I have been playing a long scale tenor banjo for several years, and was recently lucky enough to pick up a vintage 1920’s Washburn Irish Tenor banjo. After a little TLC, she’s all ready to go, and I am really happy.
The End? … But wait …
I am seekign help in the stringing department. I seek to string her tuned E A D G (like a violin or mandolin or conventional irish tenor) HOWEVER… There seems to be way too much tension on the E string, and I cannot get it up to pitch. I fear rupturing the origional claf skin head.
Any help/thoughts? My Banjology Restoration Experimentation Appreation Department (BREAD) is out of ideas.
Buy an ‘irish’ string set, or buy a standard TB string set, which is intended to be CGDA. Throw away the C and move the others over, and then buy a single guitar or whatever string to make up the E string for the set.
I’m thinking the CGDA tuning is in the viola range; IOW the G would be the same as the G on a mandolin… so you would be playing an octave higher than an “Irish-tuned” tenor banjo (in the infamous banjo-mandolin range).
Another solution is to see if you can get a set of “Octave Mandolin” (or “Octave Mandola” in the UK) strings, then you have two sets of Irish-tuned tenor banjo strings in the set.
Or you could use the CGDA strings and capo at the second fret to get DAEB, same range as a timber flute; that can also save you the stretch to get the high B on some tunes (“Musical Priest” for example can be tricky), though you lose the notes below D.
I wouldn’t tune the tenor banjo up to the same pitch as a mandolin. You can get an E string thin enough to do it, but I doubt if that’s what you want. You’d probably be better of with a banjo-mandolin. Here’s the guage strings you want for Irish tenor banjo…
Available in medium (012-017-026w-036w) and heavy (013-020w-030w-040w) gauges. [u]source[/u]
Yes, I am aiming (from low to high) to tune G D A E. However, is this in the same octave as a mandolin? I broke one E trying this approach, and I fear damaging the head. The G D and A all tune up to the mandolin octave fine. Am I missing something? Am I cognativly Deficient? Is the beastie suposed to be tuned an octave below mandolin tuning? That sounded gross.
But here’s another question: If the D’addario set of Irish Tenor banjo strings I bought (those gauges you mentioned were right, Lorenzo) are meant to be tuned to be tuned a fifth lover, than whay the would they be advertized as G D A E?
Yeah Lord, you can actually tune your banjo up to a mandolin, even though the neck is much longer, but you have to go with thinner strings, or like Simon says, move them all over one position and replace the highest string with a new thin E string. But, no one does that with tenor banjo. They tune an octave below a mandolin even though you may think it sounds “gross.” Or, like rh says, just use standard tenor banjo strings and capo or retune some strings to make certain keys easier.
If you have a long neck tenor, get the medium guage. If you have a standard short scale neck, you might try the heavies, although the mediums will still be okay.
It really shouldn’t sound gross an octave below a mandolin. Is your head tension correct? Bridge in the right place? It may well be a set up problem.
The D’addario strings were too light for my short neck (17 fret) antique anonymous banjo. I was able to buy single strings which moved it up to the heavy guage set which worked much better.
I can mess with it again, but I checked head tension with a friend’s drum tuner. Seemed good. Brigde is correct, I may need to mess around. Is there an E string out there somewhere which will tune up to the mandolin E on my 12 fret short scale tenor? Do you think that if i called D’Addario, they might help a poor blighter with his (seemingly unusual) string demands?
Since you make and repair violins, and make fully keyed chromatic whistles, Lord, plus play mandolin, tenor banjo, and GHP as your primary instruments, you probably know that finding an E string is as easy as going to your local music store, like a pioneer music company, and asking for one. Me thinks you’re pulling our leg again.
Plug in the scale length and the note you want and it will tell you what gauge string to use. It does calculate out a lite set, so if what you have on hand is a thousandth or two heavier you will be ok.
An Irish tenor is supposed to be tuned an octave below mandolin/violin. Trying to tune up to the mandolin octave may damage your banjo’s neck or head!. Is the banjo in question really a 12-fret instrument? If so it may be a very short neck and this is why it sounds gross tuned to Irish tuning with a 12/17/26/38 string set. It would help if you can post photos and/or measure the distance from nut to bridge.
With only 12 frets it really sounds to me like you’ve possibly got a banjo-ukelele, which I’m pretty sure has a different scale length than a banjo-mandolin.
A true tenor will have either 17 or 19 frets.
OTOH, I just looked up a pic of a banjolele, and it had 15 frets, so maybe I’m wrong.
My deepst appoligies, I do have a 17 fretter. I didn’t have it with me at the time I posted the fret count, and I realize how rediculous a 12 fret tenor would be (unless some of the frets were missing )
As Lorenzo mentioned, I do a tonne of stuff, yes, and I have checked out music stores here. You must know, however, I may be one of the few Irish-music-mad-multi-instruentalist-builder-fixer-collector-headcases in my area, and the lovely people at my local music retail establishments cock their heads and drool slightly out the side of their mouths when I start talking about an Irish Tenor Banjo, much less requesting a special string for one. I end up on my own for the majority of my problem solving, and usually don’t have much trouble. But the fact that this has been such a frustration makes me really, well, frusterated.
I’ve decided to do one of two things (doing both at once would be hard):
Call D’Addario, and see if they can hook (should that be string?) me up with a good high tension E string tunable in the mandolin range.
-or-
Buy a bloody set of octave mandolin strings, string the beastie up, and never look back.
Wise? Unwise? Other ideas? Any Irish Tenor Banjo players, please email me if you’re willing to talk about how you string your axes.
A huge thank you to all who have offered their ideas. Tis greatly appreciated, really tis.
