Needed: banjo action work

Spent a little time with the banjo at lunch today and came to a few conclusions.

I really like the basic sound of this instrument. Going to have to find ways to incorporate it into the things I'm doing. And, I suspect I'm going to have to learn to play both fingerstyle and traditional banjo picking as well as flat picking, as the sounds are all different and all worth using! Sigh. Now, to find a practice discipline...

It has become clear that I can either keep the design feature allowing for the replaceable fingerboard insert for the first three frets (the replacement insert is fretless), or I can glue one of them down and try to get the action I'm looking for. It's a really cool concept and I give major marks to the innovator that came up with it, but--at least on the banjo I built with the skills I had at the time and now--I am not going to get the quality of action I'm looking for without at least gluing the insert down, and probably thickness-sanding it just slightly as well. Between a slight upbow in the neck (the truss rod is nonadjustable), the extra height of the fretted insert at the first two frets within the tolerances of its tension screw, the disparity in height of the fifth-string nut, and the jut of the body ring, I just don't see a way to get the primary four strings any lower than they are now, and they're too high at the octave and above. (I'm pretty sure I like a lower action than most people, and it's becoming worse the more I realize how much I like how the fretless turned out!)

So! When I can get around to it (no snickering, now), I'll thickness-sand the fretted insert to compensate for the upbow and glue it in place, true that neck up to dead-flat, and dehorn the snot out of it. (Now that things have settled from the original construction, I definitely notice some sharp spots that can be corrected.) Then, I'll re-set the neck to the optimum angle, and will reserve the right to relieve the curve of the body ring if that remains an obstacle. I'll bring the bridge down to the right height so that I've got the action I'm looking for, and I suspect that at that point I will also have corrected the disparity problem of the fifth-string nut height.

Then, of course, I'll have no excuses for how badly I play the instrument, so I'll need to get on that problem too. :-)

Finally, I am still out on the tuning I want to use here. I just went through a re-introduction of diatonic triads and sevenths on these intervals (I'm ignoring the fifth string for now), and while some of these chords are really nice, I don't know if it is worth not having three adjacent fifth intervals for melodic/improv purposes. On an instrument with six strings, like the Guitar Craft guitar for which the tuning was designed, having the m3 at the top of the range while still having two other all-fifth-interval four-string groups to work with, works out well. With only four main strings on the banjo, though, melodic runs that work great on the guitar or mandolin start to feel cramped; you have to shift hand position to complete the second octave. (One of the best features of tuning in fifths is that you have an octave available on two strings within one hand position, and two octaves over four strings within one hand position.)

It's still too early to make a permanent call; first, I do not yet understand the Tao of the banjo, so to speak, and that may suggest a decision by itself. As well, I will have to be careful with tension on the neck viz string gauges. If I go all fifths, I'll have to be careful how tight I try to wind the first string and how big a gauge I use for the fourth. If I do go all fifths, I'll probably try either for G2-D3-A3-E4 (the same as a mandocello, and that's low for a banjo...a traditional banjo usually tunes its fourth string to D3) or possibly a minor third up from that (Bb2-F3-C4-G4) with a really tiny first string. And then the fifth string should be appropriate to that. I kinda like the fifth string a whole tone above the first, and in theory it should be quite possible to do that even with A4, with a suitably small gauge. But that may sound really weird against the open Bb, I dunno. Hey, it's that way with experiments.

Anyway, I'll keep working with the NST intervals for now, and as I learn more about the banjo itself, I'll listen for direction on where all this should go. If nothing else I'll keep confounding the snot out of anyone trying to figure out what I'm doing by watching my left hand, which is always a conversation starter with standard-tuning guitarists. (I decided to keep the mandolin tuning at standard just to throw a monkey-wrench into the works, you know. :-)