Chapter 2

Meet Your Banjo

In This Chapter

Understanding banjo terms

Sitting and standing with the banjo

Using the left hand to fret chords

Finding different ways to get the banjo in tune

Reading a chord diagram

Playing the G, D7, and C chords

You’ve brought your new banjo home and cleared a corner of the house to practice, far enough out of the way to not disturb the unbelievers in your household. As you sit down and open the case, that wonderful new banjo smell fills the room. Go ahead and savor this moment! Pat yourself on the back for taking the plunge and making the commitment to become a banjo player. But now what?

This chapter answers that question for you. I help you liberate the banjo from its case, attach a strap, and get comfortable holding the banjo when you’re both sitting and standing. I show you several different ways to keep the banjo in tune and how to work on a good left-hand position for fretting chords. You finish up by discovering how to play the G, D7, and C chords, the three chords you’ll play frequently in hundreds of banjo songs.

Talking Banjo Talk

As with any culture, you must be familiar with the language before you can get to know the people. The banjo is very much the same; you need to know banjo speak if you’re going to be a banjo player. Plus, you may find Banjo For Dummies a little clearer if you know some of the basic terms I use throughout this book.

So, hold on to your hat, and familiarize yourself with the following words:

Left hand: When I give you any instructions regarding the left hand, I’m referring to the hand you use to push the strings against the fingerboard to make chords (you do this with the tips of your fingers, of course, not the entire hand). You also use the left-hand fingers to create new notes on the banjo by using slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and chokes (slide on over to Chapter 5 to discover more about these special techniques).

Right hand: The right hand is the hand that strikes the banjo strings. In Banjo For Dummies, you first use the right-hand thumb to strum across all the banjo strings, but soon enough you utilize techniques where the right-hand thumb and the index and middle fingers each play a different role in producing authentic right-hand banjo styles (you can find these techniques in Chapter 4).

Frets: The metal strips that run along the top surface of your banjo fingerboard below your strings are the frets. Most banjos have 22 frets with each fret assigned a number. The first fret is the fret that’s closest to the nut and the 22nd fret is located the closest to the banjo head.

Fretting: The act of pushing one or more left-hand fingers against the fingerboard just behind a fret to shorten the length of a string is called fretting. Fretting changes the sound (or pitch) of a note. The shorter the length of a string, the higher that string’s pitch — and the higher up the neck you’re fretting. (For more on fretting, you can check out the section “Fretting with the Left Hand” later in this chapter.)

Open: You call an unfretted string an open string. In Chapter 3, you’re introduced to tablature, the written form of banjo music. In tablature, an open string is indicated with the number 0.

Strings: Yeah, I know you know what strings are. But banjo players are so methodical that they assign numbers to each string so they can talk about them easier. Remembering the order of strings as expressed through these numbers is crucial to understanding banjo tablature and in interpreting a chord diagram, which is a representation of how a chord is fretted.

The 5th string is the short string on your banjo. If you’re holding the instrument in a playing position (see the following section, “Positioning Body and Banjo”), the 5th string is the string that is the closest as you look down at the strings. If someone were looking at you and your banjo from across the room, they’d say that the 5th string is the top-most string. From the 5th string, the strings are then numbered 4, 3, 2, 1 across the banjo. The 1st string is the farthest away from you as you look down on the instrument (or the bottom string if someone is looking at you).

Sharp and flat: You use these terms in reference to getting the banjo in tune. If a note you’re playing on your banjo is sharp, its pitch is higher than the note you’re trying to tune to; if its pitch is lower, your banjo note is flat.

If you’re left handed, you may be tempted to turn the banjo upside down and fret with the right hand and strike the strings with the left. However, I don’t recommend spending much time playing in this way. The strings are then in a different orientation to your picking hand and executing the right hand patterns (that you can encounter later in this book) is physically impossible. The bottom line is that you need both hands to play banjo well. I’m left-handed, but I learned to play using the standard right-handed orientation. I’d like for you to try this too — especially if you’ve already purchased a regular banjo.

Positioning Body and Banjo

Picking up a banjo and trying to play for the first time may seem a little awkward if you don’t know how to hold or position the instrument. To get the most enjoyment out of your practice time and to be ready for anything when playing with others, you should be comfortable both sitting and standing while playing the banjo. In either case, being as relaxed as possible is a good idea.

So how are you supposed to play in these positions with ease? Take a deep breath and don’t worry — this section gives you the foundation you need to comfortably strike a banjo player pose.

If you’ve never played banjo before, you may not be quite ready for all the advice in this section. You may need to first become comfortable with your left- and right-hand positions on the banjo, which I discuss later in this chapter and in Chapter 4. After you have a good grasp on your hand positions, feel free to come back to this section and devote a bit of time again to finding a comfortable posture sitting and standing with the banjo.

Strapping on your banjo

You’ve probably already discovered that banjos can be heavy. Even if you have a more lightweight, open-back banjo, the distribution of weight on your banjo may very well be uneven, with much of the mass at the peghead concentrated where the four tuning pegs are located.

Take a moment and sit in a chair with your banjo in a playing position, with the pot of the banjo resting on your legs and the neck extending to your left at about a 45-degree angle. If you remove your left hand as a support, does the neck move downward? If so, start using a strap even when sitting. You need the left hand free to fret chords, not supporting the weight of the banjo neck.

Find a real banjo strap to use on your instrument and not a guitar strap. Both kinds of straps look pretty much the same except for what’s at either end. Most banjo straps have hooks, ties, or screws at both ends that you use to attach the strap to the banjo pot. A guitar strap more often has just holes punched into the leather or plastic at either end and nothing else — providing no way to easily attach it to the banjo. (For more info on picking out the right strap for you, see Chapter 10.)

Getting used to holding the banjo and working with the strap is a bit like breaking in a brand new pair of shoes — it takes a bit of time, but soon enough everything fits like a glove. The following sections provide all you need to know to fit the strap on the banjo and the banjo on you.

Attaching the strap

Some inexpensive banjos have hooks on the banjo body that are designed to hold a strap. However, these hooks usually aren’t located in a position that provides the most comfortable support. You want to instead attach each end of the strap to one of the brackets that encircle the banjo head.

Many players attach the strap to brackets located underneath the neck and the tailpiece of the banjo, as shown in Figure 2-1. This position seems to provide a good deal of support and control, but you want to experiment by using different strap lengths and brackets to see what feels right to you.

Figure 2-1: For a comfortable fit, try attaching the strap below the neck and the tailpiece.

If you attach the strap to the banjo in this way, you shouldn’t have to remove it when you need to put the banjo away in its case. You should have plenty of room within the case to wrap the strap around the banjo pot (see Figure 2-2).

Fitting the strap

Although some players wear the strap across the right shoulder (like the renowned bluegrass player Kenny Ingram in the bottom photo of Figure 2-3), most players adjust the length of the strap so that it wraps over the left shoulder, around the back, and underneath the right arm (like banjo legend J. D. Crowe in the top photo of Figure 2-3).

As you fit the strap to the banjo, you need to properly adjust its length. The length of your strap determines the vertical placement of the banjo in relation to your body. Although you can’t find any hard-and-fast rules, I like to have just enough length to the strap so that when I sit down I can feel the strap exerting upward pressure keeping the banjo neck in place, but I’m also able to rest the banjo on my knees when sitting down to relieve the pressure from the strap on my left shoulder.

After you’ve found a strap position that seems to work when sitting, try standing up with the banjo to see how the strap feels. You need to use the same strap length for both sitting and standing, so experiment to find a strap fit that works well for both situations.

Figure 2-2: Getting the strap out of the way when it’s time to put the banjo in its case.

Figure 2-3: Bluegrass banjo greats J.D. Crowe (a) and Kenny Ingram (b) illustrate two different ways to wear a strap.

Making three or four adjustments as you try to find the right strap position for your banjo isn’t unusual. You may have to take the strap off the banjo each time to adjust its length until you find what feels just right. This is a minor hassle, but after the strap is set, you won’t have to worry about it any more. You can then move on to playing music with a more comfortable left-hand position.

Sitting down to play

How you hold your banjo while sitting down is determined by how much you need to see the banjo fingerboard while you’re playing. Some players discipline themselves to use the position dots on the top side of the banjo neck to keep track of where they are on the banjo neck, but most players prefer to actually see the banjo fingerboard.

Another aspect of finding a comfortable playing posture is to experiment with different neck angles (the banjo neck that is, not your neck!). New players are often so concerned with seeing the fingerboard that they raise the neck to bring it closer to their eyes. Too much of this can lead to some technique problems in both the left and right hands. My advice is to angle the neck such that the peghead is no higher than eye level.

You also want to find a chair around the house that allows you to comfortably sit upright, provides you with some back support (if you need it), and allows your arms to move freely (no recliners allowed unfortunately). Around the house, I like to use an adjustable office chair with the side arms removed. As you sit, position the banjo so that you’re able to see the fingerboard and the banjo head, but don’t let the banjo be so low that you have to reach far around the neck to fret with the left hand.

After you’ve actually started to play banjo, take a look at photos of some of your favorite players and experiment with different neck angles and chair positions to see what works the best for you. Figure 2-4 shows three different ways of holding the banjo while sitting. Note that the middle player, Jody Stecher, rests the banjo on his right knee and doesn’t need a strap at all. Erin English (left) and yours truly (right) prefer straps on our heavier resonator banjos.

Figure 2-4: From left to right, Erin, Jody, and Bill show three different ways to enjoy playing banjo while sitting.

Don’t let “Dunlap’s disease” get you down

If you’re in the prime years of your life like me, you may suffer from Dunlap’s disease. What’s that, you innocently ask? Well, Dunlap’s disease is when your belly is so big that it “done laps” over your belt! If you suffer from this common malady, you may prefer to position the banjo a bit to the right side of your body, whether sitting or standing (see the section “Standing with your banjo” in this chapter). Many players position the banjo squarely on their right knee and may not need a strap to support the banjo at all while sitting. When standing with a strap, you want to position the banjo in a similar way at the right side of your body. If you’re a Dunlapper like me, don’t be afraid to move your banjo around until you find a position comfortable for you.

Standing with your banjo

The key to being comfortable while standing with the banjo is to adopt a position that’s similar to the position you use when sitting. If you’ve found a good sitting position (see the preceding section), stand up with the banjo and watch what happens. Try adjusting the strap length so that you have little to no change in the position of the banjo for both your sitting and standing positions.

Note also the relationship of your hands to the instrument as you both sit and stand. You want these to be as close as possible to one another whether you’re up or down. Keep your arms relaxed and your elbows bent while standing and remember not to raise the peghead above eye level. Your left hand should easily be able to fret at any point along the banjo fingerboard, and your right hand should have easy access for striking the strings.

Figure 2-5 shows three different ways of standing while playing banjo. Erin (on the left) holds the banjo a little lower and off to the side of her body. Jody (in the middle) angles the banjo neck a little higher and holds the banjo a bit more off to the side while yours truly (on the right) holds the banjo higher on the body and more out in front. All are fine ways to take a stand for better playing.

I spend almost all my time practicing sitting down and even though I’ve been playing for over 35 years, I still have to make a subtle mental adjustment every time I stand up to play. A day or two before a performance, I devote a share of my practice time to playing standing up so that I’ll feel more comfortable playing with others on stage. At a bluegrass festival, you spend a good deal of your time standing in a circle of musicians at jam sessions, so practicing while standing up is a great idea every now and then (and don’t forget to bring a comfortable pair of shoes to wear to your next festival!).

Figure 2-5: From left to right: Erin, Jody, and Bill use straps for standing while playing.

Fretting with the Left Hand

The left hand’s job is to change the pitches of the banjo strings to get all the notes you need for chords and melodies. The left hand accomplishes this task by pressing the tips of the fingers against the fingerboard just behind a fret, as needed, to shorten the length of a string and make its pitch higher. This technique is called fretting.

Fretting individual strings and chords on the banjo is a breeze after you’ve adopted these few simple tips for properly attaching the left hand to your banjo neck. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

1. Rest your left hand on your leg and totally release all body tension from your hand and arm, just as if you were asleep (see Figure 2-6a).

Your hand should assume a relaxed shape in which all the fingers are slightly bent in towards your palm.

2. Keeping the wrist relaxed but straight, place the left-hand thumb on the upper part of the back of the banjo neck, opposite the space between the first and second frets (see Figure 2-6b).

Remember not to support the weight of the neck with the left hand and try to keep your hand and fingers relaxed, as in Step 1.

3. Relax your shoulder, arm, and elbow, bringing your elbow down and in towards your body and causing your left-hand fingers to position themselves more directly over the banjo fingerboard.

4. Move your left-hand middle finger just behind the second fret of the 3rd string and push down on the string, fretting it with the tip of your finger (see Figure 2-6c).

Don’t fret on top of the second fret but position the finger as close behind the fret as you can. Try to maintain a vertical position with the fretting finger so that the adjacent strings are able to ring freely.

5. Try playing the 3rd string with the thumb of your right hand.

The goal is to get a clear, ringing sound out of the note you’ve just fretted with no buzzing.

If the new note sounds good, congratulations! You’ve accomplished the first necessary task to becoming a great banjo player, and you’re now officially playing the banjo!

Figure 2-6: Getting a good left hand position: Relaxing the left hand (a), positioning the thumb to get ready to fret (b), fretting the third string at the 2nd fret (c).

Now lift up the fretting finger and play the open (or unfretted) 3rd string with your right-hand thumb. As you lift the fretting finger, don’t bring it too far up above the string; position your finger just above the string so that you’re ready to fret again. Now fret the 3rd string again at the second fret and strike the string with the right-hand thumb to check for clarity. Alternate between the open and fretted positions until the movement of your left-hand finger becomes second nature.

Remaining relaxed while fretting is important, so every now and then, do a quick mental check to make sure your arm, elbow, and hand are as comfortable as possible. However, creating tension by using too much pressure with the left-hand fingers when fretting isn’t unusual for new players. You want to use as much fretting pressure as it takes, but no more.

You can find out just how much pressure you need by placing a finger in a fretted position, just barely touching the string. Now gradually apply more pressure on the string with the left-hand finger, striking it repeatedly with the right hand as you go. You literally hear the sound come into focus as you fret. After you’ve passed the threshold where the sound is clear, note how much pressure you’re applying with the left-hand finger. If you’re like most people, you may be surprised at how little effort it takes to cleanly fret with the left-hand fingers.

If you want to check out some more advanced left-hand techniques such as the slide, hammer-on, pull-off, and choke, turn to Chapter 5 with your right hand as soon as possible.

Tuning Up

Question: “What’s the difference between a banjo and a motorcycle?”

Answer: “You can tune a motorcycle.”

This unfortunate but frequently recited banjo joke speaks to a greater truth: Many banjo players are a bit lazy in their tuning habits.

Playing in good tune is an absolutely necessary component to becoming a socially acceptable banjo player. You simply have to know how to tune the banjo to itself so you can practice at home without driving your loved ones insane. And when the time has come to start making music with others, those around you will be thankful that you took the time to figure out how to get your banjo in tune with other instruments.

To tune the banjo, you raise or lower the amount of tension of each string to match the sound of another banjo string or to match a reference note provided by another instrument or an electronic tuner. You adjust each string by turning its corresponding tuning peg. In this section, you discover what it means for your banjo to be in tune, and I introduce you to several different methods to tune your banjo.

Like all other elements of banjo playing, tuning is a skill that gets easier with practice and the passage of time. Being able to distinguish one note from another isn’t a mysterious psychic ability that you either are or aren’t born with — tuning is a learned skill. No excuses! Keep actively listening to how the sounds of the strings change as you turn the pegs. Don’t be afraid to ask others for advice if you’re unsure about whether or not a string is in tune.

G tuning: Getting your strings in order

Although banjo players use a variety of tunings to play different kinds of songs and to create different moods on their instrument, the most frequently used tuning is called G tuning (which is also the type of tuning I use in this book). With this tuning, the five open strings of the banjo are tuned to the notes of a G major chord (a chord is a collection of three or more notes played together; I talk more about chords in Chapter 3).

Here are the pitches used for each string in G tuning:

5th string: G

4th string: D

3rd string: G

2nd string: B

1st string: D

Note that only three different pitches are used in G tuning: G, B, and D. These three notes make up the G major chord. The 1st-string D and 5th-string G are one octave higher in pitch than their 4th- and 3rd-string counterparts. Your ears hear the two D notes and the two G notes as being essentially the same, but you can also hear that the 1st and 5th strings are higher in pitch. Musicians long ago decided to assign the same letter name to pitches that you hear in this way, but they also recognized that the two D’s and the two G’s aren’t exactly the same pitch. They’re one octave apart, with the octave being the point where that same note is repeated again but at a higher pitch.

Figure 2-7 shows the pitches of each string in G tuning along with a fretboard image summarizing the relative tuning relationships between the strings (which I cover in the next section).

Figure 2-7: To tune the banjo in G tuning using relative tuning, you fret a string as shown to match the pitch of the next highest open string.

Relative tuning: Tuning the banjo to itself

Relative tuning involves using one string as a reference to tune the other strings of your banjo. That string doesn’t really have to be in tune with any outside source, because in this case, you’re just getting the banjo strings in tune with one another so that you can play by yourself.

With each new string you tune in relative tuning, you then fret that string to create a new reference note that you use to tune the next highest string. Relative tuning is the most useful way to tune the banjo, because you need nothing but your banjo and your ears to get your instrument in tune. You’ve got a banjo, now you can get to work on training your ears!

Even pro players follow up on their initial pass at relative tuning by trying different pairs of strings to hear what they sound like together and tuning the adjacent pairs of strings a second time. If one or more strings are severely out of tune to begin with, you definitely need to repeat the processes I describe in the following sections once or twice until the banjo is in good tune.

From low to high

When tuning from low to high, you begin with the lowest-pitched 4th string and work your way up to the 5th string, the highest-pitched string. Using the following instructions, tune the remaining four strings up from the 4th string, using the left-hand middle finger to fret each reference note. For now, try striking (or picking) each string with a downward motion from your right-hand thumb.

1. Pick the 4th string fretted at the fifth fret and compare its pitch to the open 3rd string.

You may need to strike the fretted 4th string first, wait a moment to hear its pitch, and then strike the 3rd string to listen to its pitch. Does the 3rd string (the second note you play) sound higher or lower than the 4th string? Try singing the two pitches to feel whether the pitch rises or falls.

2. If the open 3rd string sounds higher in pitch, the string is sharp, and you want to adjust the tuning peg for that string in the direction that brings its pitch down (usually clockwise for most banjos). If the 3rd string is lower in pitch, that string is flat; in this case, rotate the peg in the direction that causes the pitch of the string to rise (counterclockwise for most instruments).

When the pitches of the two strings match each other, the 4th and 3rd strings of your banjo are in tune.

3. Pick the 3rd string fretted at the fourth fret and match the open 2nd string to this sound.

You use the same process as Step 2. After these strings sound the same, you have the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings of your banjo in tune.

4. Pick the 2nd string fretted at the third fret and tune the open 1st string to this sound.

On most banjos, you turn the tuning pegs on the 2nd and 1st strings in the opposite direction than you did for the 4th- and 3rd-string pegs. Turning the pegs of the 1st and 2nd strings clockwise should raise the string’s pitch, and turning counterclockwise should lower it.

5. Pick the 1st string fretted at the fifth fret and tune the open 5th string to this sound.

Remember that the 5th string is the short string on your banjo that’s situated on the opposite side of your 1st string. Some banjos have 5th string tuning pegs that are difficult to turn without causing wild fluctuations in pitch. Don’t worry if it takes a bit more time to get the 5th string in tune.

Even if you follow my instructions carefully, I’m sure that you may discover the following frustrations when tuning the banjo in this way (but don’t “fret” — you aren’t alone):

Your reference point is always a fretted string when tuning from a lower- to higher-pitched string. You need to lift the left hand up to adjust the tuning peg of the string you’re attempting to tune and then fret it again on the lower string to play the reference pitch.

If you make a slight error at the beginning of this process, that mistake is exaggerated as you proceed to try and tune the rest of the strings. You may have to start all over.

From high to low

Similar to the instructions from the preceding section, you can also tune your banjo by starting with the highest-pitched string (the 5th string) and moving down to the lowest-pitched 4th string. If you tune the banjo in this way, the string you’re trying to get in tune is also the string that you’re fretting. The open string is now your reference point.

For example, you can use the 5th-string G as a reference note to tune the 1st-string D. However, this time around, you fret the 1st string at the fifth fret to match it to the pitch of the open-5th string. You have to now lift your fretting hand off of the 1st string to turn the first string’s tuning peg and then refret again at the fifth fret until the both strings’ pitches are matched.

If you’re having difficulty determining whether a string is sharp or flat, tune it down until the string is obviously below the pitch of your reference note. Then gradually bring the string you’re trying to get in tune up in pitch to match the reference note.

Reference tuning: Getting a little outside help

Relative tuning is great when you’re playing by yourself or to use as a quick touch up to a string or two in the middle of a practice session. However, when playing with others (or with the CD that accompanies this book), you need to get accustomed to tuning your banjo using one or more outside reference notes as provided by an electronic tuner, a CD, or another instrument. I show you how to tune by using reference notes in the following sections.

If you’re practicing on your own, it doesn’t matter from where you get your reference pitches — the important thing is to have the banjo in tune with itself. If you’re playing with others, everyone should use the same reference pitch, whether it’s coming from an electronic tuner or an instrument.

Utilizing an electronic tuner

Tuners provide a reference for you to tune individual strings, played one at a time. When you play a string, the tuner “hears” the note and gives an indication of the note’s pitch by showing a letter name for the note closest to it in pitch, with an accompanying (sharp) or (flat) sign, if needed (for instance, if the note you’re playing is closest to an F in pitch, the tuner reads F). The tuner also indicates whether your string is sharp (too high) or flat (too low) to your reference note via a meter or a row of small LED lights. (Check out Chapter 10 for a discussion of how tuners work and of the different types of tuners currently available.) An electronic clip-on tuner is shown in Figure 2-8.

If the string is significantly out of tune, the tuner may assign an alphabet letter that isn’t a G, B, or D (check out the section “G tuning: Getting your strings in order” earlier in this chapter for the skinny on the notes used in this tuning). I’ve been avoiding it up to now, but so you aren’t thrown off by these various letters, you should know the following order of notes in music:

G / G or A / A / A or B / B / C / C or D / D / D or E / E / F / F or G / G

Figure 2-8: Using an electronic clip-on tuner makes tuning easier.

Here are a few tidbits of info that may help you better understand this series of notes and how they relate to tuning your banjo:

You may notice that some notes in the preceding series have an or between them. Without getting too boring, just remember that a G is the same pitch as an A, an A is the same as B, and so on. These equivalent notes are found at the same fret on your fingerboard.

As you move to the right in the order of notes, you’re naming higher-pitched notes; as you move to the left, the notes are lower pitched. If you move one note in either direction (for instance, going from a C or D note to a D note), you move a half step. If you move two notes in either direction (for instance, going from an F to a G or from a C to a D), you move a whole step.

A half-step movement corresponds to a change of one fret up or down on your banjo fingerboard, and a whole step equals a movement of two frets from one note to the next. For example, if you’re playing an open string and you want to move up a half step, you would fret the first fret of that same string. If you wanted to move up a whole step from an open string, you would fret the second fret.

To use an electronic tuner, you turn the tuning pegs until the readout matches the note that string should match. For example, if you’re trying to tune your 3rd string to a G and the tuner gives you an F reading, you know from the preceding order of notes that your 3rd string is far enough below a G pitch that the tuner hears the note as an F — the pitch that’s one half step below G.

To get your 3rd string in tune, continue striking the 3rd string with the right hand and slowly move the tuning peg to raise the string’s pitch. At some point, the tuner’s readout should change from an F to a G note, but at this point the tuner tells you that your 3rd string is a flat G note instead of a sharp F. Continue raising the pitch of the string until the tuner indicates that the string is exactly in tune to a G note. You use the same process for each of the strings, raising or lowering their pitches until the tuner indicates that you’ve reached the desired note.

Don’t strike the strings too hard when using an electronic tuner. A light touch is best for the tuner to give the most reliable reading. Also, the meter on some tuners shifts slightly to the left or right as it responds to ever-so-slight changes in pitch that occur as a string continues to vibrate. If this happens to you, tune the string to the pitch that the indicator “sits on” for the majority of the time that the tuner is registering its pitch. This approximation gets you close enough to do a touch up on that string by using relative-tuning techniques (see the previous section on this topic for instructions).

Tuning with an electronic tuner at a jam session

When musicians come together to make music, they first take some time to make sure that their instruments are in tune with one another before they start to play. Just before a jam session begins, you may see musicians off in different corners or with their backs turned momentarily from the main group, as they get in tune by using electronic clip-on tuners (see preceding section for the how-to). In this case, the participants use the reference notes provided by their tuners to get as closely in tune with each other as they can (and if the participants have their backs turned because they’re talking to their agents, find another jam session!).

Don’t hesitate to borrow another musician’s tuner whenever you need one in a group session. Believe me — everyone wants you to be in tune just as much as you do!

If your jam session is taking place outside, as often happens at a music festival, chances are good that all the instruments gradually drift out of absolute tuning in reaction to the sun, the humidity, and the warm temperatures. If you’re joining a jam session that’s already in progress, the musicians may be in tune with each other but not with your tuner. In these situations, get a reference pitch from another instrumentalist and tune your banjo, using the relative tuning techniques outlined earlier in this chapter (I describe how to do this in the next few sections).

Using another instrument as a reference

If you don’t have an electronic tuner or you want to be in tune with others in a jam session, you can use pitches from other instruments to get your banjo where it needs to be. In general, ask another musician to play a certain note on her instrument. Then, try to get your string to match that pitch by turning the tuning pegs. After tuning each open string to the corresponding note, you can then double-check your tuning by using relative tuning techniques (see the section on this topic earlier in this chapter).

Don’t be surprised if the instrument you’re using isn’t exactly in tune with an electronic tuner. Remember that you aren’t aiming for perfect pitch at this point, but rather, you’re wanting your banjo to be in tune with itself and with others you may be playing with.

Promote world peace: Use a banjo mute!

If you’re one of those folks who live in a crowded household or a college dorm or if you have to catch your practice time late at night or very early in the morning, you need to find a way to ramp down the volume of your banjo. Try these quick solutions to temporarily tame your savage banjo beast:

Place a mute on the bridge. A banjo mute fits onto the top of your banjo bridge and soaks up the musical energy that the bridge normally transmits from a vibrating string to the banjo head. (See photo a in the accompanying figure.) Mutes dramatically reduce your banjo’s volume and can change the tone quite a bit too, lending a sweet sustaining sound to your banjo that makes it sound almost like a harpsichord. You can buy a banjo mute at an acoustic specialty store (but don’t let them talk you into believing that a ball-peen hammer is a real mute — that’s a more permanent solution!). In lieu of a store-bought mute, you can also use a couple of clothespins, snapped to either end of the bridge (shown in photo b). This solution works just about as well!

Just stuff it! Cram a hand towel or a T-shirt into the back of the banjo, in the space between the head and the closest coordinating rod (shown in photo c). If your banjo has a resonator, you need to remove it first to get to the back of your instrument. The more firmly you position the cloth against the underside of the head, the more it absorbs the energy of the head and the quieter your banjo will become.

Here’s how you can use various instruments to tune your banjo:

Guitar or dobro: The 4th (D), 3rd (G), and 2nd (B) strings of the guitar are tuned to the same pitches as the corresponding strings in G tuning on the banjo (see the section on G tuning earlier in this chapter for more info). The dobro’s top four strings are tuned to the same pitches as the top four strings on your banjo, so you can use these instruments as reference points to tune your banjo.

I usually try to tune my 3rd-string G first, and then I move down in pitch to tune the 4th string and up to tune the 2nd, 1st, and 5th strings. When I have a break in between songs, I ask the guitar or dobro player to play a 3rd string open, or the fretted equivalent if she has a capo on, so I can make sure my banjo is in tune with the other instruments. If I’m out of tune, I make adjustments on each string until my strings’ pitches match the pitches on the guitar or dobro.

Piano: If you have a piano or an electronic keyboard around the house, that’s another great source for getting reference notes to tune your banjo. Tune each banjo string to the corresponding piano note (see Figure 2-9).

Fiddle or mandolin: If you’re playing music with just a fiddler or a mandolin player, you can still get in tune with them by asking for their G note. A fiddle is tuned to the same pitches as a mandolin. The open G notes on these instruments are an octave higher in pitch than your 3rd-string G.

However, you can still use this note to tune your G string, and then you can tune your remaining strings using relative tuning techniques or you can ask for the other pitches you need to get the other strings in tune (see the section “Relative tuning: Tuning the banjo to itself” earlier in this chapter for more help).

Figure 2-9: Piano notes and their corresponding strings on the banjo.

The tone of the other instrumentalist’s notes are going to be different than the notes on the banjo, but remember you’re comparing the pitch of each note, not the tone. When in doubt about your own tuning, don’t hesitate to ask another musician for help.

Enlisting the help of this book’s CD

Last but not least, you can pop the CD that’s in the back of the book into a CD player and proceed directly to Track 1, where I name and play all the open strings on the banjo in G tuning. These pitches should be very close to what you’d get when using an electronic tuner (for more on these techie tuners, check out the section “Utilizing an electronic tuner”).

Checking Out Chord Diagrams

Looking for an easy way to remember how to fret a chord with your left-hand fingers? A chord diagram not only communicates which strings are fretted for a particular chord but also where on the fingerboard you put those fingers and which left-hand finger you use to fret each string.

Chord diagrams aren’t the same as banjo tablature, which is the written form of banjo music that I explain in Chapter 3. Chord diagrams show you how to fret a chord with the left hand, but they don’t tell you what to play with it. However, when you play with others, you use chords all the time. Chords are also the basic building blocks of just about every melody, so getting comfortable reading chord diagrams is a good idea, which is just what I intend to help you do in the following sections.

Reading a chord diagram

If you’re already familiar with reading chord diagrams for the guitar, you find that banjo players use the same system. If you turn your banjo around so that the fingerboard faces you, that’s how the banjo neck is represented in a chord diagram (check out Figure 2-10 to more fully break down the parts of a chord diagram):

From left to right, the vertical lines represent the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings on your banjo. Most banjo chord diagrams don’t include the 5th string, because you rarely fret it, especially when you’re just beginning to play.

The top horizontal line represents the banjo nut. The nut is what guides the strings from the fingerboard to the peghead. One way to think of the nut is as a “0” fret, because your banjo strings are open at this location on the neck.

The second line from the top stands for your banjo’s first fret, and the line below that represents the second fret, and so on.

The black dots that appear on the vertical string lines indicate behind what fret and on what strings on the banjo fingerboard you should fret.

The letters located underneath the chord diagram indicate the left-hand finger you use to fret each string. For the left hand, I = index finger; M = middle finger; R = ring finger; and P (or sometimes L) = ring finger. Some books use the numbers 1 through 4 to represent the left-hand fingers in the same way.

Figure 2-10: Chord diagrams show which left hand fingers fret which strings as well as where to fret. Here’s the chord diagram for a C chord.

Interpreting up-the-neck chord diagrams

As you become more proficient, you can fret chords all up and down the neck of your banjo. To represent a chord that’s played above the fifth fret, a chord diagram includes a number that appears to the right of the diagram — either next to the top fret line or adjacent to the uppermost fretted note in the chord. This number indicates exactly where you need to position your left hand on the banjo neck (see Figure 2-11).

If you need to fret the 5th string as part of a chord, a fifth vertical line is added to the left side of the chord diagram to represent this string. The 5th string is often fretted up the neck with the left-hand thumb, which is represented with the letter T in a chord diagram.

Figure 2-11: Up-the-neck chord diagram for a D7 chord, featuring a fretted fifth string.

Fingering G, D7, and C Chords

The first time you discover how to fret a chord on your banjo is a very big moment in your burgeoning playing career. If the world suddenly seems like a much better place after you’ve successfully fretted each of the chords in this section, that’s a good indication that you were born to be a banjo player.

Figure 2-12 shows chord diagrams for the three most important chords you play on the banjo: the G, D7, and C chords.

Figure 2-12: Chord diagrams for G, D7 and C chords.

After you practice the chords as described in the next three sections, try moving from one chord to the next, in any order that strikes your fancy. Strum with a downward right-hand thumb motion across all five strings a few times for each new chord and strive for a clear, unmuted sound from each string for all three chords. This stuff is pretty exciting, isn’t it? Take a listen to Track 2 on the CD to see whether your chords sound like the ones that I demonstrate. You can put these chords to use in Chapter 3.

Try to keep the tips of your left-hand fingers close to the neck and pointed towards the fingerboard at all times as you move from one chord to the next. At first, you may have to move one left-hand fretting finger at a time as you work the different chord fingerings into your motor memory. However, in the long run, fretting all the strings you need for a chord at the same time is more efficient. After you’ve mastered this skill, you can switch between chords with greater speed and accuracy.

The G chord: Real easy

Although people very seldom associate the banjo with Zen, you really don’t have to fret anything at all to play the G chord, grasshopper! A G chord is just the sound of your right hand strumming the open strings in G tuning (see the section “G tuning: Getting your strings in order” earlier in this chapter for more info). That’s why this chord diagram includes no black dots at all — your five open strings do all the work! You could use your left hand to wave to your adoring fans, but I think it may be a little early for these kinds of grand gestures.

The D7 chord: A little harder

For the D7 chord, you place your middle finger just behind the second fret of the 3rd string and your index finger behind the first fret of the 2nd string. Try strumming down across all five strings with your right-hand thumb, starting with the 5th string and striking each note down to the 1st string. Try a slow strum to check the accuracy of your fretting on each individual string, but then don’t be afraid to go wild with some fast strumming to strut your stuff!

The C chord: More challenging still

The C chord is a bit harder than the D7 chord (see preceding section), because you use one more left-hand finger to fret this chord. Here, the left-hand index frets the 2nd string, first fret — just as with the D7 chord. However, now you move your middle finger to the 4th string, second fret, and you also need to fret the 1st string at the second fret. Be careful that you fret the 4th and 2nd strings with enough of a vertical angle with your left-hand fingers so you don’t block the sound of the open 3rd string.

Your hand should look something like Figure 2-13 when you fret the D7 and C chords:

Figure 2-13: Here’s how your hand looks fretting the D7 (a) and C chords (b). Compare the position of the thumb in these pictures to how you fret these chords.