I'm soon to hit 70 years old and have arthritis in my left thumb. The wider finger spread necessary to hit chords on a long-necked Plectrum is becoming a problem - too painful. I have a beautiful Paramount Tenor banjo that my father used to play. I'm curious if there are any serious issues with my tuning his Tenor banjo to a Plectrum tuning. I've heard that I'd want to use a heavier gauge of strings, but are there any other problems I might encounter? Thanks for any advice.
I don't think you will have any major problems. You may have to do some creative experimenting to find the right string gauges but, beyond that, I think you will be okay. Some people tune a tenor banjo to Chicago tuning. Tuning to plectrum tuning wouldn't be that different.
Over here I can buy a set of tenor banjo strings for Chicago tuning. I don't know if you can get such a thing down your way. This is the set so you can see what string gauges they use:
eaglemusicshop.com/banjo-chica...ngs-tenor
I would go to the D'adderio site and look up the tension charts for the Tenor. Then I'd use a string calculator to choose a set that got close.
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