Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Discuss the Banjo lesson: How to Tune Your Banjo

The issue is most likely one of these two:

  1. As @Mark_Rocka said, the temperature change in the room can affect it.

  2. Most likely, the slots in the nut of your banjo are pinching your string. As you tune up to pitch, the string gets hung a bit so that you actually twist the tuner further than it needs to go, but you can’t tell because the nut is grabbing the string. As it sits, the nut slot slowly lets the string tension loosen and the string tuning goes sharp. The best thing to do is loosen your string just enough to pull it out of the nut slot, then lightly clean it out with a piece of fine sandpaper folded in half. That will remove the debris or snags that may be catching your string, but be careful not to file it down and actually lower the string slot depth. If this doesn’t help, you may need to be a bit more aggressive.

One way to tell if this is the issue is to tune your banjo like normal (always tuning from below the note up to the note), then lightly press on the string between the nut and the tuning post. If it makes your string pitch pop up sharply, then that’s the issue.

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Wow, thanks for all of the ideas and comments! I’ll check these out and try to learn a little something along the way. :grinning:

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Ben,
I was what determines the tune for each string for a specific tuning? Like for a G tuning why are other strings D and B and not other notes?

For open chord tuning, like open G or open D, the strings are tuned to the notes in that chord. So, the notes in the G chord are G, B, and D. Notes in the D chord are D, F#, and A.

ok thank you. I forgot that they were the notes (1,3,5) in each major chord. Thought diatonic key signatures determined it but I guess theyre for something else.

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It seems to me my 3rd String G is the one that gives me the most problems. The others come into tune fairly easy but G is a pain in the behind. :slight_smile:

it tends to give me a buzzing off it.

If only 1 string is buzzing, check to see if it’s lower than the others at the nut. If not, it could be that the nut slot isn’t filed properly.

Thanks Mark will give that a shot tomorrow!

Also, gently clean out the slots in both the nut and bridge with sandpaper. Don’t do it hard enough to lower the slot.

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I lubricate the slots with graphite dust - pencil lead.

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O f all the great advice in this video, the best observation is “The B string is a little squirrely.”
For decades I’ve twisted, turned & massaged that string, wondering if my banjo was messed up, was my ear messed up, should I buy another electronic tuner or did I just get a defective string.
You have no idea how much peace of mind that brief comment brought to me. Thanks!

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I’ve been playing on my own for about 3 years and consider myself firmly in the “intermediate” category, but recently joined your site and have been making a point to watch all your videos, even the ones for beginners. You usually end up giving me tips I didn’t know before.

Two examples from these tuning videos: a) it never occurred to me to try bending the string when I can’t tell if it’s sharp or flat, and b) I’d heard you’re supposed to tune up to a note, but I didn’t pay much attention to that tidbit because I didn’t know why. Just wanted to say thanks for being so detailed!

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listened to your basic tuning and waited for next phase of playing but screen just came up dark no sound so what now

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Hey Dennis, the lesson is segmented into different videos and they don’t autoplay, so you need to select the next video segment in the “Lesson Videos” section:

Or do you mean that after clicking on the second video, it doesn’t play?

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Hi @guifiddle41 Dennis. To add to what @Michael_Mark said you need to scroll down the page to find the next segment of the lesson.

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Bending the string is a great tip. Did not know to do that!!

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I have another “newbie” question/confusion about tuning by ear.
Following the suggested tuning procedure, ie., 4th String, 5th fret = 3rd String open, etc. for the remaining strings, each one of the fretted notes is sharpe.
I first tune using my tuner and all strings are in tune.
However, when I attempt to tune by ear, each fretted note is # according to the tuner.
Not sure how to proceed … confusing as I assumed both fretted & open should be the same !!!

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Sounds to me like the bridge placement is incorrect, too close to the nut.

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FYI, I’ve never played a banjo where every string intonated perfectly. However, If all of your strings are consistently sharp, the most likely cause is that your bridge is too far forward like @epjacobs said. Check out this vid:

https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/banjo-setup-with-steve-huber-bridge-placement-banjo

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Whoa, I just had a major deja vu!
:grin:

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