The banjo has long been an integral component of various musical genres. Ragtime and dixieland musicians played it, as did white minstrels who blackened their faces to mimic African slaves who worked on southern plantations estates.
Modern 5-string banjos have become synonymous with folk-style music and often played using the “clawhammer” technique wherein one index finger plucks four strings while the thumb plucks a drone string.
Origins
African slaves forced from their homelands carried with them memories of handmade string instrument traditions from home. Many of these instruments may have been forerunners to today’s banjo that can be found across genres including folk, bluegrass and country music as well as jazz and blues.
In the 1830s, the banjo rose to fame as an instrument used by white minstrel performers who painted themselves black and depicted African American slaves in derogatory ways. Joel Walker Sweeney became one of the most acclaimed performers during this era for his outstanding banjo skills and creation of a fifth string for added drone notes – Sweeney is widely credited with popularizing this form of instrument play today.
In the 1870s, banjo innovation gained momentum when manufacturers added resonators and tone rings to their instruments. Furthermore, banjos became more affordable, which helped expand its audience base further. Furthermore, band formation began including banjos as an instrument alongside drums, violins, and trumpets.
Over the following two decades, a distinctive style of banjo playing that was heavily influenced by Bill Keith and Earl Scruggs began to take shape. This particular form is less dependent on traditional roll patterns and tends to focus more on melody; we now associate this form of play with bluegrass music.
By the 1920s, banjo had become an indispensable instrument among both professional musicians and working class hobbyists alike. Often found in jazz ensembles or orchestras for performance or listening purposes, banjo became part of folk, bluegrass, country, and traditional genres of music as well as becoming an indispensable instrument in folk, bluegrass, country, and traditional genres of playback music.
Today the banjo remains an iconic instrument throughout America and can be heard playing many musical styles such as folk, country, jazz, bluegrass and zydeco. Furthermore, its presence can be found within Appalachian culture with movies like Deliverance featuring it prominently as part of this cultural artifact.
Construction
The banjo may appear to be an ordinary string instrument with few parts, yet its intricate design belies its simplicity. There are four primary parts to a banjo: neck, peghead, body and resonator. Each major part contains its own complex system: neck truss rod, nut and fingerboard fastened to its respective headstock via tuners; while the body contains hanger bolts for neck spike hanger and heel cut resonators.
Pre-1800 American banjos featured gourd bodies. By the early 1860s Joel Walker Sweeney is generally credited with replacing it with a round wooden drum-shaped “pot” designed for commercial production and expanding four-string banjos to five strings; also adding a drone string – an innovation which made his banjo more resonant than its predecessors.
By the 1880s, banjos were being mass produced in the Northeastern United States for white urban clients with unfretted fingerboards and gut strings, typically tuned at lower pitches than today. Many confused them for Mandolas (another member of the mandolin family).
Resonator banjos are most often seen being used in bluegrass music and feature a separate resonator that projects the sound forward, giving greater volume. Resonators may also be found being used in old-time, folk and other types of string music styles.
A metal spike is inserted through the neck heel and into the body of the pot (see first detail image), protruding about 1/4-inch from its bottom side and connected by an extension rod to its head with an L-shaped nut; its tailpiece is then attached directly to its end.
The fingerboard features a raised nut-like structure to hold the string. As it travels over 17 frets on the fingerboard before reaching the bridge with its metal tension ring attached to its neck, its journey will criss-cross 17 frets before returning down towards its source through which it was originally introduced and back to its starting position on the fingerboard again – wrapped with tape to prevent slipperiness from the string passing off – before coming to rest above shaped bridge top. Sound from strings passes directly into pot and pot for further production of music and artful sounds from strings into pot.
Tuning
When playing banjo out of tune, the sound can sound unnatural and be challenging to play. A clip-on tuner can help ensure all strings remain in perfect tune by attaching directly to the headstock of your banjo and displaying each string’s current pitch as you play – they are an invaluable tuning solution, and Sweetwater offers many choices of them for musicians!
To tune a banjo properly, start by making sure its strings are clean and free from dirt. Stretch out new strings before playing them as this will allow them to find their proper pitch more quickly. It is also wise to invest in high-quality strings designed specifically for banjo as these will better complement its unique design and provide for greater tuning precision. Lastly, replace strings regularly as old ones may lose tone over time or lead to fret buzz if left in use too long.
Tuning by ear is an invaluable skill for musicians of any experience level and often the preferred method for experienced professionals. But keep in mind that using an electronic tuner may be easier if your sense of pitch is lacking – relying on both may be required!
No matter which method you use to tune your banjo, the process remains the same: simply identify which string you wish to tune and then match its fretted counterpart on the neck. After finding the perfect pair, tighten or loosen the tuning peg until its sound matches that intended pitch of that string – the tuner will provide visual cues letting you know whether sharpness or flatness exist, while green or blinking lights indicate when things are in tune.
G, C, D and A tuning offers another alternative to standard tenor tuning using intervals of fifths. It is often employed in Irish and Celtic music as well as on mandolins and violins. Please be aware that it may take some time to get used to, since its pitch falls lower than standard tenor tuning.
Sound
As the banjo has evolved from its African roots, its distinctive sound has made it a beloved instrument even today. The basic design consists of a circular “pot”, usually made of wood but older instruments often featured metal as well. A tensioned membrane similar to a drum head encases this membrane while being reinforced by metal tone rings called tone rings which help clarify and project sound waves across 17 frets of the fingerboard where string contacts small metal nuts on bridge and drone strings provide low frequency support for melody notes.
The banjo’s sound can be described as an intricate dance between string modes with fast decay rates and slower decay times for its “body modes”, which are significantly excited over a wide frequency range, reaching formant-like frequencies between 500-800 Hz. Figure 12 presents two spectrograms showing this passage played on both a five-string banjo and guitar, where body mode components have been plotted as black points while string modes appear as red points – and these plots correspond with most key frequencies quite closely.
A banjo player typically uses their thumb and forefinger instead of a plectrum to pick the strings, creating a unique sound from that of an acoustic guitar. Clawhammer style involves plucking your thumb and forefinger down-picking motion creating rhythmic, repetitive notes whereas melodic finger-picking techniques may also be employed for melodic playing styles.
As shown in Section 3.2, measurements have been taken of the vibrational responses of a banjo and Woodhouse guitar and their responses presented herein. These tests were done by stimulating strings near their bridge and measuring velocity responses after this excitation; this data can then be used to gain structural information about these instruments such as their input admittance – which measures linear coupling between strings and body.
Studies have revealed that banjos differ substantially in their input admittance from guitars due to the dampening characteristics of their fifth string, requiring different approaches for compensation. One such solution would be using a fifth-string capo to shorten this vibrating length of that string and offset this difference in admission rates.