Is Tenor Banjo More Like Guitar, Mandolin or Banjo?

This post asks the question, is tenor banjo more like acoustic guitar, mandolin, or banjo? 

Mandolin

Some would say that tenor banjo is more like mandolin, primarily because of the tuning. If you already play tenor banjo tuned in 5ths, then it's easy to switch to either mandolin (or mandola) and vice versa. The similarity kind of stops there though. Mandolin has double course strings and a much shorter scale.

Guitar

The guitar is the instrument that replaced the banjo in jazz in the 1930's due improvements in design and amplification. The act of using a pick and flat-picking the way bluegrass guitar players do is quite similar to how Irish banjo players use a guitar pick to pluck melodies. Unless you tune your tenor banjo in Chicago style DGBE, then guitar is going to have a different tuning than tenor banjo. However, the scale length of a tenor banjo, especially a 19-fret/23-inch scale tenor banjo, is closer to that of a guitar than a mandolin. You're only a couple inches shy of a guitar scale length, whereas mandolin is about 9 inches shorter.

Banjo

From a playing perspective, tenor banjo actually shares very little in common with bluegrass style 5-string banjo playing or the old-time clawhammer banjo. There are similarities in construction. Both are banjos by design - a round frame with a skin or synthetic membrane stretched across it, with a neck and strings attached. And both share that lack of sustain. But the playing styles are very different.

In Summary

For decades I postponed getting an instrument and learning how to play it. One of the reasons is because I thought my options were only acoustic guitar, mandolin, or banjo, and I had excuses for why I didn't want to play each of those. Guitar felt too "boxy" and big. It had too many strings and was not comfortable to hold. Mandolin was cramped, too hard to get into tune, and I didn't like the feel of double course strings. Banjo, whether it bluegrass or clawhammer style (which were the only styles I knew of), just seemed like it would be too hard to play.

When I learned there was a banjo that you played with a guitar pick rather than your fingers or finger picks, tuned like a mandolin but with single strings an octave lower, and plucked single note melodies like a guitar flat-picker, I was sold. You take aspects of each...that unmistakable banjo sound, paired with the logic of an all 5ths tuning, and the tactile experience of plucking fiddle tunes so that you can pretend like you are Tony Rice or Norman Blake, all while playing a banjo. Not to mention that it's actually played in Irish music! Who knew?!

Be a Fan