Banjo build? 6 strings or 5 strings

[Matthew Lau]

I've been promising to build a banjo with my banjo buddy (Gary) for years.
However, I'm not fully set on 6-strings or the traditional 5.

What do you guys think?

Gary is adamant that 5 strings is THE way to go for a REAL banjo.
For me, I'm very used to guitar--I'm tempted to go 6 strings...like a more fun resonator.
This will be a fun friendship thing, as I'm not super keen on banjo (although that Bela Fleck is pretty amazing).

Can you guys walk me through the pros and cons, musically?

-Matt

ps. Here's the specs:
Tonerim: Air dried maple--aged over 35 years as a love seat.
Neck: flamed rock maple--air dried over 10 years (originally for my first guitar, a Hauser guitar copy, but far too heavy). Ebony center lamination--formerly a b-grade fretboard for guitar #1, never slotted
Rim: probably the Whyte Ladyie from stewmac
Hooks, hardware--mostly made by Gary
Tuners--5 star? from stewmac. I'm tempted to go for ebony perfection pegs.
It'll be an open back frailing banjo.

[Bob Gramann]

Playing a 5-string is totally different from playing a guitar. It's worth making the 5-string and getting Gary to teach you to play it. I like the Gotoh banjo tuners. You can get them with black buttons from Bob Smakula (Smakula.com). There's a lot of joy in a 5-string banjo. You already have a guitar. Also, with all of the maple, I would worry about weight in construction. This is just opinion, but it seems to me that a banjo that is too lightly build doesn't quite sound right and is unstable in tuning when you play it. The other side is that one can be too heavy to play for any period of time. Yours needs to come in somewhere in between.

[Michael Lewis]

Matt, what do YOU want? don't ask us. You know, Django Reinhardt first learned to play on a 6 string banjo as a child.

A 6 string banjo can be nice if you can make it work but generally the 5 string banjo is the traditional instrument. 4 string for dixieland jazz and 5 string for classical and bluegrass music. Of course there are some folks that take a banjo to places it has never been musically. Bela Fleck, Scott Vestal, Allison Brown, etc. have ventured into jazz.

[Jim McConkey]

Don't forget that banjos generally have one string that is much shorter than the rest. If you build with 6 equal length strings, the banjo player won't know what to do, and if you build it with a short string, you won't know what to do. I add another vote for making a traditional 5-string.

I retrofitted Pegheds tuners on mine, and never looked back. They make tuning SO much easier!

[Jon Whitney]

You mentioned the banjo is going to be an open back frailing banjo. Frailing can actually be done on any banjo, open back or resonator, but is a playing style mostly associated with 5 string banjo and these days most frequently played on open back banjos. Do you frail your guitar? If not, and you want to frail your banjo, you're going to have a bit of a learning curve anyway, so why not go with 5 strings? I can promise you it won't make it any harder to learn. I find banjos much easier to play than guitars - you have two less strings to fret with your left hand. The short 5th string is typically not fretted, just played open with thumb, especially in frailing styles. I've heard of people frailing ukuleles, and I know a guy who has a guitar set up for frailing with a high 6th string (same gauge as the 1st string) and tuned in a variant of Double C banjo tuning, and he plays a mean "Pinball Wizard" intro on it.

[Simon Magennis]

I've been promising to build a banjo with my banjo buddy (Gary) for years.
....
Gary is adamant that 5 strings is THE way to go for a REAL banjo.

If it's a pressie for Gary, then do what Gary likes. If it is for you and you are just getting advice, then I would say follow your banjo buddy's advice.

[Dave Sayers]

I play 5 string banjo and guitar. At first you'll need to practice both seperately, give the brain time to adjust. But I like my 5 string. It's not that hard to play. And consider this, apart from the noise, how would a 6 string be any challenge?

[Dan Hill]

Something else to consider is that any type of banjo is pitched higher than a guitar. This is only my own aesthetic opinion/prejudice, but on the six-string banjos that I've heard, the bass strings sound unpleasantly "clunky".

[Clay Schaeffer]

If you build a 6 string you will take abuse from banjo players as well as everyone else!
The six string "guitar banjos" I heard and played didn't sound like either instrument. Plunking on an old cheap 5 string banjo can be a fun and relaxing experience. The 5 string is a fairly unique instrument. If you want a banjo that offers more "cross over" possibilities then build a four string tenor. Tenors are tuned in fifths and the same chord forms are used for tenor guitars, mandolin family instruments, Irish bouzoukis (with some variations) and violin family instruments.

[Michael Bruhn]

Why not make it a six string banjo but with the shorter fifth (sixth) string tuner. You basically would have a five string banjo with an extra bass string. Or even a seven string banjo? You could have the drone string and still play it like a guitar if you want. Just tune the first string (E) down to a D and you can play it like a banjo. Same with the six string I was talking about earlier.

[Allan Midgley]

Build your friend a 5 string banjo and a resonator guitar for yourself, as it sounds like that is really what YOU want and what HE wants. Both are mean projects in themselves and are both worth while. But do what what your heart says to do, and not what every one else says, ok?!!

[Allyson Brown]

Haha, it sounds like there's quite a bit of banjo player banter surrounding the idea of a 6-string banjo! The distinct sound of a traditional 5-string banjo is certainly unique and has its own charm.