Tenor & Plectrum Banjos
Copyright © 2006 Shlomo Pestcoe. All rights reserved.
The early 1900s saw the emergence of the modern 4-string banjos-- the plectrum and the tenor. Unlike the 5-string banjo, these new instruments were designed to be played plectrum-style with a flat-pick rather than plucked with the fingers.
The plectrum banjo was born at the turn of the last century as the change in popular musical tastes forced banjo players to come up with new innovations and techniques for playing their favorite instrument. Many 5-string banjo players who performed with pop dance bands switched over to the plectrum-style in order to get more volume out of their instruments and better facilitate single-line melody work and chordal "comping." As the short thumb string was pretty much useless and a hindrance when it came to playing with a flat-pick, plectrum-style players simply removed the offending 5th string from their standard banjos. To capitalize on the new trend, banjo manufacturers developed a version of the standard banjo without the 5th string and marketed it as the plectrum banjo. The new banjo was tuned CGBD-- the same as the four long melody strings of the 5-string banjo in standard "C" tuning-- and its neck featured the same scale length as found on the regular 5-string banjo. This enabled 5-string banjo players to transition over to the plectrum without having to learn a whole new fingering system.
Conversely, the tenor banjo was an entirely different animal altogether. Like the plectrum banjo, the tenor banjo is a 4-string banjo specifically designed to played with a flat-pick. Where it parts company with its plectrum sibling is in its tuning: the tenor is tuned in fifths, like mandolin family and violin family instruments. The actual tuning is CGDA-- the same as the viola and cello in the violin family or the mandola and mando-cello in the mandolin family. To accommodate this tuning, the neck of the tenor is shorter than that of the plectrum. Whereas the plectrum neck has 22 frets, the tenor has 17 frets (the original short scale preferred by Irish-style players) or 19 frets (typically found on the later resonator models, introduced in the 1920s, favored by jazz, swing, and pop players).
The tenor banjo was first manufactured by the Chicago banjo maker J.B. Schall (1878-1907) in the early 1900s, following the designs of Prof. Louis Stepner, "the celebrated mandolin soloist." Schall originally marketed it to mandolin players wishing to crossover to the banjo "as the only Banjorine [banjo-mandolin] on the market that retains the true sound of the banjo." When the Argentinean tango hit the United States in 1914, the tenor was dubbed "The Tango Banjo" to reflect the new pop dance craze that was sweeping the world.
With the dawn of The Jazz Age, both the plectrum and tenor banjos were drafted as chordal rhythm instruments in dance bands. On through the 1930s, these two saw service in jazz, swing, and pop big bands, as well as in early country, western swing, blues, and ethnic vernacular string bands the world over. However, both instruments were also favored by soloists. Eventually, the sophisticated chord/melody style of playing emerged in which the melody line is delineated by basically playing a different chord for each melody note.
Of the two, the tenor banjo became especially popular with ethnic vernacular musicians around the globe who played it as a melody instrument using mandolin playing techniques. A case in point is the role of the tenor in traditional Irish music. From the 1920s on through the '50s, the tenor was used primarily as the middle voice in Irish ceili dance bands. In the countryside, it was often the only accompaniment for button accordion soloists playing for dancing. Irish tenor players typically put heavier strings on their instruments for a lower tuning, GDAE -- the standard tuning for the mandolin and violin-- making it sound an octave lower than the fiddle. By doing so, the tenor can play the same lines as the fiddle in a lower register.
-- Shlomo Pestcoe
Illustration Credits:
Banjoist, The Bessie Babbish Band, circa 1931. Detail, photographic postcard. (Collection of Shlomo Pestcoe) This lovely platinum blonde bombshell is strumming her Paramount Style "A" plectrum banjo. At her feet is a Roy Smeck plectrum Vita-Guitar, made by Harmony of Chicago. Note the highly distinctive Harmony "Aero-Bridge" designed to look like an airplane.
