Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamp Yankee
...I've even changed some of my vintage 17 fret tenor banjos over to nylgut strings and tuned them to high G tuning. With 11" pots, they really sound great!
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Take one of those tenors and set it up with steel strings, in drop-G tenor uke tuning (GCEA low-to-high); fairly common in the 1920's among uke players making the switch to banjo in the name of financial gain (there was significant demand for banjoists in jazz bands at the time), it lost popularity with the rise of the archtop guitar in the early-30's and is all but forgotten today - TMK Chuck Romanoff of Schooner Fare is the sole active proponent. I have a Deering Boston 19-fret tenor set up this way and it's an extremely versatile tuning, covering much of the range of fiddle and mandolin (you do lose a few notes at the bottom end compared to standard CGDA tenor banjo tuning); I've used mine as an alternate lead instrument for Irish music (makes a great contrast to the traditional GDAE Irish banjo) as well as folk, chanteys, trad-jazz (most listeners will never miss the lower notes when you're playing straight rhythm), even as a substitute for a samisen at a school chorus performance - and anyone who says you can't fingerpick a tenor banjo needs to give this one a try...