Has anyone tried playing classic banjo with a radiused neck or a scalloped fingerboard? There was a discussion on Banjo Hangout some time ago that got me thinking it might make some chords easier to play when I have an arthritic day.

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Yes. I can't recall of any other examples of tunneled 5th strings in combination with the "vertical" tuner from the same period (1890's).

Here are some peg heads from Joseph Daniels banjos from the period. Each of these banjos has a tunneled high drone strings. The ones with 6 pegs are that way because the banjo had an "extra" bass string. 


Trapdoor2 said:

Yes. I can't recall of any other examples of tunneled 5th strings in combination with the "vertical" tuner from the same period (1890's).

LOL. That's why I said, "I can't recall..." because I knew someone would find examples.

Ok, I'll play idiot here. Why would a radiused fingerboard be more comfortable to play? One of my guitars is radiused and I
just find that it is different, neither better or worse, but part of the guitar's "persona". Of course, that may reflect my level of guitar playing. (I still tell people "my instrument" is a CD player!).

First of all it creates the feeling of having more space. Each string is on a different plane. There is no cramping with a radius. But there's more. Our fingers are also curved, not flat. I'll give the simplest easiest-to-understand example. Play a barre chord on a flat fingerboard. Not even the whole chord, just the flat index finger across the entire fingerboard. Now do the same thing on a radiused board. The middle strings are closer to your finger than on a flat board. But even the outside strings are easier to barre. Similarly they are easier to press with the tips on regular non-barre chords. Just try it and you'll see.  It makes no difference for non-harmonized melodies. But for chords involving four fingers and long stretches it makes a big difference.

Thomas Edgar said:

Ok, I'll play idiot here. Why would a radiused fingerboard be more comfortable to play? One of my guitars is radiused and I
just find that it is different, neither better or worse, but part of the guitar's "persona". Of course, that may reflect my level of guitar playing. (I still tell people "my instrument" is a CD player!).

Sounds like it would be easier playing for bottleneck blues technique--?

quite the opposite. You want the strings higher off the fingerboard for that, not lower. The radius in effect makes the middle strings closer to the board. .

Patrick Garner said:

Sounds like it would be easier playing for bottleneck blues technique--?

Sorry, can't visualize that. Wouldn't the distance from the top of fret to the string be identical? And the distance in-between frets from string to fingerboard be deeper? If so, bottle necking the scallop would make the technique simpler. (Of course I've never tried this, so you can go "Psst!" to my theorizing without bothering me. ) :-)

The question Thomas Edgar asked was  about radiused boards, not scalloped ones. 


Patrick Garner said:

Sorry, can't visualize that. Wouldn't the distance from the top of fret to the string be identical? And the distance in-between frets from string to fingerboard be deeper? If so, bottle necking the scallop would make the technique simpler. (Of course I've never tried this, so you can go "Psst!" to my theorizing without bothering me. ) :-)

I was working off his question that led the post, "Has anyone tried playing classic banjo with a radiused neck or a scalloped fingerboard?" [my emphasis]

The distance from string bottom to fret is uniform on a scalloped fingerboard, assuming well cut notches on bridge and nut.  It would be a nightmare to use a slide on a scalloped fingerboard because the action is very low on these. The slide (bottleneck or whatever) would collide with every fret. The only way the deep space between the frets would be advantageous for bottleneck is if the latter were somehow sliding on the underside of the string. but that would only work for the sonic space of a half step. then one would run into a hillside.

The distance from string bottom to fret on a radiused fingerboard is the same on instruments that also have a radiused bridge and carefully cut nut notches. Violin family instruments are like that. But on an instrument with a flat bridge and a curved fingerboard, the action is going to be lower at the apex of the hill and higher at the bottom. The banjo is like that. If the action is high enough that a slide can miss the frets, then there is, theoretically an advantage for slide playing and that is that the slide would not touch a string the player did not want it to touch. But the radius would have to be pretty extreme and if the action were high the comfort advantage of the radius would be lost.


Patrick Garner said:

I was working off his question that led the post, "Has anyone tried playing classic banjo with a radiused neck or a scalloped fingerboard?" [my emphasis]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Clear. Can't wait to get my hands on one of these. Great discussion.

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