The typical tuning for finger-style playing is gCGBD. With occasional use of ‘raised 4th’ gDGBD which change indicated on finger-style notation. This may appear at first glance restricting, but the associated common practice is to play in a variety of different keys from this tuning (most usually F, Bb, Eb and Ab and their relative minors).
This tuning approach is historically informed; it’s what fingerstyle players did. But there is no musical or technical reason why this approach has to be followed. Finger-style is applicable to any banjo tuning; further emphasis, if it were necessary, of the expressive facility of this technique.
Maybe in time this section may become a space to post and discuss examples of finger-style playing that is not in gCGBD...
Edited by - EEB on 08/09/2026 05:05:48
Maybe because I started out on guitar, I’m really allergic to fifth intervals. Going all the way up to the sixth fret before getting to the next string just feels uncomfortable to me. I accept that that is a limitation, but music is hard enough to play as it is.
I’m interested in the logic behind it though.
In Briggs' Banjo Instructor (page 30) from 1855 also the minor tuning is mentioned: "If the performer wishes to play in a Minor Key, he must tune the Second String to a Minor Third from the Third String, leaving the other strings at the same pitch as in Major Keys."
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