GDAE tuning

Irish tenor banjo

The tenor banjo is a transposing instrument: written at fiddle pitch, sounding an octave lower. Everything here is drawn for GDAE, the Irish tuning, at the written pitch every published banjo book uses.

An Irish tenor banjo photographed from above on cream linen
Tune tabs2701 tunes as GDAE tablature, each on its own page with playback and the ABC source.TunerA microphone tuner in the page, reference tones for every string, and the tuning explained.ChordsEvery chord Irish music actually uses, worked out from the tuning, with the modal vocabulary.ScalesTwelve keys and modes as charts on one page, with the chords for each and pentatonic shapes.ABC converterPaste any ABC notation and get tab for this instrument. Runs in your browser, nothing uploaded.How to read tabEach number is a fret, each line a string. The whole system explained on one page.

Guides

Written for the questions people actually ask, from "is it hard?" to which strings and which pick.

Is the tenor banjo hard to learn?Buying a first tenor banjo4-string vs 5-string, which banjo is which17 frets or 19?Which pick for Irish banjoGDAE or CGDA tuningPicking patternsIs the banjo Irish?

Where to start

Get in tune first, then pick one easy tune and live with it for a week. The tuner runs in the page, the jigs are the friendliest place to begin, and when a tune fights back, the tab on every tune page slows down and plays along with you.