elkinsfiddler - Posted - 03/11/2022:  06:15:38

I'm curious. What is the traditional source for Double C/D tuning in Clawhammer banjo? I've played it for years because I was taught to but over the years I've noticed that as far as I know neither minstrel or classical banjo use this particular tuning. Minstrel uses an open tuning equivalent to open G and a Drop C tuning down a third or a fifth. Classic Banjo uses a concert pitch Drop C tuning. So, where did Double C/D come from? Was it found in field recording of traditional banjo players? If so, who were they? Note: I'm not trying to debate the advantage or disadvantage of various tunings. I'm just curious as to who first used Double C/D, that is, where did it come from?

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/11/2022:  07:17:43

Good question. If I were a betting person, I would assume that this was just one of many tunings that became increasingly common in the 1960s as the Old-Time community further established itself. It seems that, during that time, a list of songs and tunings became canonical.

Edited by - Nic Pennsylvania on 03/11/2022 07:24:56

elkinsfiddler - Posted - 03/11/2022:  07:46:16

I started on the banjo in the late '60s mostly from Pete Seeger's banjo book. I am not sure but I don't think he used Double C/D. I don't have the Red Book anymore. If he did fine but he isn't a "traditional source" but a secondary source. I tend to agree with you, Nic.

Patrick Dengate - Posted - 03/11/2022:  07:50:06

My understanding is that by capoing up from C, a banjo player can play in D, a common key for old time fiddlers. But that doesn't really explain why the Double C, rather than Open C (which I also play some tunes in). The original question seems to imply that bluegrass players don't use the Double C tuning—is that the case?

banjo bill-e - Posted - 03/11/2022:  07:53:23

When you find the answer to Double C/D, try to figure out the how and why of eCGAD "Little Birdie Tuning" or the g#BEBE "Dead Man's Tuning" or the f#BEAD version of Cumberland Gap Tuning. Those make way less sense than Double C! My theory was that someone's banjo was badly out of tune and they just said "now what can I do with this?"

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/11/2022:  07:59:30

As for odd tunings, I've heard both Mike Seeger and Buell Kazee state that this was due to the fretless nature of earlier and homemade banjos. This and the playing styles encouraged these tunings as a way of having more melody notes on open strings.

That holds water with me as an explanation. At least for many tunings.

jack_beuthin - Posted - 03/11/2022:  08:23:09

Interesting question.

I can't say that this explains the origin of the Double C tuning, but here is some considerations that may have been factors. To get into Double C from Drop C requires retuning only one string, and the same goes for getting from Sawmill G to Double C. Furthermore, Double C is a "one-stop-shopping" tuning for playing not only in the Ionian (major) mode, but also Dorian (mountain minor), and Aeolian (true minor) modes. So while in Double C/D, you can play Soldier's Joy, Gospel Plow, and Sally in the Garden all without retuning. It works for all these modes because notes on the open strings occur in the scales for all three modes. In contrast, the standard G tuning has the 2nd string tuned to B, which is not in the G Dorian, nor G minor modes (hence, the sawmill tuning that re-tunes the 2nd string to a C, which is a note in these modes). And to what Nic said, if you were playing a fretless banjo, then one tuning for all these modes would have been quite useful.



The old timers maybe weren't steeped in music theory but I'm quite sure the were clever enough to recognize a "swiss-army-knife" tuning when they found it.



If your interested in a more detailed explanation of the "modal versatility" of Double C, I recently made a short YouTube video that takes you through it: youtube.com/watch?v=ZozqXWiy_lU

Edited by - jack_beuthin on 03/11/2022 08:30:41

jack_beuthin - Posted - 03/11/2022:  08:38:53

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nic Pennsylvania

As for odd tunings, I've heard both Mike Seeger and Buell Kazee state that this was due to the fretless nature of earlier and homemade banjos. This and the playing styles encouraged these tunings as a way of having more melody notes on open strings.



That holds water with me as an explanation. At least for many tunings.

---

And to amplify this thought, the F chord in Double C is a 2-finger chord, unlike in Drop C where it is a 3-finger chord.  Much easier on a fretless.

janolov - Posted - 03/11/2022:  09:10:23

I am not sure, but I have some slight memory of an old thread here where it was stated that Frank Converse (who wrote several classic banjo tutor) in an interview in the late 1800's referred to a meeting with a black man around 1850 who played in double C. I also think there was a tab enclosed and the tab was based on a piece of sheet music published in connection to the interview. I will try to search further and see if I can find out more.

Edit: I found it. The interview in The Cadenza is attached.

Edited by - janolov on 03/11/2022 09:21:03

Double C - The Cadenza

 

Bob Buckingham - Posted - 03/11/2022:  09:16:30

If you look at the work done with collecting banjo tunes by Art Rosenbaum and Mike Seeger, you will find a myriad of tunings used in ingenious ways by banjo players from the past 1/2 century or more. Many of these tunings were handed down as part and parcel of the tune itself. The double C tuning is part of a greater array of tuning possibilities that predates the written word in that realm.

Noah Cline - Posted - 03/11/2022:  09:35:29

I could be wrong, but I know one of the earliest mentions of basically the same gCGCD tuning that I've read about was by Frank Converse in 1901, part of his "Banjo Reminiscenses" articles, where he wrote about a banjoist he recalled playing a tune that tends to get referenced to as "Morceau(x)," or "early black banjo piece". Converse states this was the first banjo/banjo player he had heard, so that would put it even earlier, perhaps the mid-1800s. The man was said to have exclaimed he was going to "fro de banjo out a' tune," as to which Converse states he merely tuned the second string up a semitone/half-step.

Here you can read Jim Dalton's post and text from the Cadenza article: 

minstrelbanjo.ning.com/m/discu...pic%3A100

I recorded a version a few years back, maybe not note-for-note but by ear from videos/recordings by Tim Twiss and Clark Buehling.  

Tuning: dGDGA, which would be relative to gCGCD, just 5 half-steps below in the attached video.

Otherwise, someone would had to have discovered it. What we call "standard" tuning today (gDGBD) was not the standard in the 1800s (rather, gCGBD relative), but refered to as "raised-bass" tuning, for a couple tunes I've seen. 

 

Edit: Sorry, Jan. I was delayed with posting my reply and had not updated the page until after posting my reply, basically stating the same account. 

Edited by - Noah Cline on 03/11/2022 09:41:54

VIDEO: Morceau ~ Gourd Banjo #2/21
(click to view)

 

elkinsfiddler - Posted - 03/11/2022:  09:38:35

But is Double C/D any more traditional then Open G or Drop C/D. There is a traceable decision to use Cross Tune G/A on the fiddle. We have statements from field recordings and interviews where fiddlers state that they use this or that tuning for this or that tune. Are there similar statements from field recordings for Drop C/D? At least, in my limited experience I am not aware of any. Minstrel banjo (Stroke Style) is fretless and they didn't use it, I don't think. Maybe it is just one of many tunings old timers used but it just sort of caught on in the '60s as Nic said and there is no traditional reason to use it just convenience.

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/11/2022:  09:45:34

What is tradition but a snapshot that we carry.



Traditional reason to use it? The tuning has been used a long while, I only state that it becoming more common is likely a more recent occurrence. As Jack mentioned, it is a versatile tuning, which is another likely reason it is as popular as it is.

Edited by - Nic Pennsylvania on 03/11/2022 09:47:46

janolov - Posted - 03/11/2022:  10:46:56

quote:

---

Originally posted by jack_beuthin

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nic Pennsylvania

As for odd tunings, I've heard both Mike Seeger and Buell Kazee state that this was due to the fretless nature of earlier and homemade banjos. This and the playing styles encouraged these tunings as a way of having more melody notes on open strings.



That holds water with me as an explanation. At least for many tunings.

---

And to amplify this thought, the F chord in Double C is a 2-finger chord, unlike in Drop C where it is a 3-finger chord.  Much easier on a fretless.

---

On the other side, in double C you gave to make a three-finger chord to get a full G chord, and to make a full G7 chord you have use four fingers

Dan Gellert - Posted - 03/11/2022:  10:55:10

As the Converse article suggests, the tuning was around a long time ago, and its ultimate origin is obscure.

What bugs me about it is how it has become the ONLY tuning so many current "old time" players use for ALL tunes in C or D!

Among traditional players, some would play most of the standard D fiddle tunes out of that tuning, while others were more likely to use "standard", with the 2nd string at the major 7th. It was a matter of local traditional practice, and/or also personal taste. There were always a few tunes that had to be tuned another way, though.

I can still recall first hearing (and trying to imitate) Wade Ward's recordings and being amazed by all the great riffs that came out of raising that 2nd string. He sure knew how to use that tuning, but also when not to-- I imagine he'd have been as puzzled as I am still to hear folks trying to play Cumberland Gap or Old Jimmy Sutton in "double C"! Or playing chord backup....

Bill Rogers - Posted - 03/11/2022:  11:33:12

I second your comments Dan. I started with the Seeger book and still play mostly in standard C capo 2 for D tunes. A few in D tuning (e.g. 8th of January), and open C (e.g. Darling Corey). I use double C for tunes that work better in it, as some do. Walt Koken, notably, rarely uses double C.

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/11/2022:  11:49:26

quote:

---

Originally posted by janolov

 

---

On the other side, in double C you gave to make a three-finger chord to get a full G chord, and to make a full G7 chord you have use four fingers

---

You're right, of course. But now we run the risk of rehashing Old-Time banjo's frequent lack of concern with chording. 

janolov - Posted - 03/11/2022:  12:30:38

It looks like drop C tuning, double C tuning and G tuning (or rather their equivalents) were known and were used in the 1850's.

Florian Jean Albiez - Posted - 03/12/2022:  05:56:12

As far as we can tell, most banjos way back in the day had fewer than five strings. A lot of the old tunes that are played all over, like Hook and Line for example, are played out of Double C, often just using the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th strings. A tune like that could be played on a banjo with only three long strings tuned to gGCD. Eventually, once the additional long string was added, its tuning had to be adapted to fit tunes already being played widely. Could that explain the development of double c, at least in part?

Joel Hooks - Posted - 03/12/2022:  07:28:08

There are a few points about Converse's story that are mostly overlooked/ignored.



The banjoist was a professional performer who made his living as an entertainer.

The event took place in Elmira, NY.

The scordatura was a performance stunt/trick used for the banjoist to brag about how even with the banjo out of tune he was so good he could still play it.

Edited by - Joel Hooks on 03/12/2022 07:36:18

Joel Hooks - Posted - 03/12/2022:  07:35:43

quote:

---

Originally posted by janolov

I am not sure, but I have some slight memory of an old thread here where it was stated that Frank Converse (who wrote several classic banjo tutor) in an interview in the late 1800's referred to a meeting with a black man around 1850 who played in double C. I also think there was a tab enclosed and the tab was based on a piece of sheet music published in connection to the interview. I will try to search further and see if I can find out more.

Edit: I found it. The interview in The Cadenza is attached.

---

Not an interview but a series of letters that Converse wrote.  Here they are complete...

archive.org/details/conversereminiscences

"Wrote several classic banjo tutors" is the understatement of the century.  There is reliable evidence that Converse wrote/edited the Briggs' Banjo Instructor.  I would be so bold as to claim that Converse is the reason any of us still play banjo.

Converse lead the charge to make the banjo accessible.  He and his wife Harriet Maxwell Converse were activists in civil rights for the five Iroquois nations.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 03/12/2022:  07:47:12

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nic Pennsylvania

As for odd tunings, I've heard both Mike Seeger and Buell Kazee state that this was due to the fretless nature of earlier and homemade banjos. This and the playing styles encouraged these tunings as a way of having more melody notes on open strings.



That holds water with me as an explanation. At least for many tunings.

---

Here is what Buell Kazee actually said...

"Banjo tuning is a very difficult thing, uh, for the typical mountaineer because he’s not educated in the fretting of a banjo by chords and therefore he has to get as many open strings as he can, so he tunes to suit that.  He also wants to get a lower pitch or a higher pitch and so tuning like this (plays open strings) is in the key of C.  But he didn’t tune it that way.  I learned to do this later on.  Here’s what we did, pull this string up (raises the second string half a step) and simply fret this one, not two but one."

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/12/2022:  07:51:48

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joel Hooks

---

Here is what Buell Kazee actually said...

"Banjo tuning is a very difficult thing, uh, for the typical mountaineer because he’s not educated in the fretting of a banjo by chords and therefore he has to get as many open strings as he can, so he tunes to suit that.  He also wants to get a lower pitch or a higher pitch and so tuning like this (plays open strings) is in the key of C.  But he didn’t tune it that way.  I learned to do this later on.  Here’s what we did, pull this string up (raises the second string half a step) and simply fret this one, not two but one."

---

That's it! Thanks. Yes, I remembered the bit about getting as many open strings and I assumed it had to do with limiting fretting needs.

Edited by - Nic Pennsylvania on 03/12/2022 07:52:40

Tom Meisenheimer - Posted - 03/18/2022:  11:17:08

I suspect that modern tuning is the result of laziness or ignorance or unfamiliarity. Playing "up the neck" is useful to broaden the melodic content but not much else. Since I have been playing fretless (or fiddle) banjo I have explored many other tunings. Some tunes play beautifully in atypical banjo tunings some are ghastly!

The changing of tunings is very useful but one has to remember where the notes are (on any finger board, fretted or no). I have recently taken up the Irish Bouzouki which utilizes different tunings and the extensive use of the capo.

My experience over many, many years leads me to believe that whatever tuning one uses, it should work with what music one plays and with any additional instruments are happily following along.

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  12:56:34

The earliest historical record of the CC tuning or rather the relative intervals represented by the CC tuning are believed to have been a recollection of Converse in a memoir he published in the early 1900s I think in the Cadenza. Converse wrote that as a child or teenager apparently in the 1840s was an African American banjoist he saw busking in his home town in upstate NY who was finger picking in a 2 finger style but playing a banjo whose intervals euqal the cc or dd tuning.

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:06:24

My own estimation is that the CC DD tuning is much more widely used in revivalist old time music than there is evidence of it being used in old time music and its components when the music was extant, say before 1940.  Not saying it was not used, as we have reports of its use since at least the 1830s or 40s, but it is much more widely used today among revivalists than it was actually used by traditional players befor esay 1960.  The standard C tuning certainly was much more widely used by ragtime, blues, minstrel, and show business banjoists all along.



Certainly CCt does not seems to be all that popular among the African American banjoists I have studied who largely played d or c tunes in the standard C tuning drop C of the banjo world.



The use of this tuning seems to be largely an offshoot of the popularity of a small number of banjoists who played in this tuning who have become the focus of revivalist playing, while a larger group of players who play in the drop C or standard C tuning in Clawhammer have tended to be neglected.  Two or 3 really local traditions or even clusters of players within local traditions seem to be over represented, while the vast array of different banjo traditions, styles and playing or grossly minimized among current revivalists.



Likewise the number of players who played in the various offshoots of the open D or sebastapool tuning tends to be neglected among current revivalists.



Many old time revivalist banjoists I meet seem never to have ever played in the standard C tuning drop C tuning Pete Seeger tuning which certainly was the most widely played banjo tuning on Earth in the late 19th Century and early 20th century heyday of the banjo.



I am emphasizing here that by a tuning I am really talking about the intervals, where CC, DD, or BB are the same tuning. Where banjos were actually pitched over history seems very arbitrary. Until the late 19th century banjos tended to be pitched 3 steps lower than they are. My own survey of traditional players, especially but not only African Americans is that some players pitch their banjos 2 or 3 steps below standard pitch with B for D tunings with players like Dock Boggs, and on the other hand some players pitching the banjo quite high, on some of Kip's field recordings, Rufus Kasey plays with his banjo tuned to B for G and on other B flat for G.



I do not mean to disparage the CC tuning. I like it and always have one banjo tuned in it,but compared to old time music history it is over represented among current revivalists

Edited by - writerrad on 03/19/2022 13:12:02

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:15:08

As regard to earliest, the earliest report which I allude to elsewhere on this thread came from Converse who said he saw an African busker in his home town in upstate NY playing in a tuning whose intervals are equal to CC some time in the late 1830s or 40s. It is in his reminiscences.

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:17:31

quote:yeah for the most part Pete used the C tuning of the banjo called drop C so much for this purpose that for short hand many call it the Pete Seeger tuning.  This was the most widely used tuning for the banjo in the world in the hey day of the banjo in the 19 and early 20th century and was the standard tuning of formal show business and parlor banjo playing and ragtime banjo playing in the 19th and early 20th centuries,

---

Originally posted by elkinsfiddler

I started on the banjo in the late '60s mostly from Pete Seeger's banjo book. I am not sure but I don't think he used Double C/D. I don't have the Red Book anymore. If he did fine but he isn't a "traditional source" but a secondary source. I tend to agree with you, Nic.

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:22:39

quote:Bluegrass banjo playing really comes out of the techniques of the guitar banjo school, now misnamed classic banjo which was the big style of 19th and early 20th century banjo playing in the Earth and was widely used in old time music.  Earl Scruggs grew up in an area where people who played the banjo in this style adapted it to old time music, and he has recounted that some of the more famous pickers of that style were friends of his family and he had seen people playing in that 3 finger style from the age of 6.

Bluegrass players almost never playing in CC and some are even unfamiliar with what CC is, while many can play in the open D tuning which Earl claimed was the tuning he used the first time he could work three fingers in from 2.  Earl said he was a 2 finger picker who added another finger,

Curiously,  he said he could never figure out clawhammer which wasnt the local style where he grew up and confessed he tried both as a grown man and well known banjo player but couldnt get it.

---

Originally posted by Patrick Dengate

My understanding is that by capoing up from C, a banjo player can play in D, a common key for old time fiddlers. But that doesn't really explain why the Double C, rather than Open C (which I also play some tunes in). The original question seems to imply that bluegrass players don't use the Double C tuning—is that the case?

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:27:34

quote:yeah  this is acknoweldged as the earliest written example or memoir of the CC tuning, lots of people have looked rather deeply into this and gone over it with a fine tooth comb and concluded that this was the same intervals as CC.    It will be noted the banjoist Converse saw was African American and also played what has been diagnosed here as 2 finger style.

thanks.  This is in his reminiscences.   Joel hooks once had the whole book on his web site, and I believe someone else has republished a version of this.

---

Originally posted by janolov

I am not sure, but I have some slight memory of an old thread here where it was stated that Frank Converse (who wrote several classic banjo tutor) in an interview in the late 1800's referred to a meeting with a black man around 1850 who played in double C. I also think there was a tab enclosed and the tab was based on a piece of sheet music published in connection to the interview. I will try to search further and see if I can find out more.

Edit: I found it. The interview in The Cadenza is attached.

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:37:23

quote:the most common recorded tuning for minstrel banjo playing is the equivalent of drop c and the G tuning, though in the 19th century the banjo was tuned 3 steps down so the C was A and the G was E.  There are also reports of some players using the open D tuning since that was very very widely used in formal and popular music.  The multiplicty of tunings by a small number of old time players limited by geography does not obviate the fact that the general dissemination of banjo playing in the 19th century was around the G and C tunings. 

It shoud be added that before Sweeney et al popularized the five string banjo some time around 1840, most banjos were 4 string instruments like the early gourd banjos of the Carribbean and colonial America.   With 3 long and one short, the standard C tuning and the G tuning or really A and E in the pitching of the times, are actualy the same tuning since the difference in those tunings is how the 4 string is tuned, to either D or C.

That this is the same tuning survives in a few tunes like Roustabout that traditionallym especially among the older Black players is played in drop C even though the main part of the tune is in G. 

I have found very very very little use of the CC tuning by traditonal black players and almost none by blues or ragtime players.   The old time music revival over the past 30 or 40 years has tended to take a detour to fascination about a very small number of players from North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky, while leaving behind the broader expanse of players who chiefly used G and drop C

 

---

Originally posted by Noah Cline

I could be wrong, but I know one of the earliest mentions of basically the same gCGCD tuning that I've read about was by Frank Converse in 1901, part of his "Banjo Reminiscenses" articles, where he wrote about a banjoist he recalled playing a tune that tends to get referenced to as "Morceau(x)," or "early black banjo piece". Converse states this was the first banjo/banjo player he had heard, so that would put it even earlier, perhaps the mid-1800s. The man was said to have exclaimed he was going to "fro de banjo out a' tune," as to which Converse states he merely tuned the second string up a semitone/half-step.

Here you can read Jim Dalton's post and text from the Cadenza article: 

minstrelbanjo.ning.com/m/discu...pic%3A100

I recorded a version a few years back, maybe not note-for-note but by ear from videos/recordings by Tim Twiss and Clark Buehling.  

Tuning: dGDGA, which would be relative to gCGCD, just 5 half-steps below in the attached video.

Otherwise, someone would had to have discovered it. What we call "standard" tuning today (gDGBD) was not the standard in the 1800s (rather, gCGBD relative), but refered to as "raised-bass" tuning, for a couple tunes I've seen. 

 

Edit: Sorry, Jan. I was delayed with posting my reply and had not updated the page until after posting my reply, basically stating the same account. 

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:41:46

quote: Many if not mos told time revivalist banjoists only know how to play in CC and DD for C or D tunes,  many now have never played in the standard C tuning or identify it with Pete Seeger.    ]

 

---

Originally posted by Dan Gellert

As the Converse article suggests, the tuning was around a long time ago, and its ultimate origin is obscure.



What bugs me about it is how it has become the ONLY tuning so many current "old time" players use for ALL tunes in C or D!



Among traditional players, some would play most of the standard D fiddle tunes out of that tuning, while others were more likely to use "standard", with the 2nd string at the major 7th. It was a matter of local traditional practice, and/or also personal taste. There were always a few tunes that had to be tuned another way, though.



I can still recall first hearing (and trying to imitate) Wade Ward's recordings and being amazed by all the great riffs that came out of raising that 2nd string. He sure knew how to use that tuning, but also when not to-- I imagine he'd have been as puzzled as I am still to hear folks trying to play Cumberland Gap or Old Jimmy Sutton in "double C"! Or playing chord backup....

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:47:14

quote:there are many many reports and estimations of banjos being played in intervals matching the standard drop C tuning and only 1 from before the 1880s or 90s of the banjo being played in the equivalent of tne CC  tuning.

As a matter of fact during the era when there were 4 string banjos, the G tuning and C tuning were the same.  It was only the addition of the lower string now tuned to D or C that a distinction in the tunings existed.

If one surveys the entire literature of banjo playing from the 19th century, the CC was fairly rare.   Current revivalists tend to be fascianated by a small focus of banjoists regionally limited who played CC or DD,m and seem to not understand how many of the major banjoists even of early 20th century old time music in the South played the in the drop C tuning.

Very few if any of the African American banjoists we have studied and documented every used CC as opposed to drop C

---

Originally posted by Florian Jean Albiez

As far as we can tell, most banjos way back in the day had fewer than five strings. A lot of the old tunes that are played all over, like Hook and Line for example, are played out of Double C, often just using the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th strings. A tune like that could be played on a banjo with only three long strings tuned to gGCD. Eventually, once the additional long string was added, its tuning had to be adapted to fit tunes already being played widely. Could that explain the development of double c, at least in part?

---

ol trashfire joe - Posted - 03/19/2022:  13:49:27

so what is the actual tuning? is it CcDd or CcDe or ..? sorry, I play a 5 string resonator but may be purchasing a tenor conversion, so i became interested in the topic.

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  14:28:17

The Converse reminiscence quote that many of us refer to seems to be one of the few references to the cc tuning in the rather exhaustive history of the banjo before say the 1940s.  It is written is a way that suggests that Converse, who had been a leading banjo player and performer since the late 1850s considered this an unusual tuning.

It should also be noted that until the 1870s, fretted banjos were extremely rare, but the general consensus in written banjo literature was that bannjos were tuned in the drop c and  g tunings  or  A and E when banjos were 3 steps down.  There is some mention of people using the open D tuning for banjos as well since this was a widely popular tuning for guitar playing at the time.

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  14:40:37

quote:

However, the general assessment of everything we know is that in the world of banjo playing the drop C and G tunings, or their equivalents when banjos were tuned 3 steps down in A and E were widely known.  The Converse Reminiscence in the Cadenza written 60 years after the facts is about the only written source that says anything about a tuning resembling the CC tuning.   There is almost nothing else is the extremely extensive literature of the five string banjo which begins in the 1840s and explodes across the 1850s and and 60s and 70s and beyond about that tuning.

I have no doubt that people played in the cc tuning early on, but there is NO evidence that many people played it or it was frequently played.  Converse's busker is about the only report of an African American banjoist who played in this tune.  The Thompsons played banjo almost entirely in the drop C tuning but had learned one tune in CC, pretty much the same with most African American banjo players.

The variety of Sebastopol tunings in D were much more widespread among banjoists black and white across the 19th century than any other tuning except the standard C and G tunings.

Old Time revivalists overwhelmingly focus on a small number of players who played CC and tend nowadays to neglect the vast majority of players who played in the standard drop C tuning.,  Players of massive importance like Charlie Poole for example, or the recordings Dave Macon did in drop C, as well as CC and probably from people I know who spoke to him in other C tunings, tends to be ignored due to the facination with Round Peake and Kentucy players who played CC.

Gus Cannon for example played almost all of his tunes in drop C incuding at times tunes in G though he sometimes would move the 4th string up to d to play in G.  

People underestimate the reach of the world of professional, commercial, show business, and parlor banjo and its deep influence on the way traditional banjo playing developed,

---

Originally posted by janolov

It looks like drop C tuning, double C tuning and G tuning (or rather their equivalents) were known and were used in the 1850's.

---

writerrad - Posted - 03/19/2022:  14:50:39

quote:

Kazee himself was a college professor and had received rather formal musical training in both singing and instrumental playing and had difficulty with the commercial recording companies who wanted him to approximate more their stereotype of the "hill billy."  

During the era of the Fretless banjo, the dominant tunings we know about were the C tuning called drop C or standard C and the G tuning.  These two tunings are the continuation of the ways we know that the 4 string banjos were tuned before Sweeney and others popularized the five string.

The statement quoted holds no water,and pretty much eliminates the major portion of fretless banjo playing that encompassed the great banjo entertainers like Sweeney or Converse himself.   Fretted banjos did not become widespread anywhere until the 70s or 80s.  All of the banjo tuners and banjo instructors that were written before that time and many after were written for fretless banjos, and there are none that mention the CC tuning, but almost all mention the drop c and g tunings, or their equivalents in A or E.

People tend to forget or be ignorant of the vast sweep of banjo playing when the banjo became a world wide instreument and broadly popular in the USA.,

---

Originally posted by Joel Hooks

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nic Pennsylvania

As for odd tunings, I've heard both Mike Seeger and Buell Kazee state that this was due to the fretless nature of earlier and homemade banjos. This and the playing styles encouraged these tunings as a way of having more melody notes on open strings.



That holds water with me as an explanation. At least for many tunings.

---

Here is what Buell Kazee actually said...

"Banjo tuning is a very difficult thing, uh, for the typical mountaineer because he’s not educated in the fretting of a banjo by chords and therefore he has to get as many open strings as he can, so he tunes to suit that.  He also wants to get a lower pitch or a higher pitch and so tuning like this (plays open strings) is in the key of C.  But he didn’t tune it that way.  I learned to do this later on.  Here’s what we did, pull this string up (raises the second string half a step) and simply fret this one, not two but one."

---

mandobanjolibrarian - Posted - 03/19/2022:  21:12:24

quote:

---

Originally posted by ol trashfire joe

so what is the actual tuning? is it CcDd or CcDe or ..? sorry, I play a 5 string resonator but may be purchasing a tenor conversion, so i became interested in the topic.

---

gCGCD or aDADE (capoed)

Clawdan - Posted - 04/11/2022:  06:49:23

If I remember correctly Rufus Crisp played in double C and remarks learning from his grandfather which in the late 1800s

RG - Posted - 04/11/2022:  19:47:16

quote:

---

Originally posted by Clawdan

If I remember correctly Rufus Crisp played in double C and remarks learning from his grandfather which in the late 1800s

---

Here  are those liner notes for the Rufus Crisp (1880-1955) Folkways album Dan... on the album (recorded between 1946-1955), Rufus played in three tunings, gGDBD, gCGCD and gGGAD (which he called "Brighter Day Tuning" named after the song he used the tuning for), although the notes mention he knew and played in many more tunings. The liner notes are well worth a read in regards to information about a Kentucky banjo player who learned to play "old-time" music prior to 1900, and what that sounded like. This album has been a favorite of mine since I first got it in 1972, it's a real time capsule to a different era.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 04/12/2022:  05:46:05

A lot of emphasis is put on Converse's little story about the first banjoist he ever saw. But I think that context is important.

Converse said he took up banjo at age 14, so he would have seen this banjoist when he was younger than 14.

While he had studied music under his father starting at 6 years old (his dad was a music teacher at an Elmira music store), it was on piano.

So we can guess he was, say, between 9 and 13 years old when this important tuning event took place in Elmira, NY. We also know that he was totally ignorant about the banjo. So this was something he figured out later.

While his letters are reliable and mostly accurate (we have been able to support much of what he wrote), the memory by a 64 year old man, written to entertain the readers of the Cadenza magazine, about an event witnessed when he was 12 years old, might not stand up as testimony in court.

Then there are the motives of the banjoist. His was a bit or performance stunt of a professional musician, not some deep tradition passed from generation to generation with no change.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 04/12/2022:  05:49:37

writerrad , Hi Tony, my interpretation of Kazee's statement "not educated in the fretting of the banjo by chords" is not in reference to smooth arm or "fretless" banjos.

"Fretting of the banjo by chords" means stopping the strings or "fretting" in chord shapes.

writerrad - Posted - 04/16/2022:  07:47:51

I don't think Kazee at all was talking about playing a fretless banjo. There is no evidence from either the playing or Kazee's own recollections, that he played a fretless banjo or was talking about it. Kazee himself was a formally musically educated person. He complained that even in the 1920s the record companies were a bit perturbed by his singing style which owed much to formal approaches to singing and wanted him to sound more like their idea of a "hillbilly."



There is an extreme paternalistic and romanticizing approach to Southern Traditional banjoists, both Black and white, attempting to isolate them from trends in society as large, music in general, and the banjo specifically, and making them conform to the romantic and ignorant notions of revivalists.   By and large they tended not to be isolated from the trends of the dynamically changing world of the banjo that opened on an international scale between the Civil War and the 1920s.



Except for a certain popularity of semi fretless and fretless banjos among an extremely limited number of players in the "Round Peake" area there is no evidence that fretless banjos were common or appreciated by more than a handful of traditional or old-time banjo players, Black or white, in the early 20th century when Kazee was first recorded. Fretted banjos following the innovations of either the "Boston" tone-ring banjos or , after they were invented in the 1920s, the Paramount-introduced external resonator RBs seemed to be what such banjoists obtained when they could.



There is an unfounded desire to see banjo playing as an isolated survival of some ancient folk activity passed down through "folk" tradition from antediluvian times and ignore the impact of the massive explosion of African American, European American, and European banjo playing across the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century and the advances in banjo construction.  One gauge of that is in pitching where except a tiny handful,  almost every traditional Southern banjoist followed the raising of banjo pitch by international accord from the A nd E pitching to C and G tuning, with a number, especially Black players favoring even higher pitching.   Certainly, the models of banjos that most of the Southern white and Black banjo players we know of from that period preferred followed the progression of the best banjos made in the larger banjo world, not a regression to fretless banjos or gourd banjos or "tub" style frame headed banjos.



I enjoy playing in the CC tuning as a banjo player. But as a banjo historian, I find its use rare among except among a few old-time banjo players, concentrated in several specific areas. I find the general ignorance of the standard C tuning of the banjo, called by some drop C others "The Pete Seeger Tuning" to be a sign of the lack of congruence between contemporary old-time revivalists and the actual history of banjo playing including the history of Southern white and Black banjo playing before the 1940s  in what we now call old time music. I am not denying there were strong exponents of CC or DD, but it is much more represented by banjoists contemporary banjoists revivalists have been fascinated with, than it was represented among southern players in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I would add that Joel's observations on Converse's reminiscence is of very strong value to this discussion.  I consider Joel the leading expert on the life and legacy of Frank B. Converse.  If I had the means, I would get Joel a grant to complete a biography of Converse toucvhing on how he reflected the world of the banjo in his times.  Thanks Joel

Edited by - writerrad on 04/16/2022 08:06:30

writerrad - Posted - 04/16/2022:  08:10:31

quote:

---

Originally posted by writerrad

I don't think Kazee at all was talking about playing a fretless banjo. There is no evidence from either the playing or Kazee's own recollections, that he played a fretless banjo or was talking about it. Kazee himself was a formally musically educated person. He complained that even in the 1920s the record companies were a bit perturbed by his singing style which owed much to formal approaches to singing and wanted him to sound more like their idea of a "hillbilly."



There is an extreme paternalistic and romanticizing approach to Southern Traditional banjoists, both Black and white, attempting to isolate them from trends in society as large, music in general, and the banjo specifically, and making them conform to the romantic and ignorant notions of revivalists.   By and large they tended not to be isolated from the trends of the dynamically changing world of the banjo that opened on an international scale between the Civil War and the 1920s.



Except for a certain popularity of semi fretless and fretless banjos among an extremely limited number of players in the "Round Peake" area there is no evidence that fretless banjos were common or appreciated by more than a handful of traditional or old-time banjo players, Black or white, in the early 20th century when Kazee was first recorded. Fretted banjos following the innovations of either the "Boston" tone-ring banjos or , after they were invented in the 1920s, the Paramount-introduced external resonator RBs seemed to be what such banjoists obtained when they could.



There is an unfounded desire to see banjo playing as an isolated survival of some ancient folk activity passed down through "folk" tradition from antediluvian times and ignore the impact of the massive explosion of African American, European American, and European banjo playing across the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century and the advances in banjo construction.  One gauge of that is in pitching where except a tiny handful,  almost every traditional Southern banjoist followed the raising of banjo pitch by international accord from the A nd E pitching to C and G tuning, with a number, especially Black players favoring even higher pitching.   Certainly, the models of banjos that most of the Southern white and Black banjo players we know of from that period preferred followed the progression of the best banjos made in the larger banjo world, not a regression to fretless banjos or gourd banjos or "tub" style frame headed banjos.



I enjoy playing in the CC tuning as a banjo player. But as a banjo historian, I find its use rare among except among a few old-time banjo players, concentrated in several specific areas. I find the general ignorance of the standard C tuning of the banjo, called by some drop C others "The Pete Seeger Tuning" to be a sign of the lack of congruence between contemporary old-time revivalists and the actual history of banjo playing including the history of Southern white and Black banjo playing before the 1940s  in what we now call old time music. I am not denying there were strong exponents of CC or DD, but it is much more represented by banjoists contemporary banjoists revivalists have been fascinated with, than it was represented among southern players in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

I would add that Joel's observations on Converse's reminiscence is of very strong value to this discussion.  I consider Joel the leading expert on the life and legacy of Frank B. Converse.  He has devoted years to his study of Converse.  If I had the means, I would get Joel a grant to complete a biography of Converse touching on how he reflected the world of the banjo in his times and spare him the interference that working for a living makes in such work.  Thanks Joel

---

janolov - Posted - 04/16/2022:  08:21:33

In this video Kazee is playing a banjo where the top frets were filed down. He talks about it in the first video at about 11:00. At about 7:00 in the first part he is also talking about double C tuning.

Part 1: youtube.com/watch?v=WbWD8H7IMN0

Part 2: youtube.com/watch?v=WJQjUjVZZxQ

kingfisher500 - Posted - 05/12/2022:  08:08:32

From 5-STRING BANJO TUNINGS Compiled by Anita Kermode

gCGCD
"Double-C", "Two-C", "C-modal"
Now one of the commonest tunings in clawhammer style, above all for playing with "D" fiddle tunes. Also used by Tony Ellis in many of his lovely bluegrass-cum-old-time 3-finger style tunes, and perhaps by other bluegrass musicians. For all I know, this tuning may have a history reaching at least as far back as the Standard-C (gCGBD) recorded in so much of the 19th C literature. Blanton Owen's liner notes for "Old Originals Vol 2" say that the Virginian Stuart Carrico considers the Double-C tuning to be older than the Standard-C. (Stuart was born at the turn of the century.)
Tuned up to D, this becomes aDADE. Tuned down to B-flat, fBbFBbC.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 05/13/2022:  14:56:53

When it comes to banjo history, I might offer that what survives and is available to us, is likely only a fraction of what once existed. Especially as regards the "folk tradition", only bits of *surviving* traditions are known to us. We hear a lot about Round Peak, WVA players, and less about the Sand Mountain, AL tradition for example. Conway's important work about the Black NC Piedmont players was a surprising, and until then, unknown tradition to the general community. How many more unknown, and never-to-be-known traditions have come and gone without note? I could speak of Morg Howard, J.T. Cooley, and Oscar Comer, Missouri banjoists contemporary with the RP greats, but no one would know who I was talking about, because no ethno-musicologist sought them out, and collected and championed their music.



Allen Feldman, in his great book "The Northern Fiddler" noted something very similar in relation to Irish fiddling:



"There has been a tremendous change of the social context of the music and the folk revival has unconsciously compounded this situation by developing into an a-historical movement ignorant of the importance of regional styles. It has been taken as authoritative, a national style of music that has been compounded out of the Sligo and Clare traditions."

One could easily substitute festival scene for "folk revival", and Round Peak for "Sligo and Clare" in the above quote.



Therefore it is difficult to know much about the early use of a particular tuning like gCGCD. The fact that that interval has such utility these days points to the possibility that it was of similar use previously.



As for alternate tunings in general, I might surmise that they are a comparatively late (post Civil War?) development with the advent of *mechanical* tuners. When I was collaborating with John Bowlin on the design of what became his Model 1865 Fretless Banjo, one of my requirements was that it *not* have wooden friction pegs because of the peghead wear that would have resulted from the frequent retuning I did as a modern CH player. I would guess that constant re-tuning might have been undesirable on early (antebellum?) instruments for the same reason, and would have limited the use of numerous alternative tunings.



The minstrel tradition is far better documented precisely because of folks like Converse who were literate and made a living in part through their written publications. The folk tradition is more of a "survival of the fittest" situation, and there is a lot of luck involved. Thus, as above, much has been lost which shall never be known to us, including the tunings which may have been elemental in such lost traditions.

From a practical standpoint, I personally make far more use of the gCGCD than the gCGBD interval.  I find the Double-C affords me much more left-hand freedom as the normal position for the gCGCD is at the second fret, and has more freedom of movement by not necessarily being tied to the first fret position as is often the case in gCGBD.

To me, the most pertinent factors we can use to theorize about the use of gCGCD at an early point are its current utility in the rendering of tunes dating back to an earlier period, and the convenience of tuning thus on early instruments.

Another thing to keep in mind is the use of the phrase; "alternative tuning".  Alternative to what?  These days "alternative" is defined as a tuning other than gDGBD, and the thought that gDGBD is the standard, default tuning is not of long standing, being I would theorize, based on the Bluegrass banjo preference and its use as a first tuning in beginner's banjo instruction materials.  

Take the forgoing just for what it is- conjecture and musings.

 

Edited by - R.D. Lunceford on 05/13/2022 15:03:59

writerrad - Posted - 05/28/2022:  13:09:46

quote:great post rd  i am copying it down.   there is a lot that even those of us who comb the archive do not know, and a lot that we will never know because very much was not put into the written record, while the written record, mainly published banjo literature featured one or two tunings.

One side on this is the chapter or section of a chapter in Cece's b on Black banjoist that speculates on alternative tunings which I happen to know from Cece was the product of  a lot of Tommy Thompson's thinking which speculates that many of the alternative tunings had to do with alternative fiddle tunings that were much more widespread.  This was just somethng I think Tommy and Cece had figured out but had no where else to publish it insofar as it really had little to do as far as they point out with Black banjoists.  There are big weaknesses in that book the stuff in there on the actual playing is gold.

The big problem is that the population of old time and bluegrass banjo players have little or no or stereotypical knowledge of banjo playing beyond focus on some of the traditional musicians, though as you point out focising on a few stars who became the focus of the revival startin g in the 1970s.   However,  I would be that the most commonly  tuning for a C tuning used in the era of old time recordings from 1920 to 1940 would have been drop C, the standard C tuning.

I found it amazing that a very good local banjo player was showing me how to play a tune and then he told me well this is in an old weird tuning nobody uses, and it was Darling Corey in drop C

---

Originally posted by R.D. Lunceford

When it comes to banjo history, I might offer that what survives and is available to us, is likely only a fraction of what once existed. Especially as regards the "folk tradition", only bits of *surviving* traditions are known to us. We hear a lot about Round Peak, WVA players, and less about the Sand Mountain, AL tradition for example. Conway's important work about the Black NC Piedmont players was a surprising, and until then, unknown tradition to the general community. How many more unknown, and never-to-be-known traditions have come and gone without note? I could speak of Morg Howard, J.T. Cooley, and Oscar Comer, Missouri banjoists contemporary with the RP greats, but no one would know who I was talking about, because no ethno-musicologist sought them out, and collected and championed their music.



Allen Feldman, in his great book "The Northern Fiddler" noted something very similar in relation to Irish fiddling:



"There has been a tremendous change of the social context of the music and the folk revival has unconsciously compounded this situation by developing into an a-historical movement ignorant of the importance of regional styles. It has been taken as authoritative, a national style of music that has been compounded out of the Sligo and Clare traditions."

One could easily substitute festival scene for "folk revival", and Round Peak for "Sligo and Clare" in the above quote.



Therefore it is difficult to know much about the early use of a particular tuning like gCGCD. The fact that that interval has such utility these days points to the possibility that it was of similar use previously.



As for alternate tunings in general, I might surmise that they are a comparatively late (post Civil War?) development with the advent of *mechanical* tuners. When I was collaborating with John Bowlin on the design of what became his Model 1865 Fretless Banjo, one of my requirements was that it *not* have wooden friction pegs because of the peghead wear that would have resulted from the frequent retuning I did as a modern CH player. I would guess that constant re-tuning might have been undesirable on early (antebellum?) instruments for the same reason, and would have limited the use of numerous alternative tunings.



The minstrel tradition is far better documented precisely because of folks like Converse who were literate and made a living in part through their written publications. The folk tradition is more of a "survival of the fittest" situation, and there is a lot of luck involved. Thus, as above, much has been lost which shall never be known to us, including the tunings which may have been elemental in such lost traditions.

From a practical standpoint, I personally make far more use of the gCGCD than the gCGBD interval.  I find the Double-C affords me much more left-hand freedom as the normal position for the gCGCD is at the second fret, and has more freedom of movement by not necessarily being tied to the first fret position as is often the case in gCGBD.

To me, the most pertinent factors we can use to theorize about the use of gCGCD at an early point are its current utility in the rendering of tunes dating back to an earlier period, and the convenience of tuning thus on early instruments.

Another thing to keep in mind is the use of the phrase; "alternative tuning".  Alternative to what?  These days "alternative" is defined as a tuning other than gDGBD, and the thought that gDGBD is the standard, default tuning is not of long standing, being I would theorize, based on the Bluegrass banjo preference and its use as a first tuning in beginner's banjo instruction materials.  

Take the forgoing just for what it is- conjecture and musings.

 

---

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 05/29/2022:  19:14:14

writerrad

Tony;
Your experience and insights are much appreciated.
Thank you for relating them.