Hello,
I discovered in the process of tuning the 5th string, that when I pick the 5th string open by itself, while lightly muting all the other strings with my fingers, the 5th string sounds a (clear) “true” note—if I unmute all the other strings and pick the open 5th string, the 5th string note is then slightly flat! And it doesn’t sound as clear.
It turns out to be true for each of the other strings too, to varying degrees: When the remaining strings are unmuted, the string in question sounds slightly flat (and less clear) than when the others are muted.
Obviously this means that the best sound coming off of open strings is to pick one while muting all the others (..jokes incoming, I know).
Why is this so? It seems like “wolf tones” that override or cause a clash with the “true” tone? If it’s overtones, they’re not complementary notes, so it’s negative rather than positive.
What’s the solution? Ome banjos used to (or still does) sell all of their strings with a little pipe cleaner fuzzy on the tailpiece end of the string, is this the reason? Or it’s something else.. the head is “out of tune”?
Rockyjo
I think, you will have to ignore it, and tune your banjo as clean as possible. When you play the 5. string, sound energy is transferred a little to the other strings, and that disturbs the clean sound a little. Try with unmuted strings to play the first string in the 6. fret. It sounds terrible. and that goes for all banjos I think. You have just discovered something quite common. So be happy. Steen
When was the last time you tightened the head? Could be sympathetic vibrations between the head tension and strings.
You might want to try measuring the frequency of the 5th string note with the other strings muted and unmuted to see if there really is a difference in pitch. The presence or absence of overtones associated with the other strings may affect your ability to use your ear to judge differences in pitch.
Edited by - RB3 on 10/26/2026 07:49:36
Is your left hand slightly moving the neck differently when you play 5th string by itself?
Left hand pressure against the weight of the neck can affect string tension and tension very slightly. A banjo with the slightest loosenes of neck connection, or a "springy" piece of wood for the neck, can do this. Again very slight, but it makes tuning harder.
Good luck
Part of the charm (the curse?) of all drum-headed instruments as compared to ones with wood soundboards is the extent to which a single string will excite all the others, irrespective of how they're tuned or fingered. The mechanism is at work on all string instruments but is so much bigger with a drum head that we hear it as a dramatic, qualitative difference.
Just listen carefully to the sound of any plucked string. Compare all others muted to all others free to sound. They can be open or fingered as some chord. For anything other than a pure sine wave, determination of pitch is really a complicated process -- for you as well as for any machine (e.g., tuner).
At the same time, drum-headed notes are usually so short in time that it really doesn't matter to the listener whether they are "out of tune," -- at least at a level relevant to what I'm talking about.
[Consider yourself lucky for not having been referred to https://www.its.caltech.edu/~politzer/ for an immersion in the physics. ;) ]
Bridge in the right place
Height of strings over the 1st fret
Head tension
etc.
All things must be brought into spec for good results in the total.
"All things must be brought into spec for good results in the total."
Absolutely!!!
The only remaining question is: what constitutes a good result? If you want it to sound like a banjo, obsessive scrutiny of pitches will drive you crazy.
I can't make my 5th string do that.
Edited by - steve davis on 10/26/2026 14:19:53
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