Stelling's Approval & Banjo Intonation

We got approval from Geoff Stelling to use the Stelling Trademarked logo and banjo design (flange and peghead design) for our 23' banjo sign. This is so exciting!!! Terry and I have some more work to do before it's ready to be put up, but it's more than half way done. I am hoping that we can get it up within two weeks, but you never know...

While I'm thinking about it, I want to mention something about instruments playing in tune. James came and saw me last week, and he's certainly not the first to talk about this, but we were discussing the intonation of his banjo. I think it's a common misconception that instruments are perfect in pitch and that electronic tuners will tune them perfectly. In reality, neither of these two statements is true. For instance, James and I noticed that after tuning the 3rd string to the tuner, we then changed the pitch slightly and the tuner still read the same. We could both hear a slight difference, but the tuner did not reflect this. Secondly, after tuning the banjo to the tuner and re-checking bridge placement, not all the strings were perfectly in tune when using the string to string tuning method. This is especially true with 2nd and 3rd strings on all banjos, in general. Some banjos are better than others, even within the same model and brand, and some brands (like Stelling, which compensates the nut) make adjustments on their banjos to try to correct this.

Anyway, this out of tune G string was driving James crazy. It's the kind of thing when you hear it, you just start listening for it and you can't seem to concentrate on anything except waiting for that out of tune string to be played again. These are the suggestions I made to James, and I would make these to anyone that is concerned with banjo intonation:

1. First off, make sure you're not using old strings.
2. When fretting, put your finger as close to the fret as possible.
3. Don't use more pressure than necessary to fret the string.
4. Change to a thicker gauge of strings. These won't be as sensitive to stretching or pulling.
5. Make sure you are not pushing or pulling the string up or down as you fret.
6. Most important - don't rely entirely upon your tuner to tune your instrument. On a banjo, the 2nd string when fretted at the 3rd fret is inherently sharp when compared to the 1st string open. Tune the 2nd string down slightly so that when fretted at the 3rd fret, it matches the 1st string open. There are too many songs that use that fret position for it to not match the 1st string. The 3rd string also tends to be sharp, which is the very reason why compensated bridges came into being. A compensated bridge can help somewhat, but you will probably also have to do some pitch adjustment when tuning. I try to go up slightly with one string and down slightly with another to get a "happy medium."

Hopefully, these tips will help out anyone who is experiencing intonation problems.

We had a good jam last night, but I don't have time right now to write about it. I'll post about it later this week.