How to Change your Banjo Strings

One of my music goals for this year is to get better at and more comfortable with banjo string changes. I have a custom made 5-string tenor banjo with five equal length strings so at least I don't have to deal with re-stringing that short drone or thumb string, but otherwise everything else is the same. You hook the loop end of the string at the tailpiece and run it through the tuner at the headstock. Banjos and mandolins with floating bridges are similar in this regard.

Let me say this. I am not good at changing strings. I sweat and agonize over it, and I have to make an effort to remain calm while doing it. And it takes me like 45 minutes. But that is about to change with practice and a new mindset. This is not a post by me telling you how to change banjo strings because I am not qualified to do that. I am simply sharing some articles that I found helpful and will want to refer back to later.

Whenever I have had a luthier or shop tech do a string change for me, the instrument always came back with the new strings winded (wound?) two or three revolutions or more around the tuner. This looks pretty but I just don't see myself doing that. Fortunately there's a simpler method where you simply lock-in the string. 

Here's a link to a page demonstrating this step by step. What I like about this is it's written as an article with pictures. That works better for me than a video.

http://frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/Banjo/BanjoStringing/banjostr2.html

I actually think his mandolin restringing article from the same site is equally if not more helpful.

http://frets.com/FretsPages/Musician/Mandolin/MandoString/mandostring1.html

I'll be checking these out the next time I change strings!

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?

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