I have experienced people bringing a 6-string banjo (guitar tuning) to a bluegrass jam, and it did not sound right at all for bluegrass. I expect the same for a 4-string banjo, sorry.

Earlier today I watched a short video clip of Enda Scahill playing at the Rotterdam BG Festival yesterday. Suggest you watch/contact him.

I think backup played on a tenor banjo would take up too much sonic space in a bluegrass jam. You might want to look into playing mandolin; those are often in short supply at bluegrass jams.

Technically at an open jam anything goes, but sticking closer to the conventions of the genre might make it more likely for you to be invited to other jams.

I think you could play either instument in a jam session. Doesn't really matter how you tune it, chords are chords and as long as you can play the appropriate chords, it should blend in and sound fine.

We had a lady who brought a tenor guitar and a clawhammer banjo to our jams. Both fit in and sounded fine. She even took some breaks with the banjo but not the guitar.

There was a guy from czeck republic here on the hangout that played scrugg style on tenor tuned DGDG, Mirek Patek was his name if my Memory it’s right…

What were your reasons for not wanting to play Scruggs style on your 5-string? If you learn a limited number of chords (G, A, C, D, F) in G tuning, and get a capo and spikes, you'll be set for the great majority of bluegrass songs and tunes.

Tenor guitar and tenor banjo are very different despite the same tuning. It's unlikely that anyone will hear a tenor guitar at a bluegrass jam. A tenor banjo will played with a pick might be heard too much.

Jim Andrews was a tenor banjoist that filled in with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys between Stringbean and Scruggs. There aren't any recordings of him that I know of, but some recollections of his style are that he served primarily as the chop rhythm that Monroe would later fill with mandolin and also the occasional solo. Not a lot unlike tenor banjo in a jazz band, but with just a tweaked rhythm. IMHO tenors are really well-suited for bluegrass jams where there's less emphasis on individuals. There's also a few good videos on youtube of folks playing some pretty convincing bluegrass rolls on tenor.

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Originally posted by banjopaolo

There was a guy from czeck republic here on the hangout that played scrugg style on tenor tuned DGDG, Mirek Patek was his name if my Memory it’s right…

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That's right. But Mirek played finger style rolls, not flat pick. I suppose it depends on the tolerance of the other jam members, but flat picking a tenor strays rather far from the sound they are used to. 

You might want to set your focus on playing Western swing music instead of bluegrass. There have been some very gifted tenor players who contributed greatly to the genre over the years. --Cjazz

Anyway I’m a Tenor player but when I want to play in a more ‘bluegrassish’ or clawhammer way I use the five string… I don’t go to bluegrass jam in any case…

In my experience it's not so much about the instrument per se as the interest (or lack thereof) that a person has in bluegrass music.

I've seen players of all kinds of "non-traditional" instruments show up to bluegrass jams, but they usually stop coming after a few times, not because they were treated poorly, but because they weren't that interested in bluegrass. And there's nothing wrong with this, most people aren't interested in bluegrass, old-time, etc.. We don't have to all be interested in the same thing.

Also, I think some kind of like the idea of the novelty ("wonder what these old grassers will think when I break out my clarinet") but that doesn't tend to sustain them for long. Don't get me wrong, a clarinet could be great in bluegrass, but in my opinion the type of person who brings a clarinet to a bluegrass jam isn't likely to be the type of person interested in bluegrass music. At least not for more than a few weeks.

I think a lot of people, usually guitarists/singers, are attracted to bluegrass jams because they seem like song circles more than an OT or Irish jam, but they realize after a short while that a lot of jams are not like that.

Free for all jams can be great, but traditional bluegrass jams offer a structure that a lot of people find appealing as well. If you know the etiquette and some of the repertoire, you can play with strangers very easily.

Robert, in response to your original questions - tuning for rhythm isn't as important as the actual rhythm. At least, personally, I'd much rather hear traditional bluegrass be played on a marginally untraditionally-bluegrass instrument than hear bluegrass played on a pre-war 5-string in a more untraditional style.