Dee or Eee

[Tim Twiss]

What pitch are most of you using for your instrument, and why? I usually kept mine in D. I recently took one of them up to E. I am finding a good result with this change. It seems to help with my intonation, possibly due to the increased tension. It also produces a much clearer and tighter tone. I keep the tackhead in D. It is also nice to have two instruments in two keys for vocal reasons.

[John Masciale]

I normally tune to D, primarily because I play with other instruments, and D/G is more popular and common than E/A. I sometimes move my gourd banjo up to E, and leave the other in D so that I can cover more keys.

[Trapdoor2]

Same here. Example: last night I played at a jam where we're working with "Mick Ryan's Lament" (it is set to the tune of Garryowen). I've been playing it on a 'regular' banjo but since the tune is in the key of D, I thought I might be able to do it on the Ashborn. Worked nicely and gives the tune a different (better) feel.

Of course, the jam moved on and we spent most of the evening in A...I should have just tuned it up to E/A!

[Steven Hedgpeth]

I've been wondering exactly this kind of thing since I play with fiddle players and would like to introduce some of these tunes into our repertoire. For St Patrick's day I was working on some of the Irish-sounding tunes but couldn't figure out what key they should be in for a fiddler who retunes for G, cross-G, A, and D. For example, "My Love is But a Lassie" has three sharps on the notation Mr. Twiss posted. My mother tells me that this is the key of A. But does that mean that the tune should be in A to lay right on the fiddle (tuned to A)? Or would it be better in D or G? Do any of you play fiddle enough to know a principle regarding which key to introduce a minstrel tune to an OT fidder in?

Some of tunes, like "Sandy Boy(s)," "Fisher's Hornpipe," "Boatman Dance," etc., are already in specific keys for fiddle-based groups. I'm wondering about the other ones that present-day OT fiddlers don't generally play, like "Bully for You," "Callowhill Jig," "Jake Bacchus' Reel," and such.

Incidentally, I played my Irishy-sounding tunes as solo interludes on our St. Patrick's Day gig.... Not bad as solo banjo pieces. Gave the set more variety, and one of my fiddlers identified the B part of "My Love is But a Lassie" with a tune called "Too Young to Marry" and "Midnight Serenade."

[Steven Hedgpeth]

I didn't mean to interrupt the responses with a tangential question. I'm relatively new to minstrel banjo, so my answer is probably irrelevant. However, for minstrel tunes, I tune to the recording I'm learning from or just tune irrespective of key. No set pitch here when not playing with others. I like the tunes low, "grumbling," about where the strings start buzzing. So low I have to tape my strings down because they come off the bridge when I pop them.