Tuning Your Banjo

A Word on Tuners

If you plan on making a habit of participating in old time music jams, it would be wise for you to invest in an electronic tuner with a clip-on contact microphone. It is very difficult to hear well enough to tune your banjo at a noisy jam, and these tuners with the clip-on mics allow you to quickly tune in the most noisy settings. Also, the method shown here to tune the banjo (tuning relative to other strings) is only as good as your banjo. If the intonation on your banjo is a bit off, by the time you reach your final string, your banjo may sound quite dissonant.

The Basics

In the clawhammer style of playing the banjo, you almost always tune your banjo differentlly for each different key you play in. Fortunately, this isn't as much of a pain in the butt as it sounds, since, in this area at least, almost all tunes are played in the keys of A and D

When we tune the banjo to play songs in the key of A we call this "Open A" tuning and when we play songs in the key of D, we use the "Double D" tuning. While the terms "Open A" and "Double D" make sense in the context of other banjo tunings, "High Bass" and "Low Bass", are relative tunings that are not key dependent. These terms also point to the folk origins of appalachian fiddle/banjo music, when the musicians didn't have tuners. These tunings are also often just called A and D respectively. Thus, the "Open A" and Double D" tunings map to corresponding A/D high bass/low bass tunings on the fiddle (thanks to Bill Richardson for this point on tuning).

Numbering the Strings

On the banjo, the strings are numbered 1 to 5, with the 5 string being the short one on the top of the banjo if it is resting in your lap in playing position. The next string down is 4, and so on down to the 1 string.

Open A Tuning or High Bass

In the Open A tuning:

The 5th string = a
The 4th string = E
The 3th string = A
The 2th string = C#
The 1th string = E

Use a pitch pipe or a piano to tune the 5th string to "a".

Tune the 1st string so that when fretted at the 5th fret, it is the same note as the open 5th string.

Tune the 2nd string so that when fretted at the 3rd fret, it is the same note as the open 1st string.

Tune the 3rd string so that when fretted at the 4th fret, it is the same note as the open 2nd string.

Tune the 4th string so that when fretted at the 5th fret, it is the same note as the open 3rd string.

Double D Tuning or Low Bass

In the Double D tuning:

The 5th string = a
The 4th string = D
The 3th string = A
The 2th string = D
The 1th string = E

Use a pitch pipe or a piano to tune the 5th string to "a".

Tune the 1st string so that when fretted at the 5th fret, it is the same note as the open 5th string.

Tune the 2nd string so that when fretted at the 2nd fret, it is the same note as the open 1st string.

Tune the 3rd string so that when fretted at the 5th fret, it is the same note as the open 2nd string.

Tune the 4th string so that when fretted at the 7th fret, it is the same note as the open 3rd string.

Other Tunings

G/A vs. C/D

Sometimes tunes are played in G or, less frequently, C. To play in these keys, just use the same tunings shown above, only tune the strings down one step. Thus, the Open A tuning becomes the Open G tuning, with the strings from 5 down to 1 tuned gDGBD, and the Double D tuning becomes the Double C tuning, gCGCD. In areas where folks frequently switch between A and G tunes or even D and C tunes, you may want to just consider tuning the banjo to the lower tuning and using a capo on the second fret to raise it to the higher tuning when needed. Of course, if you do this, you will need to manually retune the fifth string up one step, unless you have what is called a railroad spike, which is a little piece of metal at the seventh fret on the fifth string that you can slip the fifth string under to quickly raise the pitch one step.

A Modal Tuning

There are at least a couple of different modal tunings, but since I only use A modal, that is the only one I'll cover here.The A Modal tuning is the same as the Open A tuning except that the second string is tuned up a half step to a D, resulting in (from string 5 to 1) aEADE. Songs in modal tunings have a very haunting minor kind of quality.