Comment by Jody Stecher on November 4, 2022 at 18:40

Gibson banjos have various scales. The did make some with a 27 inch scale. Just over 26 is more typical. 

The *fretted* banjos Creed made had the 26 and a quarter scale.. 

Fretless banjos have any scale the player wants. Just slide the bridge. As I think I understand it  Creed's fretless banjos with the bridge in the middle would have been 26 and a quarter if the bridge was in the usual place much closer to the tailpiece.  

Creed tuned to A. So did the people who bought and played his fretless banjos. Tuning to A was a common thing when I began playing banjo in the late 1950s. It is not a new thing.  It is not a product of festival old-time jams. I met people who tuned to A decades before there were any festivals to jam at.

Comment by Jody Stecher on November 4, 2022 at 19:17

Metal banjo strings in the first 2/3 of the 20th century were of a very light gauge so tuning up a 26 or 27 inch scale fretted banjo a step higher than indicated on the string packages did not lead to extremely high tension and did not  endanger the banjo or the player or the strings themselves.

Comment by Jody Stecher on November 4, 2022 at 20:04

And now that I'm thinking about the old days when I was a teenager and first meeting banjo players I'm recalling that I even met a bluegrass banjo player or two who tuned a step up to A. This was the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s.

Comment by Jody Stecher on November 6, 2022 at 14:56

I guess by "down the neck" he meant what most players of string instruments call "up the neck".

 There is a reason to chose open or closed strings, and lower or upper frets. The tone quality is different.  In the style played by many  of Kyle Creed's Appalachian customers the open 5th string and it's equivalent on the fingered 1st string are often played in succession, rapidly alternating between them. The tonal contrast is lovely.

Both the historical record and living memory (including my own) indicate the prevalent use of high tuned banjos, including A tuning before Kyle Creed began building banjos.  But that doesn't mean Kyle Creed could not have independently discovered the possibility without being aware of a precedent.  I agree that it is not only not clear that he created the popularity of short scale length and A tuning, I think it is unlikely or impossible. I brought up the subject of Creed, his banjos, and his local music as evidence that short-scale A tuning for playing American old-time music did not originate in the milieu of festival jamming.  

By the way I just now thought of another high tuning: A flat/ G sharp tuning !   In the 50s and 60s some bluegrass bands would tune a half step high in the belief that it would help the music carry further and would sound better that way through a microphone both in recording studios and on stage.  

Comment by Jody Stecher on November 6, 2022 at 15:01

By the way, it may seem that this conversation is straying too far from the topic of "Classic Banjo".  The relevance is that most and possibly all techniques and styles of bluegrass and old-time banjo playing there is a precedent in the classic banjo field. 

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