All 4ths versus All 5ths Tuning

I'm most familiar with all 5ths tuning like on a tenor banjo. I have also experimented with all 4ths by tuning my Vagabond travel guitar in all 4ths EADGCF. To that end, I thought I would jot down some compare/contrast notes about each tuning.  

All 4ths

-Easier to play in any key.

-Utilizes closed shapes, doesn't rely on open strings.

-Pattern oriented.

-You can play melodies anywhere on the fretboard, not just first position.

-You have more fingering choices for how you want to play a melody and sometimes you might have the same note in two places.

-Due to the way the strings are spaced, you might have string jumps that you wouldn't have in all 5ths tuning.

-Due to the shorter range from string to string, it's better to have 5 or 6 strings like on a guitar rather than 4 like on a violin.

-Works for guitar length scale of 25 inches, although could also work for a shorter scale length.

All 5ths

-Suited to fiddle tune repertoire.

-Wider intervals means you rely on open strings to play melodies.

-You tend to stay in first position.

-Only needs 4 strings total or 5 at the most.

-Best for shorter scale instruments like 21-inch scale or shorter.

-Some say the 5ths interval has more resonance or a more pleasant harmony than 4ths.

If I Could Have Musical Influences, What Would They Be?

If I was going to take music lessons again, it would be on the subject of "what can I learn from these musicians?". I would work with an instructor who is willing to go over the playing styles and techniques of 3 or 4 musicians with me to see what I can learn or draw from their playing. 

As someone who is learning/memorizing Irish tunes on tenor banjo and then bringing said tenor banjo to Irish pub sessions and using it to play monophonic unison tunes in a group setting, it would make sense for me to be influenced by players who do that specifically. Those cats would include John Carty, Angelina Carberry, Kieran Hanrahan, Kevin Griffin, and Daithí Kearney. I especially like Daithí Kearney's playing since he does a lot of slides and polkas, which you don't always hear Irish tenor banjo players doing.

Surprise, surprise. None of these musicians in the subject of this hypothetical study with an instructor would be players of Irish music, even though my goal would be to take whatever influence I could extract and apply it to my hobby of playing Irish tunes. The first four musicians would be:

-Puerto Rican Cuatro player Maso Rivera. Suggested track: De La Montaña Venimos from Reyando Con Maso Y Su Cuatro.

-Kali, a banjo-mandolin(?) player from Martinique in the French West Indies. Suggested track: Bel Plesi from his Racines, Vol 1 & 2 CD.

-Another banjo-mandolin player...Dennis Pash of the Etcetera String Band and the Ragtime Skedaddlers. The super obscure CD Bonne Humeur - in which Pash plays his interpretations of the early dance music of Haiti, Trinidad, Martinique, and the Virgin Islands - may have already been a big influence on me.

-Sylvester McIntosh, also known as "Blinky", who was the band leader and alto saxophone player in Blinky and the Roadmasters plus other scratch music bands in the United States Virgin Islands. Anything from their 1990 Rounder records release Crucian Scratch Band Music. 

I suppose four is enough of a start. Three of those four are stringed instrument players - Maso Rivera, Kali, and Dennis Pash - who each use or used some type of pick/plectrum to pluck/flat-pick the strings. The only non-string instrument player is Blinky, so I'm not exactly sure what I'd be trying to get from his playing but that's where an instructor could help.

An extended list of musicians who I'd like to draw from would include Norman Blake, Jerry Garcia, Elmer Snowden, Michael Kang, Don Vappie, Tiny Moore, and Jamaican mento 4-string banjo players in general. Once again, not to play their styles of music per se, but to continue playing Irish tunes albeit with the feel of those musicians in mind. 

One thing you wouldn't hear in most of these influences,  I am guessing, is some of the rhythmic qualities that show up in Irish trad, such as the 6/8 jig, the 9/8 slip jig, and 12/8 slides. Those are some of my favorite types of tunes! So it could be a bit of a leap to go from listening to Maso Rivera, for example, and then apply those picking techniques to an Irish jig. But it could be done I suppose.

Does this make any sense at all?

***

What I Like About (Tenor) Banjo

I've mentioned why I play tenor banjo* several times, but I'm not sure I've covered what I like about banjo. I had to give it some thought. Here's what I like about the (tenor) banjo.

-Stringed instrument played with a flat-pick. At least the tenor banjo is. If I wasn't playing a stringed instrument with a pick my second choice would probably be a chromatically tuned mallet percussion instrument such as a marimba.

-Scale length between mandolin and guitar. Mandolin feels too short and cramped. The guitar neck is too long for me and my shoulder. A short scale tenor banjo is just the right fit.

-Single course strings. I don't like the feel of double course strings on instruments with a similar scale length such as an octave mandolin or Puerto Rican cuatro. 

-Ergonomics. No big guitar-like body to have to reach your arm around and wrestle with. 

-Lots of sound in a relatively small package. My newest banjo has a 10-inch, open back rim and that's still plenty loud. You can't get that same amount of projection or volume with an acoustic tenor guitar.

-5ths tuning. The tenor banjo is tuned in 5ths which makes sense to me. The other tuning I like is all 4ths, but that wouldn't work as well for playing Irish traditional tunes up to speed. So I'll stick with all 5ths. 

-The tenor banjo is generally accepted at Irish music sessions. It may still be looked at askance by a few naysayers, but it's closer to being in the norm than clarinet or saxophone would be.

-Not as common as fiddle or other instruments. At the Irish sessions I go to, I am usually either the only person playing tenor banjo, or one of two. This uniqueness suits my personality.

-Ability to play melodies with no need to re-tune for certain keys. In Irish session music, tenor banjo is one of the melody instruments. No matter what instrument I was playing, I'd be wanting to only play melodies so I like that it can hold its own in that department.

-Something about the sound of it. I do love the sound of a flat-picked guitar or tenor guitar, but if I have to choose one over the other, banjo ultimately wins that competition at least from my own playing perspective. One of the benefits of an open back is if I'm practicing at home and want to muffle the sound I can always stuff a t-shirt or towel into the inside of the banjo pot.

*Why I chose banjo. I had never played any instruments before but back in May 2006, when I was already in my early 30's, I called Elderly Instruments to order CDs by old-time banjo players Riley Baugus and Dan Gellert**. The woman on the other end of the line asked "do you play" and I said no. She said that I should, that's it's fun, so when I got off the phone I researched what type of banjo to get and learned about the tenor banjo, which I had never quite heard of. I chose tenor banjo because I'm left-handed and online forum commenters told me that a vintage right-handed tenor banjo like a Vega Little Wonder or a Bacon and Day can be set up left-handed. I also realized that tenor banjo is the type of banjo used in Irish traditional music and that it's tuned like a mandolin for Irish, so learning how to play GDAE tenor banjo is kind of like secretly learning mandolin. To top it off, I quickly located two local teachers - Josh Bearman and Cleek Schrey - who helped make sure I stuck with it and advanced beyond the awkward beginner stage when so many adult learners give up. There was also a welcoming community of DIY fiddle-tune musicians in the Richmond, VA area that I quickly fell into. 

**Next question: why was I buying a couple of old-time CDs if I didn't play that music? Well, I had already been listening to bluegrass such as Old and in the Way, Hot Rize, New Grass Revival, Tony Rice and Yonder Mountain String Band for several years by that point. Then in 2004 and 2005 I visited Ireland, heard Irish trad for the first time, and brought back CDs by West Clare musicians Yvonne Casey, Eoin O'Neill, Quentin Cooper, and Mary Custy. So when I called Elderly to order those old-time CDs I was probably thinking that old-time Appalachian music was the bridge between the bluegrass I had been listening to and the instrumental Irish trad I recently discovered. It had not yet occurred to me that this was something I should try and play. It took a stranger saying I should play to flip that switch!

Zach Hoyt 5 String Tenor Banjo update

Here's an update on my custom made Zachary Hoyt banjo now that I've had almost two weeks of playing it daily and taking it to Irish sessions.

Build Quality

This banjo played great right out of the box, but soon after getting it I took it in-person to master banjo luthier Brooks Masten's basement shop in Portland, Oregon to get his take on it and to do any additional setup work that might be needed. Brooks was very impressed by the build quality and materials used. He said that ash was a very stable neck wood. He even uses ash in some of his banjos. The only adjustment Brooks made was to slightly lower the action at the nut. 

Sound Quality

I have already played this banjo at four Irish sessions over the last two weeks and have received compliments on its sound. I even got to hear another lefty play it for a moment so I could experience it from that perspective. Someone also happened to make a short recording of an outdoor session I was in at a park and I was shocked at how clearly the banjo stood out amongst tin whistle, concertina and fiddle. I don't hear any compromise in the sound at all by having an open back (no resonator), a very short scale (19.75 inches) and a smaller than usual pot (10" rim as opposed to 11").

Playability

Having this banjo in my hands seems to have bolstered my confidence. The high B-string means that I don't have to make that leap to the 7th fret of the E-string. This has definitely made my playing more fluid. The shorter 19.75" scale is not a problem at all. It's actually part of what makes this banjo easier to play. I was initially worried about the chunky feel of the neck, but I don't think this has hindered me at all. It primarily feels chunkier due to the width of the neck since it has 5 strings at the nut instead of 4. Brooks Masten assured me that a chunky neck is a good thing for a banjo's resonance and for keeping it in tune.

  

Supports Guitar Fingering

I was always a one-finger-per-fret type of 4-string Irish tenor player. I never adapted to the more common and more recommended mandolin type fingering. Irish tenor banjo players are taught to slant their fretting hand at an angle and use mandolin fingering, which means pinky on fret 2, middle finger on frets 3 and 4, ring finger on fret 5 and 6. Saving the pinkie finger for fret 7. Having that angle allows you to do this fingering. I don't do this angle though. I like to keep my fingers almost parallel to the frets like a guitar player would. This banjo allows me to fully embrace my preferred way of holding my fretting hand and fingering the notes one-finger-per-fret.

More Range in First Position

This GDAEB all 5th tuning from low to high gives me more range. That extra string tuned to B has a 5th fret E note. That's the equivalent of a 12th fret E note in standard EADGBE guitar tuning or GDAE mandolin/Irish tenor banjo tuning. This means I can play "up to the 12th fret" without having to leave first position since I have the equivalent note on the 5th fret. I haven't quite figured out what to do with this extra range yet. For some tunes it'll mean that I can play the melody in a higher octave. It could also open up some interesting higher-pitched harmonic opportunities if I make small chords incorporating notes on that high B string. 

Tab and Staff Paper are the same

I realized yesterday that having 5 strings tuned in 5ths means that "mandolin tab" for this instrument could be written on tab representing 5 strings instead of four. It just so happens that traditional sheet music staff paper already has five lines. I do still write out the occasional tune in tab or notation so that I can see it more clearly, and now I can use regular sheet music staff paper for tab or for notation!

With 5 strings this works for both tab and notation!

Inspiration from other instruments

I believe the late jazz tenor banjo player Eddy Davis had a tenor banjo with a 17 inch scale and 10 inch rim custom made by Joel Eckhaus of Earnest Instruments. That helped me feel OK with a sub 20 inch scale tenor banjo mandola. At first glance, my banjo could be mistaken for baritone banjolele, which is not a bad thing. The design also draws characteristics from the old-time banjo world simply because that is the type of banjo Zach Hoyt usually makes. The additional range potentially places this banjo into banjo-mandolin sonic territory, which is cool. If/when I can play a melody an octave up it'll double the fiddle and mandolin octave. Lastly, an inspiration for 5 strings tuned in 5ths with a similar scale length comes from the Puerto Rican Cuatro, which has 5 (double-course) strings tuned in all 4ths BEADG on a 20.5" scale, the exact opposite of my all 5ths GDAEB tuning.

***

My New 5-string Tenor Banjo made by Zach Hoyt

Las month I emailed banjo maker Zachary Hoyt with an idea for a one-of-a-kind banjo, and now that banjo has arrived. That might be a record time for a custom made instrument! My idea was to make a tenor banjo with 5 strings instead of 4 so that it can be tuned in 5ths GDAEB from low to high. Zach has made that dream a reality. In a matter of weeks!

Zachary Hoyt banjo #391

My main inspiration for this banjo was so that I wouldn't have to deal with the 7th fret high B note. About half of all Irish tunes have this high B note in them and that reach or shift up to the 7th fret of the E-string is something I never got comfortable with even after years of playing tenor banjo in the "Irish" GDAE tuning. This banjo has one more string of equal length tuned to B, which is a 5th above the open E string. Problem solved. It turns out that this actually isn't a totally new idea. Michael Kang of the band The String Cheese Incident has been playing a 5 string electric baritone mandolin tuned FCGDA or GDAEB for years now.

Getting an open string to tune up that high B (B4 octave) is a bit of a gamble. Tenor banjos were originally designed to be tuned CGDA with A as the highest note, and that in-and-of-itself is pushing it. This B is a whole step higher than that A. On a regular 19-fret tenor banjo with a 23 inch scale, it would be asking a lot of a string to get up to that pitch without breaking. So what I did was reduce the scale length to 19.75 inches, which is a scale length that Zach already uses on his A-scale 5-string clawhammer style banjos. An .008 or .009 string can be tuned up to B at this 19.75 inch scale length.

For the other four strings - the GDAE strings -  I simply need to use slightly heavier gauges than you would normally use on an Irish tenor banjo. For the low G string, something like a .046w gauge will work. I don't mind a heavier gauge for the low G. Only about 10% of Irish tunes even have a note lower than D, so the main reason you'd ever be playing anything on that G string is to harmonize with a melody note in the D string. I can live with that. It's better than not having that string at all.

The banjo pot is an openback ten inch block wood Ash rim with a walnut rim cap. Featuring brass hardware and 12 total brackets like you might find on an old-time banjo. Zach prefers 10 inch pots for his 19.75 inch scale banjos and I agreed that a 10 inch rim is the proper aesthetic and ergonomic ratio for this scale length. It probably puts the bridge in a better position than a larger rim would have. I think the 10 inch rim gives it a punchier, more direct sound. The use of a Waverly style tailpiece instead of a no knot tailpiece puts more break angle on the strings, which should also help brighten up the sound.

The neck is made of ash with a walnut center stripe. Zach recommended ash even though it may not be as pretty as other wood options because he thinks it has a bit of extra volume and projection over maple or cherry. The width at the nut is about about 4 centimeters (1.6 inches). Not bad considering that it's got 5 strings across there. The fretboard wood is jatoba and the headstock showcases a stunning walnut peghead overlay.

The tuning pegs are individual Gotoh Schaller-style knobs that I picked out. These have a 16:1 gear ratio. I happen to like the looks of guitar style tuners over regular banjo tuning pegs. The headstock is a special design I requested inspired by the shape used on Mann mandolins and some five string bass guitars. It has a 10 inch Renaissance head and a wooden arm rest.

As a personality type, I'm pretty individualized and not one to always go along with the conventional thinking. For example, I don't buy into the belief that playing Irish tunes on a tenor banjo requires a 19-fret, 23 inch scale vintage banjo with resonator. I happen to like lighter weight, no frills, openback banjos mainly for the comfort factor, and I've found that the shorter scale length of a 17-fret 21 inch scale tenor banjo is easier to play and doesn't cause any bursitis in my shoulder. At 19.75" this Zach Hoyt banjo is even shorter than that which makes it an absolute joy to play!

I have no concerns about volume with this banjo. Up 'til now I've always stuffed a towel or t-shirt into the back of my banjos to muffle the sound out of a fear of being too loud or abrasive. I'm not planning on doing that with this banjo though!

Specs:

Tuned in 5ths GDAEB from low to high

10 inch openback pot with twelve brackets

19.75 inch scale length

Approx. 4cm (1.6in) width at nut

Ash neck with walnut neck stripe

Ash block wood rim with walnut rim cap

Jatoba fretboard wood

Brass hardware

Two way truss rod

Wood tone ring profile in top of rim

Renaissance head

Gotoh Schaller style knob individual tuners 16:1 gear ratio

Mann style headstock shape with walnut peghead overlay

Waverly style tailpiece

10 inch Renaissance head

Side dots on left-hand side and fretboard dots

Recommended string gauges: .044w or .046w G2, .034w or .036w D3, .022w or .024w A3, .013 E4, and .009 B4

GDAEB - An Irish Banjo High B Workaround

High B

I've been playing 4-string tenor banjo tuned GDAE long enough to know that tunes with that high B note are always going to be an issue (for me). Maid Behind the Bar, Ships Are Sailing, Star of Munster, Mug of Brown Ale, Connaughtman's Rambles...sometimes it seems like every other tune has that 7th-fret high B note in it. Well, now I have a solution: an open B string. I surrender.

One of my tenor banjos is a Gold Tone AC-4 tenor banjo, which is a surprisingly good banjo for the money. Being my 3rd of 3 banjos, I don't play it much so I decided to tune it up DAEB. I used the DAE strings from a regular Deering Irish tenor banjo string set and then used a .008 gauge string for the high B string. The scale length of this banjo is 22.5" so that was really pushing it but it didn't break!

In DAEB tuning I can play an open note B on the highest string instead of having to reach or jump up to 7th fret of the E-string. The fingerings required to play tunes in the same keys that I already know them in can remain the same in DAEB tuning when compared to GDAE tuning. I simply have to move everything down a string since the DAE strings have shifted. The only thing you give up is not having a low G string. The lowest note on a tin whistle is D so it's not that big of a deal.

Nonetheless, I've been working with banjo maker Zach Hoyt to create 5 string tenor banjo that can be tuned GDAEB, low to high. The scale length will be shorter, around 19.75 inches to accommodate the two extremes: a very light gauge like an .009 for the high B string and a quite heavy gauge string like a .046w for the low G string. This will offer the best of both worlds. I think the musician Michael Kang of the band String Cheese Incident uses this tuning for his 5-string electric baritone mandolin.

Even though I've only been playing in DAEB for a week, it has already helped with my ear. On a GDAE tuned tenor banjo, I never quite got the fingers and the ear to sync up on sections involving the high B note. With DAEB tuning I can now effortlessly play through sections that had always tripped me up and can now finally play those sections more by ear since I don't have fingering difficulties to get in the way.

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. 

Make Your Practice More Effective

Last summer my goal was to familiarize myself with the local Irish tune repertoire so that I could play along at sessions. For the most part, I have met that goal. Starting now, my goal is to take that one step farther and be able to actually start (lead?) sets at the session and play a set of three tunes all the way through without stopping. The mistake I made over the last year, if you can call it that, was to spend most of my practice time playing along with recordings rather than trying to recall the tune from memory. As a result, I "know" dozens of tunes well enough that I can join in at the session if hear them being played, but left to my own devices there are several murky sections that remain in these tunes. Here's now I plan to fix that.

View sets as one entire piece of music. Practice the transitions between tunes. Don't waste time practicing what you've already learned well, but focus on the tunes, or sections of tunes, within a set that still need work. Ultimately being able to play the entire set from memory without stopping.

Struggle to recall before looking at the music. I don't think looking at the sheet music for an Irish tune is such a bad thing, especially if you're stuck on one section that you can't figure out by ear. What I don't like though is being completely dependent on the notation or using it as a crux. To help deplete that even further, I have started doing something that I didn't do at all last year and that is just play a tune without having the audio or notation handy. If it's a tune that I'm already quite familiar with the sound of, struggling to find and re-find those notes on your instrument can be a good thing. Practice completely from memory. Don't constantly check the music.

If/when looking at the music, try and make note of things for the purpose of not having to look next time. Get your eyes off the sheet music as soon as possible and limit your return looks. When looking at the music, try to recognize something memorable about every single measure if possible. Notice things like the structure of the tune, patterns within the music, scalar runs, arpeggiated sections, familiar note sequences that show up in a lot of tunes, and repeated measures or sections. TAke note of quirky things about the tune, like a section starting from a note that is not part of the tonal center chord. When recalling the tune later, bring to mind these things you noticed about it in the first place.

Record yourself playing a tune slowly and cleanly. After you learn a tune, record yourself playing a good version of it and then upload that recording to an app like the Amazing Slow Downer. Create a playlist of these recordings. Use the app to speed up the recording so that you can "hear" yourself playing cleanly at speeds faster than your current ability. Then visualize making that increased speed a reality. This will teach your brain to process faster speeds and possibly trick your brain into believing you can play this fast. If it helps you to look at the music or tab while making this recording that is fine, but put the tab away as soon as you make the recording and use the audio sound as your "visual" source.

Practice playing from anywhere in the tune. Don't always start a tune at the beginning. Maybe start at the end and work your way backwards. Give equal time to all parts of the tune. Learn the B-part as well as the A-part. If one part of the tune is weaker than another, focus on that weaker area until it is your strongest part of the tune. Focus on areas of weakness until they become areas of strength.

Practice improv and variations. Can you play the tune differently each time through? Can you play each measure a little differently each time through? How far can you purposefully vary from the melody (while still hearing the melody in your head) and still get back on track? Not only is this great preparation for "owning" the tune, but it's also a lot of fun!

Visualize yourself playing through the tune while away from your instrument. "Hear" the melody in your mind as you imagine yourself playing. This allows the brain to build associations between the sounds you imagine in your head and the movement of your hands. Could you write out the tune for someone completely from memory with no instrument handy? Can you recite all the notes of the tune?

Practice Spaced Repetition. Revisit a tune right before you're going to forget it. This means that even when you're learning a tune you don't have to play it every single day. Take a three day break and see if you still remember it. Take a 7 day break and see if you remember it. If you can't remember it after 7 days go back to every 3 days. If you can remember it after 7, go to 14 days between playing it.

Divide practice time. Don't just sit there and play one tune for 30 minutes. Play it for a few minutes then switch to something else for five minutes. Then go back to the tune you were playing before. And so on. Break it up into little mini chunks.

Create flash cards and group them into categories. In my case, I spent the last two days writing the names of all the sets that get played at the TrailJams session onto little notecards. One set per card. This gets back to my first item above, which is to view a set of three tunes as one piece of music. I am now going to break these sets into one of five different categories: 1) sets I don't know at all (none of the three tunes are familiar yet), 2) sets where I know 1 of the 3 tunes, 3) sets where I know 2 of the 3 tunes, 4) sets where I can fake my way through playing all three tunes but maybe not at speed and/or not without hearing the music, and 5) fully memorized sets that I can play through from memory at speed with or without a backing track or drum beat. Obviously sets I don't know at all or where I can only play 1 of the tunes need the most attention, whereas sets that I am close to being able to play all the way through at speed just need a little periodic polishing or refreshing.

Years ago, before sheet music was handy and before there were audio recordings, you had to use your own memory, imagination and creativity to recall a tune and make it your own. Maybe simulating that inconvenience can lead to being able to play more tunes from memory!

That should do it. This list is mostly for my benefit in case I get stuck!