Irish Tenor Banjo Technique

Although banjo-whizz Gerry O’Connor does use CGDA tuning, 99% of players use the common Irish tuning GDAE. This is an important thing to note when buying an instrument. In Ireland, the market demand is for these instruments so they are in strong supply but, elsewhere, this may not be the case and you may need to fit new strings and set new head tensions to suit the different setup. There are vintage banjos in healthy supply from the likes of Vega, Clifford Essex, Epiphone and Paramount. All are high quality banjos. If you want something more contemporary, Ireland has its fair share of makers such as Tom Cussen (Clareen Banjos), Dave Boyle and Emerald Banjos. Jim Patton (JP Banjos) in the UK has also been highly regarded. Entry level banjos can be bought from Gold Tone which are fairly good for beginners and improvers but better quality vintage instruments can be got within the same price range with some shopping around.

This is a common question for our adept 5-string players and, unfortunately, the answer is no. If you are looking to sing songs and ballads then there is a place for the 5-string but for our instrumental melodies, the tenor banjo is what you require. Maybe in ten or twenty years this will change as currently, Paddy Kiernan of the band Nava is playing fantastic Irish music in the 5-string. But it’s only the beginning of something very new. If you were to assume that Don Reno-style, single-string playing would work for Irish music, I can tell you that the nature of this style is less fluid than is obtained from the use of pick.

Much like the mandolin, the tenor banjo does not have an accompaniment role with the context of Irish traditional music. Chordal accompaniment would be frowned upon in a session setting.

It’s all a matter of taste. The E string is often set at the .10 to .12 range; The A is .17 – .20 and is sometimes wound; The D is .26 – .28 usually and wound; The G is anywhere from .32 – .40 and wound. I find anything lower than .36 on the G too thin but I like a beefy bass so it’s a matter of taste. I also often use a heavier E at .13. One thing that makes a massive difference is the type of string material. I religiously avoid nickel strings as I find the tone is way too abrasive. Phospher bronze strings afford a bright tone and ordinary bronze are more mellow. And yes, you can use guitar string of corressponding gauges if you wish but bear in mind that not all tail-pieces will allow you to fit ball-end strings so you might have to specially order loop end ones.

Anything lighter than 0.5mm will not provide you with very much volume and limited tone. However, I did have a period of using a 0.38mm plectrum and in some ensembles (usually a duet or trio of really sensitive music) it worked well and made right-hand ornaments a lot easier. The heavier end I would use is 0.73mm or, on occasion, a 0.88mm (say, when playing for a ceili and tunes are fast). After that, I find you lose a lot of tone and the right hand gets quite cumbersome. Nylpro 1.4mm picks are the exception in this regard and can afford very good control if you can get used to them. One last consideration is the shape of the pick. The tear-drop style is easily the most popular but I find larger, triangular picks with a bigger surface area are better for playing less tense. There are no rules. Try them all and see what you like. I end up using different picks in different circumstances.

-> No. Welcome to the life of a banjo player.