of systematic research. Just some "work-in-progress" from a musically-untrained enthusiast. And of course there are plenty more banjo-tunings out there, either unheard of by me, or still waiting to be plucked from new "atmospheres".

For the sake of visual consistency and "searchability", I've used only a sharp (#) symbol in my headings for the different tunings. I leave it to others to translate sharps into flats, where appropriate.

The "examples" given are very selective, on the whole arbitrary, and based chiefly on recordings I actually have. There are some tabs mentioned, but usually from the pages of The Banjo Newsletter (BNL) rather than from available banjo-tutors and tab-books (which are pretty thoroughly covered in the Clawhammer Tune Index). Just to confuse things, I've thrown in a few examples from the bluegrass brothers/sisters.

When it comes to absolute pitch, I've here and there noted how a given tune comes out on recordings I've got; but on the whole I've given relative pitches. As for "keys", I'm sure I've gone wrong here and there, if not (I hope) everywhere.

Hey! Don't try to count the number of tunings listed here. There are some cross-references (clearly indicated, I hope) that will throw you off. Quantity doesn't interest me nearly as much as those different Atmospheres. That's why, e.g., gDGDE and fCFCD each get their own slot.

Finally, I hope that those who do visit this file will contribute to future additions and revisions. You can reach me direct at akermode@dircon.co.uk. Thanks!

Note: Hypertext links for recordings and tablature referenced in this file will take you to Anita's supporting discography or her bibliography, respectively; the hypertext links for a tuning per se will take you to that tuning within this document. dbz



dDGDE