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 will gradually drift out of absolute tuning in reaction to the sun, the humidity, and 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 to that instrument using the guidelines in the next section.
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).
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 if someone in your jam session is playing one of these instruments, ask to use his pitches as reference points for you to tune your banjo — as long as that person is also in tune, that is! 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 2-3).
Fiddle or mandolin: If you're playing music with just a fiddler or a mandolin player, you can still get in tune with her by asking for her G note. A fiddle is tuned to the same pitches as a mandolin. The open G note on these instruments is the same as your 5th-string G pitch but is 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 (see the section “Relative Tuning: Tuning the Banjo to Itself” earlier in this chapter for more help). Or, you can ask for the other pitches you need to get the other strings in tune.
Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics
FIGURE 2-3: Piano notes and their corresponding strings on the banjo.
PROMOTE WORLD PEACE: USE A BANJO MUTE!
If you're one of those folks who lives 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 (as 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 or the dowel stick (take a look at 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 becomes.
Photographs by Anne Hamersky
Chapter 3
Starting to Play: Fretting and Strumming
IN THIS CHAPTER
You've brought your new banjo home and cleared a corner of the house to practice, far enough out of the way to avoid disturbing the unbelievers in your household. As you sit down and open the case, that wonderful new banjo smell fills the room, and you're no doubt thinking that this instrument is about the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in your entire life. 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? Where do you begin? Now that you're a banjo owner, what are the first steps on the road to becoming an actual banjo player?
This chapter answers these questions. Get started by attaching a strap on your banjo so you can play both sitting and standing. Next, put your left hand to work, find a comfortable hand position, and then really get down to business positioning your fingers to fret the G, C, and D7 chords. Finally, combine fretting chords with some mighty right-hand strumming to play your first, honest-to-goodness song. You're going to be amazed at how quickly you can make great-sounding music.
Talking Banjo Talk
Many folks prepare for a trip to a foreign country by practicing a few phrases in the language