Bibbity - Posted - 01/22/2010:  10:48:46

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I play a little bit of bluegrass, but my real passion is jazz. I inherited a 5-string from my grandmother, and cannot afford to buy a tenor or plectrum (new or used ) at this time. The only 4-string banjo strings, and 4-string instruction books besides Irish, available at my local music store are tenor. I know that tenors traditionally have shorter necks than 5-strings and plectrums.

Will it hurt my banjo to use tenor strings? And does anyone have any tips for a jazz banjo beginner?

minstrelmike - Posted - 01/22/2010:  11:05:32

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I played the 5-string in a dixieland band for a while. If you want to play 4-string, then I'd just get tenor/plectrum strings and put them on and tune to 5ths. That way you'll be learning the correct chords. If you just want to play tenor-like, then use the same open-g tuning and you don't have to learn a new set of chords. No one except banjoists will know the difference.

The 5th string peg is usually not glued in so you can grab it and pull the whole tuner out if you want.

To get started, get a chord chart for your tuning and just strum your way through a bunch of songbooks. Seriously. That will do you more good than any sort of method book. Get books from friends and the library and wherever and strum through every song you've ever heard. Don't try to learn some new songs until you've played 20 or 50 familiar songs. Use chords different places and you'll find out how to get the melody on the first string just by chord position (which is the basics of tenor banjo).

Start with easier songs with fewer chords (such as country or rock) and then work up to harder ones and then work through a jazz fakebook.

There are a couple fancy things you can do with the flatpick, but it ain't worth focusing on that until you can just play a mess of songs already in a simple fashion.

jbalch - Posted - 01/22/2010:  11:18:10

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I think the scale length of a standard 5-string banjo is a little too long to safely tune like a shorter 17 or 18 fret jazz tenor (CDAE)....with regular tenor strings.

However, you could easily remove the 5th string and tune it as a plectrum (CGBD).

Ronnie - Posted - 01/22/2010:  11:22:50

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Bobby Thompson said he had recorded tenor banjo on his Baldwin by removing the 5th string, capoing at the 5th fret and re-tuning. I wish he was still with us to explain this in greater detail.

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Edited by - Ronnie on 01/22/2010 11:24:05

NYCJazz - Posted - 01/22/2010:  11:25:37

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I don't think standard tenor tuning will work on a 5-string. Maybe GDAE with heavier strings can work.

Why not just do plectrum on your 5-string? If you play 5-string, you're already 75% there! Plectrum is tuned CGBD. You obviously have internet access... get books/strings online!

Once you learn chords, inversions, and how to read, you're not going to need music written specially for banjo. Now I use fake books (just melody and chord symbols) and whatever piano/guitar stuff that interests me!

Bibbity - Posted - 01/22/2010:  11:50:13

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Thanks everyone for your advice! One reason I want to learn tenor is because one of my favorite nobody-knows-who-the-heck-I'm-talking-about-1930s-vocal-artist played the tenor banjo when she was younger, before she and her sisters went on to become jazz harmonists (The Boswell Sisters, anyon??? ). I mainly listen to pre-1930s jazz (can't stand "modern" music), and a lot of the music I listen to uses tenor instead of plectrum. But until I can afford to buy a tenor, I think the plectrum tuning would be best.

I've tried to do some research on my 5-string banjo and can't find anything about the maker. I had to have the 5th tuning peg replaced a couple of yeas ago, and the person I took it to did not do what I asked, so I would really hate to injure my "baby" more than it has been already.

NYCJazz - Posted - 01/22/2010:  12:17:52

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bibbity

One reason I want to learn tenor is because one of my favorite nobody-knows-who-the-heck-I'm-talking-about-1930s-vocal-artist played the tenor banjo when she was younger, before she and her sisters went on to become jazz harmonists (The Boswell Sisters, anyon??? ).

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Martha, Connee and Vet Boswell! Love 'em!

Klondike Waldo - Posted - 01/22/2010:  12:40:33

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quote:

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Originally posted by jbalch

I think the scale length of a standard 5-string banjo is a little too long to safely tune like a shorter 17 or 18 fret jazz tenor (CDAE)....with regular tenor strings.

However, you could easily remove the 5th string and tune it as a plectrum (CGBD).

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That would be CGDA for Jazz(Standard) tuning or GDAE for Irish (octave mandolin)tuning CDAE doesn't appear to be a very useful tuning.

Plectrum is usually tuned CGBD. 5 string necks are somewhat long to tune up to CGDA. It's really the first string which is the problem- you're asking it to tune up a perfect fifth (Ouch) and the second string up a minor third, may also be a break just laying in wait. If you want to play jazz/strum style on a 5-string, plectrum's really your best bet. It's really easier to tune a tenor-sized banjo down to plectrum tuning than to go the other way. Most tenor string sets will not be long enough anyway in my experience.

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Edited by - Klondike Waldo on 01/22/2010 12:51:49

banjofanatico - Posted - 01/22/2010:  12:52:58

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For just over a hundred dollars I managed to get a new Kay tenor banjo a couple years ago. It was good enough to get going (it's their cheapest model)


Which of the Boswell sisters played the tenor banjo ? I hadn't heard that before. I'm a big fan or their's too :

youtube.com/watch?v=a9Afn3Z-BWI




David

diarmaid - Posted - 01/22/2010:  13:13:37

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Hi there, you could capo at the 2nd or 3rd fret (i started off playing a 5 string as a tenor and after struggling with the stretch for a year, I capoed at the 3rd fret) i wa tuning gdae, but i see no problem with cgda if you get long enough strings (youre basically tuning it 3 semitones lower because of the capo)..so theres not as much stress on the neck or strings.

It shouldnt hurt your banjo, as long as it has a truss rod orther reinforcement.

BrittDLD1 - Posted - 01/22/2010:  15:10:51

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Ronnie gave an interesting piece of information...
That Bobby T capoed at the 5th fret (and removed the 5th string).

OK... in G tuning, when CAPOED at the 5th fret, the 1st string would sound a G.
Raise it 2 half-steps to an A. (It won't break -- it's only 2 frets above standard
tension.)

NOW tune the rest of the strings DOWN to tenor tuning. (CGDA -- 4th to 1st)

They will be a bit slack, but they will work. Eventually, you might want to put
heavier strings on it, for the lower strings. (As Diarmaid suggests, it might work
capoed at the 3rd fret -- if the 1st doesn't break when tuned to A)

You will only have 17 frets to work with -- but that's ALL the early tenors had.

Best-
Ed Britt

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Edited by - BrittDLD1 on 01/22/2010 15:14:48

Bibbity - Posted - 01/23/2010:  09:31:36

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quote:

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Which of the Boswell sisters played the tenor banjo ? I hadn't heard that before. I'm a big fan or their's too

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I'm designing a traveling exhibit on the Boswells for my master's thesis. I've done a LOT of research on these girls (only "known" them for 4 years!), and so I can answer almost any trivia on them out there.

Vet, the youngest Boswell, played the tenor. I have a couple of photos with her and her banjo, but I'm not authorized to share them, otherwise I would. She was apparently very good, though neither she or her sisters were ever recorded playing their instruments...Well, Martha played piano on several of their sides, especially early in their careers, and there was an instance where Connie played her cello on a radio broadcast with Bing Crosby in the 50s....really beautiful piece, if you ever get to hear it, even though she is obviously very rusty.

The Boswell Sisters started out as a vaudeville act, playing classical (piano, violin, cello), jazz (piano, saxophone, banjo), singing, and dancing (Vet was a great tap-dancer!). But when they got cold feet one day when they were performing in a big theater in Chicago--it was really an audition, but they didn't know that at the time--all they could do was sing. And that's how they were born as a singing trio--the best EVER, in my opinion!