Banjo For Dummies. Bill Evans

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      Photographs courtesy of Elderly Instruments

      FIGURE 1-2: Comparing a five-string (a) and a tenor (b) banjo.

      BANJOS OF ALL SORTS

      In the early decades of the 20th century, America was mad for anything that sounded remotely like a banjo. (Amazing, isn't it? Just like it is today!) Instrument makers took guitar and mandolin necks and attached them to banjo bodies, creating new kinds of instruments of all sizes that had that great banjo sound but could be played using guitar and mandolin techniques.

      Banjos with mandolin necks usually have eight strings and are called mandolin banjos or mando-banjos. These instruments are smaller than most five-string banjos. Banjos with guitar necks have six strings and are called guitar banjos. These instruments are perfect for guitar players who want that banjo sound (and maybe are too lazy to actually learn to play the banjo — but you didn't hear that from me!). Guitar banjos have six strings instead of five and can be a bit larger than most five-string banjos.

Today, these more obscure branches of the banjo family tree are seen largely as novelty instruments and, like the tenor and plectrum banjo (see the section “Tenor and plectrum banjos: Look for another book” in this chapter), are considered to be a different kind of instrument than a five-string banjo. Mandolin banjos are played like mandolins, and guitar banjos are played like guitars.

Knowing the Parts of a Banjo

The banjo combines wooden, metal, skin, and/or plastic parts held together by rods, nuts, screws, and brackets to make some of the most incredible and beautiful sounds in the world. You could call the banjo the Frankenstein of musical instruments, but I like to think of it as the Bionic Woman. Practically all banjos share a common characteristic of having a replaceable top playing surface made of plastic or animal skin (called the head) that's stretched tightly across the body of the banjo (called the pot) to form the top of the resonating body of the instrument (see Figure 1-3).

In the following sections, you get to know the banjo from head to toe (well, really from the top of the headstock to the bottom of the pot). You also discover how the instrument captures the energy of a plucked string and turns it into that unmistakably great sound that banjo players love. You can refer to Figure 1-4 to see exactly where these parts are located on the banjo.

      Photographs courtesy of Elderly Instruments

      FIGURE 1-3: Comparing open-back (a and b) and resonator (c and d) five-string banjos

      Photograph courtesy of Gruhn Guitars

      FIGURE 1-4: The parts of a banjo.

      Looking at the neck

      The neck is one of the two main sections of the banjo (the pot being the other; see the section “Checking out the pot”). The neck is the long piece of wood that supports the strings and tuners. Necks are usually made of maple, mahogany, or walnut.

      To get a better feel for the banjo, take a look at the parts of the banjo neck:

       Frets: The thin, metal bars on the banjo neck that are positioned at precise intervals to give you the various pitches needed when fretting a string. (Fretting is what you do when you move a left-hand finger into position behind a fret to change the pitch of a string.) In the world of fretting, you use the term up the neck to refer to moving the left hand toward the pot and down the neck when you talk about moving the left hand toward the nut and peghead.

       Fingerboard: A thin, flat, wooden strip glued to the neck that holds the frets and is the surface upon which the left hand produces notes and chords.

       Peghead: Also called the headstock, the peghead СКАЧАТЬ