ND, make it easy on yourself, & go w/ Chicago tuning. Tradition isn't all it's cracked up to be, & chord melody playing is a bit corny. Plectrum banjos sound just fine w/ guitar tuning.

Somebody once told me a very long time ago that there ain't no wrong way to play the banjo.  'Course, he was a blues harp (i.e., harmonica) player in a rock band and knew nothing about the banjo, but I digress.  I'm with the previous poster who said you outta go with the Chicago tuning... it makes sense switching to that tuning, it sounds like a banjo to an innocent bystander (and to some not-so-innocent), and in the long run you'll probably get more enjoyment out of the music if you do switch.  Bottom line:  SWITCH.  

Following in the footsteps of Bob Siggins and Bill Keith, both of whom used their 5 string banjos in the Kweskin Jug Band with the 5th string muted to play-plectrum style with a flat pick, I started my tenor banjo adventures with a DGBD tuning and used the same chord shapes as on the 5 string.

1. It’s your banjo, do whatever you want.
2. You aren’t making a non-reversible change to a rare and valuable piece of history; you’re never further than a set of strings away from original.
3. The people who obsess about these things probably won’t come to see a polka band; and if they do, who cares anyway? You’re not playing in a “traditional” situation, so why care about tradition?
4. Anything that helps you play better is good.
5. Anything that gets a banjo out in front of people who might not otherwise hear one, and in an unusual context is good, so if the Chicago tuning will lead you to play it more, change it.

Just my opinion.

Steven

I just tried Chicago tuning on plectrum a few months ago. I was never able to wrap my head around standard plectrum tuning either, but coming from the guitar world, it was a piece of cake to start making pleasant noises quickly. So why not?

If we're going by tradition, we should admonish all those 5-string players who don't tune their low string to C, or all those folkies who tune their tenors down to G, or all those darn kids turning up their amps until they distort. It's good to know the traditional styles, but also when to throw tradition out the window.

I own four banjos at the moment each one has a different tuning, two tenors are tuned in standard tenor and Irish tenor, on the five string I use different tunings (standard G, C tuning, double C, D tuning etc) and a Six string banjo that I tune with guitar tuning but also open A or open D…
Every tuning has its own sound, and I like to experiment on different tunings, but this has nothing to do with tradition in my opinion: here on the hangout I’ve been criticized because I play guitar banjo and someone thinks that that instrument is not a true banjo! (Forgetting all the great musician that played it in the past from Johnny St Cyr to Papa Charlie Jackson to Danny Barker)

I don’t care about tradition, choose the tuning that works better for you and that’s all!

Here’s a video I did playing the same song on different banjos with different tunings…

This is a very interesting question to which I do not have a simple answer. The following are my thoughts on it: I was a professional guitarist for about 20 years. I played several times a week. (I still do about four gigs a year on guitar.) I love guitar tuning, the first four strings of which are know as Chicago tuning. I love the tuning, but it has two drawbacks on banjo. The tradition plectrum is set up perfectly for chord/melody solos with most of the melody notes falling on the first string. Guitar tuning does not give the banjoist the same luxury, especially in the keys so many jazz standards are written. Also, the traditional plectrum offers harmonic overtones that guitar tuning cannot match.

Please do not get me wrong. I’m not advocating for one tuning or the other, but plectrum tuning does offer certain advantages. I totally get the idea of switching to guitar tuning for a person who has prior guitar experience. In a word, switching would make playing the banjo easier.

I’ve had a lot of conversations about music with a very famous plectrum banjoist who told me this many years ago: Don’t make any musical choices (chord shapes, tunings, picking or strumming techniques, etc.) based strictly on ease. Such choices should be based on music not ease. If something sound “right” to you, do it no matter how hard it is.

That statement has been my guideline throughout my tenor banjo journey, and it’s been a tough journey. My left hand technique was never great. Chords that other tenor pros seem to glide through are chord shapes with which I struggle, but I battle on, and I’m always happy I did.

If you truly think guitar tuning sounds better, I say switch to it, but i would not advocate switching just because switching would be easier. Like that plectrum player once told, base your musical choices on music, not ease.

Most people have more than one banjo. Having one in Chicago tuning seems a good option. Or a six string banjo like Paolo mentioned.

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Originally posted by NDPlectrum    Here’s the thing: I’m not a great chord melody player. I’ve tried, but it’s just never clicked for me. What I do well is chunking chords in my polka/rock band, and frankly, that’s the primary role of my banjo in that setting. The band is loud, so any single-string solos get lost in the mix anyway—even if I were better at them, they wouldn’t be heard.

 

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I've always played a plectrum with standard CGBD tuning; I also play an archtop electric guitar with just four strings, using the same plectrum tuning.  Although that allows me to double on guitar and the guitar sounds nice, it does not sound like a standard six-string.  I think the same would be true of a plectrum banjo with Chicago tuning. 

Having said that, there are plenty of fine banjoists (like Arnt Arntzen with Vince Giordano's Nighthawks) who use Chicago tuning and sound great.  If you're just going to play harmony chords and be the rhythm section for your polka/rock band, then Chicago tuning might be the best way for you to go. 

One thought about your "single-string" comment -- in my experience there's little, if any, single-stringing when you're playing in chord melody. On a plectrum banjo, chord melody requires a separate chord for each note in a tune. These "melody chords" usually have the melody note on the D string, which will then be the top (highest) note of the chord.  It's very similar to the right-hand chording technique on a piano.  And as others here have noted, Chicago tuning doesn't lend itself to chord melody as well as plectrum tuning does.  But if Chicago tuning serves your purposes better, then it doesn't matter!  SETH

You have answered your own questions. Switch the tunings.

Wow, I wasn’t expecting such response to my question—thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experiences! I really appreciate the thoughtful advice from everyone who chimed in.

After reading through all the input, I’ve decided to try Chicago tuning for the next couple of months and see how it feels. It seems like a good fit for what I’m looking for, and I’m excited to dig into it.

Again, a big thanks to this community for being so helpful. I’ll report back after some time with my thoughts on how it’s going!

If you use standard tunings, the plectrum inversions are obviously different from those of the tenor, so with a rather different effect. If you like the standard sound and the particular effects of an instrument you should use the standard tuning, if you are looking for new effects and harmonies then you can vary everything to your liking. IMO

If you have a knack for the Chicago tuning, you should definitely pursue it. Paul Scavarda is probably the best practitioner of this tuning and Paul truly has the heart of a real jazz banjoist. Some guitarist don't have that innate understanding of the banjo, but Paul is the real deal. Watch his videos on Youtube. Personally, I love the traditional CGBD plectrum tuning. I came to it from a tenor CGDA) background and just gobbled it up.

Related to the question of whether to use plectrum (CGBD) tuning or Chicago (DGBE) tuning, there's also the issue of right-hand technique. 

This probably doesn't apply to NDplectrum, the original poster who says he's been playing banjo for at least 10 years.  But guitarists who use Chicago tuning in order to double on a banjo need to know that right-hand technique for a banjo is much different that it is for guitar.  

For banjo, the wrist does about 95% of the work and the forearm doesn't move much at all.  This allows for a very high-efficiency strum, and very fast and easy tremulos and glisses.  Conversely, on a guitar the forearm probably does at least 75% of the work, with the wrist doing the remaining 25% or less. 

That's a BIG difference, and many guitar players either don't understand it or just don't bother to strum a banjo correctly.  That affects their banjo playing and also makes it tougher than it needs to be.  When I see banjoists moving their entire forearm up and down to strum, I know they're probably using Chicago tuning --- or else they were never taught correctly in the first place!  

I play with a guitarist who also plays a 6-string banjo, but uses a guitar-type of strum.  When he complained that he couldn't get the same type of tremulos that I was playing, I tried to show him how to do a true banjo strum.  As I showed him how to bend his hand at the wrist to make almost a 90-degree angle, and then strum from the wrist instead of the forearm, his comment was "My goodness, I can't do that -- it feels really weird."  It reminded me of the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink." SETH

I play both CGBD plectrum and jazz guitar, with which I tend to do a fair bit of chord melody, so I can see the advantages and disadvantages of both tunings.

For solo playing, I think the sweeter CGBD tuning is definitely superior. Brad Roth’s wonderful solo work exemplifies this quality perfectly.

But for band playing, the DGBE tuning has that extra “bite” similar to that of the tenor banjo. And a player with a good banjoistic strumming style eg Arn Arneson with the Vince Giordano Nighthawks can make it sound really super.

Good luck!

Will