Banjo tuner

Banjo tuning notes: open G, g D G B D

The small g is the short 5th string, written first because banjo strings are counted 5th to 1st. Strum open G and you hear a G major chord.

The other tunings on the switch

At A4 = 440 Hz; the reference switch above moves them all.

How to tune a banjo with this tuner

Pick the tuning on the switch, tap Start tuning and allow the microphone. Nothing to install: it runs in the browser on an Android phone, an iPhone or a laptop. The tuner asks for the strings in the row's order, 5th to 1st; tap any string to tune that one instead. Pluck it over the neck rather than by the bridge, close to the phone, and let it ring: the needle and the cents show how far off it is. Too low, tighten the peg; too high, loosen it. Come up to each note from a little below, so the peg ends on the pull. At five cents or closer, held for a moment, it ticks and moves on. With the microphone off, a tap on a string plays its note, to tune by ear.

The 5th string is the one people get wrong. It is the short string on top, nearest your chin, with its peg on the side of the neck at the 5th fret, and it is the highest note, G4, an octave above the open 3rd string. Pluck the drone while the 3rd string is asked for and, once it is within about half a semitone of G4, the tuner moves to the 5th. Further off it reads it as the 3rd string's G, so check that the 5th chip is lit before you turn that peg, and turn it in small steps: on a short string a small turn moves the pitch a long way. A banjo rings with bright overtones and every open string keeps sounding, so if the needle wanders, damp the strings you are not tuning with the side of your hand. Then go round all five again. Each string you tighten pulls on the neck and presses the bridge into the head, and the others move a few cents.

Electronic, clip-on or online banjo tuner

All three get a banjo in tune; they differ in what they hear. A headstock clip-on such as a Snark or a D'Addario Eclipse reads the vibration of the wood through a small sensor and hardly hears the room, which is why players keep one on the peghead at a jam. Some mount at the rim instead: D'Addario's Micro Banjo Tuner comes with a bracket that fixes it to the rim's brackets (listed at $22.99 on D'Addario's site in October 2026, calibration 410 to 480 Hz; one reviewer there had to modify one because the brackets on that banjo sat too far apart). A phone, a laptop or this page reads the air through the microphone and hears everything: tune in a quiet corner, the phone a hand's width from the head. A strobe tuner such as Peterson's claims a tenth of a cent, more than a banjo holds from one tune to the next; it earns its price when you set the bridge.

Whatever you buy or open, a digital banjo tuner needs three things: a chromatic mode that names any note, because open G has two G's and two D's an octave apart and the other tunings move them; a reference you can set, 440 Hz unless the band says otherwise; and a display you can read from where you hold the banjo.

4-string banjo tuner: tenor, Irish tenor, plectrum

A four-string banjo has no drone string. The tenor banjo, with 17 or 19 frets, is tuned in fifths, C3 G3 D4 A4, like a viola: that is the Tenor switch above. Low to high it is C G D A; a list that prints G C D A has two strings swapped. Irish players tune the same banjo G D A E, an octave below a fiddle (G2 D3 A3 E4), with heavier strings: the octave mandola switch on the mandola tuner has exactly those notes. The plectrum banjo has the long neck of a 5-string without the 5th string and is tuned C G B D (C3 G3 B3 D4): the 4th string on Double C, the other three on Open G. Some tenor and plectrum players use Chicago tuning, D G B E like a guitar's top four strings (D3 G3 B3 E4), which is a switch on the tenor guitar tuner. A banjo ukulele is tuned like a ukulele, G C E A: the banjolele tuner. A six-string banjo, the banjo guitar, is tuned like a guitar, E A D G B E: use the guitar tuner.

Every banjo tuning, and how to get it here

Sawmill, drop C and open C differ from a switch by one string, so this page tunes them too: tune the rest on the switch named, then that one string as the table says.

Bluegrass lives in open G and capos up from there. Old-time and clawhammer players retune per tune: double C for tunes in C and double D a whole step higher for tunes in D, sawmill for the modal, minor-sounding ones.

Tuning a banjo with a guitar tuner

A guitar tuner can tune a banjo in open G. The 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings are a guitar's D, G and B strings at exactly the same pitch (D3, G3, B3). The 1st and 5th strings are D and G an octave higher: a chromatic tuner reads them; a guitar-only string mode, which waits for E A D G B E at the guitar's octaves, may not.

How to tune a banjo by ear

Get the 4th string to D3 first: tap it above with the microphone off, or take a D from a piano or the tone generator (146.83 Hz). Then each string from one already in tune. In open G:

1. 3rd string: fret the 4th string at the 5th fret and play both. Turn the 3rd until the two G's stop wobbling against each other.
2. 2nd string: the 3rd string at the 4th fret is B.
3. 1st string: the 2nd string at the 3rd fret is D.
4. 5th string: the 1st string at the 5th fret is the high G. Not the 4th string at the 5th fret, as some guides say: that G is an octave lower.

Check the drone once more against the 3rd string at the 12th fret, the same G4. In double C the frets change: the 3rd string is the 4th at the 7th fret, the 2nd is the 3rd at the 5th, the 1st is the 2nd at the 2nd, and the drone is again the 1st at the 5th.

Capo and the 5th string

A capo on the long strings leaves the drone where it was. Capo at the 2nd fret for the key of A and the 5th string has to go up a whole step too, from G4 to A4 (440 Hz): tune it up with the peg, hook it under a railroad spike at the 7th fret, or use a 5th-string capo. Tune on this page with the capo off. Then, capo on, the any-note tuner shows how far the capo pulled each string sharp; a few cents is normal.

When the banjo won't stay in tune

The bridge moved

A banjo bridge isn't glued. The strings press it onto the head, and a string change, a knock or a big retune shifts it. Its place is set by the octave: the note at the 12th fret should read the same as the open string. Tune a string open, fret it at the 12th fret and watch the cents. Sharp, move the bridge a millimetre or two toward the tailpiece; flat, toward the neck. Keep it square to the strings, and change strings one at a time so it never falls.

The head went slack

The head is a drum skin, plastic on most banjos, and the bridge stands on it. A head that has loosened, or a calfskin head in damp air, lets the bridge sink: every string drops a little and the tone goes dull. The tension is set at the hooks around the rim, a small turn each, evenly all the way round; a shop does it in minutes if you never have.

New strings

New strings stretch for a day or two and keep going flat. Lift each one gently away from the fingerboard along its length, retune, and repeat until it holds.

Old strings and the weather

Strings that are dull, rusty or a year old stop holding pitch: change the set. Wood, the head and the strings move with temperature and humidity: a banjo carried from a cold car into a warm room drifts for a while, so let it settle before you tune, and keep it in its case between sessions.

Pegs that slip

Geared pegs rarely slip; old friction pegs, often the 5th, do. Most have a screw in the end of the button: a quarter turn tighter and they hold. Finish every tuning on the way up, so the gear sits against the pull.

Banjo tuners, the pegs

Banjo players also call the pegs tuners. Most 5-string banjos have planetary pegs that point straight back from the peghead, with a small gear inside the barrel, usually 4:1: four turns of the button for one of the post, so a quarter turn moves the pitch further than on a guitar. Cheaper banjos use guitar-style machines on the sides, a worm gear that turns the post far more slowly. The 5th-string peg sits in the neck at the 5th fret and is sold on its own, from Gotoh among others. Before you order replacements, measure the hole in the peghead and how far the old peg stands out; a set that matches needs no drilling.

D-tuners

Cam pegs such as Keith or Scruggs tuners drop a string to a preset note and back: turn the button from one stop to the other. They sit most often on the 2nd string, B to A, and the 3rd, G to F♯. Set the stops with this tuner: the upper stop on Open G, the lower one against the 3rd and 2nd strings of Open D (F♯3 and A3).

The notes you tuned go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat.