Відео

Tenor sounds better. More authentic... just sayin

I have a plectrum banjo that I love! I want to get a Tenor Banjo, An Irish Banjo, An Acoustic Tenor Guitar and an Electric Tenor Guitar and a mandolin. God help my pocket book.

Stop making shit up. LOL … tenor banjos outsold five string banjos from around 1910-1950. It was originally developed from a five string banjo called a banjeaurine, an instrument with a wider diameter head and shorter neck. This was used in the era when banjo players actually read notes (like a classical guitarist) and there were orchestras and ensembles with different size five string banjos including a cello and piccolo banjo. The music they played included “ragtime” the forerunner to American “jazz. As it evolved to jazz in the early part of the century it was easy to remove the fifth string from the banjeaurine and tune it exactly as a cello. This was perfect for playing chords as a rhythm instrument. Eventually that was replaced by jazz guitar. No … it has nothing to do with Irish singing tenors though there is a sub set of people who play tenor banjo for irish fiddle tunes. By the way … most of the best bluegrass banjos are made by converting an original Gibson tenor banjo into a five-string … because more Gibson tenor banjos were made than five strings.

I love my tenor! My friend and I play some bluegrassy tunes ("Rollin' in my sweet baby's arms"), She plays guitar and I just do some fast strumming. I do get tired of people asking us to play Dueling Banjos, but it's always a good opportunity to educate folks on the difference. ❤

I think you overlooked Jug Bands. From their beginnings in the early 20th century up through their various resurgences, the Tenor Banjo fit in just fine with the various jugs, kazoos and other homemade instruments. Jug Band Music is almost impossible without the Tenor Banjo. I beat on a 100 year old steel-pot Luxor Tenor to add the jangly bits to Jug Band Tunes.

Come to my part of Ireland . You can't throw a stone without hitting a tenor banjo player. It's the econd most popular instrument after accordion .

I played mando briefly in highscool, so imagine my surprise when I found my little tenor banjo for sale for just $100, complete with geared tuning machines and a heavy head and sound ring and started learning some fun ragtime tunes. Currently working on Bye Bye Blues. 2 weeks in and I’m just having a fun time. Can’t help but smile hearing it ❤

Lovely, i am learning the mandolin! Do you have a book? Cynthia

I'm no expert by any means, but for my own experience, the movie Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, with the theme song Foggy Mountain Breakdown, as well as the Beverly Hillbillies TV show beginning in 1962, with theme song Ballad of Jed Clampet, both compositions by Scruggs and Flatt, did most of the heavy lifting that brought bluegrass and the 5-string banjo to be appreciated by mainstream America. Deliverance and Dueling Banjos, originally Feudin' Banjos, at least in my opinion added to the appreciation but was not the real powerhouse.

Very interesting to see non bluegrass banjo!

Great job, I love the old ones.!

Greeting from Dublin Ireland. Huge thanks for sharing! 👏👏👏👏🙏🏿

Nina Simone also recorded it.

Thank you for this valuable lesson.

Also got one.

Hi , I recently purchased a 4 string Irish Tenor Banjo and I would like to learn how to play it, so I subscribed to you're channel Sir. 😀

Hi, I’m a professional guitarist and I’ve been interested in guitar and string instrument history for a long time as a hobby and the story that I heard was at the end of the Spanish-American war, a bunch of surplus wind instruments showed up at the New Orleans port for very cheap and all these Musician started to play them and they drowned out the guitar players of the day and so they all had to switch to banjo, and the tenor banjo was their choice, The story came from the guitarist who switched the banjo because he had to it might’ve been Eddie Lang I need to research a bit more but in the mid-20s microphones became better and the guitar started to make a come back and eventually eclipsed the tenor banjo

YOUR MANDOLA SOUNDS MUCH BETTER THAN VERY EXPENSICE ONES.

been playing tenor banjo in many styles for decades. It's not dead yet.

It got replaced in Big Bands and Western Swing because the Guitar became the choice in those bands. Banjo was a rhythm instrument but it was loud and other band members didn't like it because of that. The Guitar could be a rhythm instrument also and much warmer sounding as well. You wouldn't have that noisy clattering sound of Banjos to deal with. It was still welcome in New Orleans Jazz Bands but not much anyplace else. Today there isn't much call for Tenor Banjo as New Orleans Jazz just isn't as popular as it once was. Besides we've learned with a 5 String Banjo you can pull the 5th string off the Banjo neck to the side and restrict it. Now you have a 4 String Banjo why buy a Tenor and all that added expense? Release the 5th string once again and you're back to Bluegrass and Claw Hammer Folk Music. So the Tenor Banjo is nice but do I really need to lay out the money for it? Most Banjo players would say no. I'm not going to play New Orleans Jazz often enough and if I'd like to I can adapt my 5 String on that occasion. I do it myself once in a while. It's fun to play New Orleans Jazz!

Is the tenor in GDAE tuning? If not … then what?

Thanks!

Good job , 👍 been trying that tune it's not easy

You aware of the Philadelphia String Bands?

I’d love to learn and start a Dixieland Jazz band

Hmm .. might be good to find people who is a comfortable players of each style

"Well done, matey! Ye'll be makin' the cap'n proud with that effort!"

good video also first

The tenor banjo as a lead instrument in an Irish metal band, now that there would make a loud come back! It is a very emotional instrument in the hands of someone capable...

There's just not a huge need for the instrument- it was designed for people who already played GDAE or DGBE. Plectrum banjo is another beast in its own right, considering it's more akin to a 5-string banjo in drop-C. Much more comfortable for complex jazz voicings.

I love your version! This is so well recorded. The depth from reverb gives it such resonance, or is that the large room, high ceiling?

TENOR BANJO IS STILL ALIVE AND DOING GREAT AND ALWAYS WAS A GREAT BANJO AND ALWAYS WILL BE MY BELIEVE GREAT BANJO ...THIS GUY IS TALKIN BULL SHIT

Bit confusing

I don't think this is a fair comparison , you ran a capo on the 5 string, and played it with finger pics, the 4 string , no capo and 1 pic , please do another comparison video with an even playing field

Tenor banjo played in chordal is still a big part of Dixieland music. It's just not that visible - rather like how barbershop quartet singing is still around but largely hiding in the corners. Some fabulous virtuosos were around in the 20'a and 30's last century, like Roy Schmeck. Here's an example of the chordal playing : ua-cam.com/video/4UbZjOQ5vkw/v-deo.html

Photo at about 1:35 actually shows a third completely separate variation on the theme, the 6 string Banjitar. Those are often found these days used more or less interchangeably with resonator guitars for busking the blues on street corners or chopping away at chords in modern Dixieland ensembles. Like resonator guitars these are sometimes in standard guitar tuning, sometimes in slide friendly tunings like open G. Banjitars and resonators turn up in those settings in preference to regular acoustic guitars for the same reason plectrum banjos became popular in jazz groups in the early 20th century- the volume advantage allows them to better keep up and be heard among a horn section or above street noise. Something which didn’t really get explored here very much is the fact that the fast and flashy style of bluegrass 5 string banjo we know today, characterized by steel fingerpicks and rapid rolls, really didn’t get developed and popularized until Bill Monroe’s bluegrass boys, including Flatt and Scruggs, brought it to the fore in the 1940s. Before that, pretty much everyone playing 5 string banjo was playing it in a style that today is called “claw hammer” or “frailing”. That’s essentially the way the banjos African ancestors from places like Gambia were played, and much of the real traditional Appalachian oldtime banjo repertoire was originally performed in that way. I’ll also echo other comments here pointing out that the tenor banjo has always been alive and well in Irish music over the past century, and has been joined there by other even more recent imports brought back home from various places in the Diaspora, like the Irish Bouzouki which followed some Irish musicians home from Greece and started turning up in trad Irish music in the 1960s and is now so fully embraced as part of that tradition that it’s hard to imagine an Irish pub session without either a bouzouki or a tenor banjo.

Great lesson! I'm curious, do you the ""yippie-i ay, yippie-i-oh part?" Or I'm I just missing it

Completely different situation in Ireland. Here the tenor banjo is used with a plectrum and plays the tune.

Very nice! I'm interested in picking up an Irish tenor banjo. I'm a mandolin player, and look forward to simply transferring songs from one instrument to the other without learning new fingerings.

The tune from Deliverance was written by Arthur Smith and was called Feuding Banjos . He played tenor banjo and Don Reno played five string. He could play rings around any five string. I've played 5 and 4 string all my life. Love them both

Is there such a thing as bluegrass played with tenor banjo instead of five-string?

The title "What happened to the tenor banjo" suggests a historical journey from the gourd banjos brought to the US by African slaves, on to various frettless and fretted varieties of the 5 string banjo, then the early Jazz and music hall tenors up to the people who really popularized the tenor banjo with their playing, like Barney McKenna, the player I was inspired by to start playing the banjo fifty years ago. What do we get? None of it. Just a big steaming pile of diatribe garnished with colourful pictures that make one presume the whole thing was made for 5 year olds. Thunderin' Jaysus, is there anything you Americans can do without botching it.

Good advice!

Thank you for posting this. It’s very important to preserve these vintage instruments as much as we can. If they get damaged beyond repair, they can never be replaced.

it's ok...but

nice try - but neither is good

I like it! 😊

Not better. Different. So a clickbait headline.

Recorder player, here. I’m much better at playing string instruments, so I can relate 100% to this video of yours. It takes A LOT of time, patience and practice to get better at any musical instrument…good luck bro! I can play some basic riffs on my flutes…that’s about it, lol 😂

Hehe! 😂