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Newbie question baritone banjo

Posted by glennj on Saturday, February 26, 2022

Question for a newbie. Just bought a baritone banjo. Never played banjo before but love the baritone sound. Plan to only play for myself not with others or in a band. When I learn new songs should I play them as the tab reads, meaning ill be in a different key? This way if I switch to regular banjo all will be the same just higher key? 

Thanks. 



2 comments on “Newbie question baritone banjo”

yellowdog Says:
Tuesday, March 15, 2022 @8:28:57 AM

I didn't know that one could purchase a "baritone banjo". My friend and professional banjo player, Bill Rutan, the banjoist in the "Hotlanta Jazz Band", always said that he played "baritone tuning" on his banjo, which is GDAE lowest to hightst and which is also called "Irish Tuning". Standard tenor banjo tuning is CGDA. Both GDAE and CGDA are "fifths tunings, which means that they can both be played in the same way but that the music that comes out of the banjo will be in different keys. (Make a C chord on a banjo with standard C tuning and it will be a C chord, and make it on a banjo with GDAE tuning and it will come out sounding a G chord. Both tunings are great for jazz and playing chord melody style. Irish banjo players prefer GDAE tuning which works better playing Irish tunes in popular fiddle keys. Standard C tuning works better using piano music which is written in keys easier to play on a piano.

Any tenor banjo method book can be used with either tuning but you have to change the name of the chord if you use GDAE tuning - unless you have an Irish Method book. In other words if you use GDAE tuning and you want to play a G chord just play the C chord in the American tenor banjo book.

Yellowdog

mmuussiiccaall Says:
Friday, April 8, 2022 @7:03:11 AM

Capo 7th to become "normal".

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