The Battle of the Banjos Continues

In a previous post (“Is the Standard Banjo Better?”) I mentioned some advantages of the standard banjo.

The standard banjo has another small advantage: the 5^th string can be tuned up.  Many players tune it to A for the key of D.  On some banjos they can safely tune up to B♭.  The G 5^th string on a capo-ble banjo, on the other hand, is tuned to its limit.  A 5^th string capo or a “railroad spike” is needed to tune higher.

In the capo-ble banjo’s favor are possible tricks with the fully frettable 5^th string.  Instead of staying open, or fretted to the first or second fret,  it can be played freely as a special part of the accompaniment.  You can see that in the fragment of my arrangement of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” above: in measure 15 the 5^th string goes from the 4^th to the 2^nd fret to open.

Such tricks are possible with a standard banjo 5^th string above its open position, but there is no point.  That high up the neck, the 1^st and 5^th strings play the same note.

Different banjos, different advantages.

You can see and listen to my arrangement of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” In TEFView, in the usual way, starting at

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19SdgeHixtx7XZz2TfHeVa5Yw4scPUOyS?usp=sharing