A group of owners or want to be owners of a Bowlin 1865 Fretless Banjo. To help each other bring out the best in this banjo.
93 Members, Created 1/27/2011 - 
Administrators: John Bowlin (owner)
From R.D. Lunceford on 11/14/2012 11:04:15 AM
As most Bowlinites are also banjo history buffs, I am sure we are all aware that over the course of the 19thC. the *documented* pitch of the banjo rose.
In 1851, Elias Howe published The Complete preceptor for the Banjo, by Gumbo Chaff, A.M.A. The tuning given was cFCEG.
In 1855, Oliver Ditson published Briggs' Banjo Instructor, by Thomas F. Briggs. The tuning given is dGDF#A.
In 1858, Ditson published Phil. Rice's Correct Method For the Banjo by Phil Rice. The tuning given is eAEG#B.
In 1884, The Complete Method for the Banjo by A. Baur arrives at today's standard pitch of gCGBD.
The names of the notes are merely labels for tones of a specific frequency. These days, A = 440 cycles per second, but this was not always standardized and has varied through the centuries. For example, in Bach's day, the note designated as "A" was quite a bit lower in pitch. By the mid -19thC. when most of the above manuals were written, "A" was what we think of today as "A#"
Another interesting aside is that in the written notation of the 19thC., the banjo was a transposing instrument... in otherwords the music for is was written in one key, although it actually sounded in another. Due to the eAEG#B tuning, the music was written in the key of A or E. When the banjo's pitch rose in the 1880's, the music continued to be written as if it were in A or E, although the change in tuning produced higher pitches.
What's all this leading up to? John strings his banjos to be tuned to the Briggs 1855 pitch standard of dGDF#A, but I've been playing mine a tone lower in cFCEG and it sound great!!!
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