How To Tune A Banjo
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How To Tune A Banjo
Patrick Achhtelik takes you step by step through tuning your banjo in this video. He shows you two octaves in the process. Patrick also tells you which thread of the banjo to place your finger on as you tune your instrument and which musical note each string co-relates to. You can hear what to listen for by watching this video.
Now I am going to show you how to tune your banjo. The strings of the banjo are, starting from the fifth string, G. The next one, fourth string is a D.
The third string is another G but an octave lower. The next one, the second string, is a B and the first string is a D. Together all of those strings should sound like this.
This is an open G chord, and the chord which sounds when you hit all of the strings. Now, if you've got say one string of your banjo in tune, maybe you've got another guy in the band who plays you a D, what you can do to tune your other strings are: For the D string place a finger on the fifth thread. This note should be a G and have the same pitch as the next string.
That works out. Now, to tune the B string you are going to have to put your finger on the fourth thread of the G string and this note should be the same pitch as the B string. That's it.
Now, to tune the high D string, you're going to put your finger on the third thread of the B string. Now to tune your fifth string, the high string, what you can do is put a finger on the fifth thread of your D string. There we go.