Bridge heights…

[Classic Banjo]

…pure curiosity.

Those here playing vintage instruments, possibly with period style smaller bridges, what is your preferred bridge height? 

[Jody Stecher]

The bridge height depends on the neck angle and on the desired sound.  For a banjo set up for classic banjo playing a height of half an inch is usually right. On zither-banjo I have used higher and lower according to what makes for medium action.  For other genres of music I have used five eighths of an inch, 11/16th of an inch, and I've played a banjo with a three quarters of an inch bridge that was easy to play and sounded good.    The bridge height effects the ease of left hand fingering on the higher frets but also it affects the tone as a steeper angle between bridge and tailpiece creates a different sound than a gentle slope produces.

[Joel Hooks]

Historically, 1/2" was the golden standard for regular 5 string banjo.  There was a time in the late 1870s-1880s where for stroke style or "thimble style" playing it was fashionable to use a lower and very narrow bridge.  But for fingerstyle or "guitar style" as it was called, 1/2" was it.

The neck back angle was first used in combination with a taller bridge exclusively for wire strings and plectrum playing.  The wire strings were less elastic and a lower "action" worked best for that.  The taller bridge at 5/8" was to allow for more clearance so that the pick or plectrum would not scrape the head.

Gibson was a company that focused on plectrum played instruments. The regular banjos that were produced by that company were plectrum banjos that had 5 string necks.  Post WW2, it turned out that the plectrum banjo set up worked very well when played with Hawaiian guitar picks.  And here we are today.

For all of the "classic banjo" period (including most of the stroke style period) a neck set flat with no back angle was the standard.  A 1/2" bridge in this provides 3/16" to 1/4" action at the 12th fret.  While considered high compared to wire string banjos, this gives plenty of clearance for the strings to vibrate without buzzing when played at concert volume. 

There were exceptions to this rule.  Some professional banjoists preferred a slightly taller bridge than 1/2"-  Notably D. E. Hartnett who used a taller bridge in combination with his tone bar.  Farland, after moving to plectrum playing after his repetitive motion issues also moved to a taller bridge with silk or rayon strings. 

For me, 1/2" (and even slightly lower) is ideal for fingerstyle.  5/8" is fine for some banjos but is the absolute max height for me.  I suppose if one were floating their hand in the Segovia school of playing (also Frank Converse, Albert Baur, and Joe Morley) then bridge height would not matter. 

If you are looking for advice on clawhammer playing, best head on over to the BHO where there is a very active old time group.