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The banjo has something no other string instrument has: its resonator is not a wooden plate but a membrane.

A skin (traditionally goatskin, now usually synthetic) is stretched over a circular rim, the strings press their vibration onto that skin, and the skin pushes it into the air. That one fact decides all of its sound — bright, explosive and short.

It also has a counter-intuitive piece of design: the fifth of its five strings is a short one, pitched *higher* than the fourth, and used almost purely as a drone. That is the same kind of idea as the ukulele's re-entrant tuning.

⚠️ One conceptual point: in Hornbostel–Sachs the banjo is a chordophone, not a membranophone. The test is what vibrates to make the sound: the string is the source; the membrane amplifies and colours it. A timpani is a membranophone (the membrane *is* the source); a banjo is not — a common line to get wrong in the HS system.

Structure: a circular body and a short string

Three points:

1. The circular body is a drum. The head is stretched over a rim and tensioned by twenty-odd hooks. The strings press their vibration onto it through the bridge — the head is the amplifier, so a banjo needs no "soundhole": the whole head radiates. 2. The fifth string is short. Its tuning peg sits at the fifth fret rather than on the headstock, so the string can be stopped no higher than fret 5. Its job is to be a drone, supplying a fixed high G4 inside rolls — the same family of idea as the ukulele's re-entrant tuning: one string that stays out of the melody and only adds colour. 3. A long neck and many frets. The neck is longer than a guitar's and the strings are thin and lightly tensioned, so it moves very fast — the physical precondition for bluegrass's dense patterns.

Tuning (fifth string to first): G4 – D3 – G3 – B3 – D4. Struck open, they spell a G major chord, hence "open G". Two relatives matter:

Note that the tenor banjo is tuned in perfect fifths (C–G–D–A) — the viola's logic. That is why it became a fixture of Irish traditional music: same tuning as the fiddle, so the fingerings transfer.

How it sounds: why a membrane "cracks"

The difference between membrane and plate comes down to four quantities:

The four form one causal chain: light plus damped means lots of high frequency and no tail. So a banjo sounds piercingly bright and as short as a tap, with a particularly thin bass (small head, and low frequencies cannot be held).

That also explains why it works so well in bluegrass and Irish traditional music: those repertoires want rhythmic clarity, not harmonic weight. A note that cracks out cleanly is exactly what it offers.

Range

最低的 D3 是第 4 弦空弦；最高按第 1 弦（D4）上到高把位约两个八度计算，随品格数不同。第 5 弦是短弦，空弦为 G4。

The range is narrow (about three octaves) but its use is unusual:

• The bass runs only D3 to G3 (strings 4 and 3). A banjo has no real bass — which is why it does not carry the bass part in an ensemble.
• The fifth string (G4) is a fixed high line. It stays out of the melody, but in a roll it sounds once per cycle, giving the shimmer — exactly the role of the ukulele's high G.
• The working register sits in the upper middle (D4–D5), because melodies run on strings 1 and 2.

Timbre, and how to hear it

Four cues:

1. An explosive attack. The pluck lands with a sharp "crack", far more pronounced than a guitar's — the head being set in motion at once. 2. A very short tail. The note leaves almost as soon as it arrives, so fast passagework never smears; it beads instead. 3. A thin bottom. There is no solid low end; the instrument always seems to hang above the music. 4. Extreme sensitivity to humidity. Weather changes head tension, which changes intonation and timbre together. Players retune before playing and sometimes adjust the head itself — nothing a guitarist needs to think about.

The tracks under “Listen in the library” are single-line traditional dance tunes (nothing in the library can be confirmed as banjo music); timbre comes from the player above.

Playing techniques

The right hand splits into two schools that differ not just in hand shape but in musical language:

• Clawhammer (frailing): the back of the hand faces out and the nails strike downwards, with the thumb then catching the fifth string — the "old-time" sound. Strongly rhythmic, harmonically simple, used for songs and dancing.
• Scruggs style (three-finger rolls): thumb, index and middle finger (usually with picks) alternate in fixed patterns to make rolls — the bluegrass sound. Fast and densely grained, able to run a melody while keeping the rhythm going.

Both depend heavily on the fifth string's drone: clawhammer takes it with the thumb, and rolls insert it in every pattern. It is fair to say that without the fifth string the banjo's styles would not exist.

The rest of the technique is shared with the guitar family — slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs — but the strings are thin and lightly tensioned, so bends are smaller and slides are slicker.

The family

One comparison worth noting: the banjo and the ukulele both use "re-entrant tuning plus one high string" (the banjo's short fifth, the ukulele's fourth) — and they come from completely different traditions (West Africa via North America; Portugal via Hawaiʻi), yet both landed independently on the same design. That is not coincidence: a fixed high string is the general-purpose way for a small plucked instrument to make its harmony sound bright.

History

Common misconceptions

• "The banjo is a membranophone." In Hornbostel–Sachs it is a chordophone. The test is what vibrates to make the sound: the string is the source, the membrane only amplifies. A timpani is a membranophone; a banjo is not.
• "The fifth string is short to save material." That short string is deliberate design: open it sounds G4, higher than the fourth string, expressly as a drone. Without it neither clawhammer nor rolls would exist.
• "More strings means a thicker sound." A banjo has five strings and no bass: a small head cannot hold low frequencies. Thickness comes from the resonator, not the string count.
• "It is more or less a guitar." One resonator is a membrane, the other a plate, and the decay curves differ completely (see the second diagram). Their roles in an ensemble differ for the same reason.
• "There is only one tuning." Five-string banjos use open G, double C, sawmill and more; tenor banjos are tuned in fifths; banjoleles match a ukulele. The family's internal variety is large.
• "Tune it once and you are done." The head is humidity-sensitive and its tension drifts. Banjo players check intonation more often than guitarists, and sometimes adjust the head itself.

Next

That completes all 14 entries of I1 (Western strings). To follow the "membrane" thread further: the same family includes the Middle Eastern daf and the Japanese taiko (covered with world instruments). For "re-entrant tuning", the ukulele entry covers it in most detail. :::

Sources

• 结构依通行制琴资料：圆形琴体（鼓面直径约 280 毫米）、一层膜（羊皮或合成材料）、音环与二十余枚张力钩，五弦
• 「五弦班卓的开放 G 定弦自第 5 弦到第 1 弦为 G4–D3–G3–B3–D4，第 5 弦是短弦（弦轴装在第五品处），音高高于第 4 弦」依通行调弦资料
• 「四弦高音班卓琴（tenor）定弦 C–G–D–A（纯五度）」「班卓里里（banjolele）定弦与尤克里里相同 G–C–E–A」依通行资料
• 起源自西非的拨弦乐器、经大西洋奴隶贸易传入北美，19 世纪在美国普及，20 世纪成为蓝草音乐的核心乐器，依通行乐器史
• ⚠️ 库内没有标题或作曲家可确认为班卓琴的曲目 —— 本条给出的是传统单声部舞曲（班卓琴最典型的用途之一），音色由试听件负责

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.