Parts of the Banjo & the Fifth String
Step 1 of 10 · Beginner Banjo Path
Meet the pot, head, and floating bridge — and the short drone string that starts at the 5th fret.
What you'll learn
- Name the pot, head, tension hooks, floating bridge, tailpiece, and resonator
- Know why a drum head gives the banjo its punch
- Understand the short fifth string: starts at fret 5, tuned to a high g
- Know the drone's job — the thumb keeps it ringing through every roll
A banjo is a drum with a neck — and that one fact explains the sound. Get to know the map before you play:
- Pot & head — the round body (the pot, built on a wooden or metal rim) is topped by a drum head, tensioned by a hoop and a ring of hooks. The strings drive the head, the head barks — that is the banjo's punch.
- Bridge & tailpiece — the bridge is floating: nothing but string pressure holds it to the head, and the tailpiece anchors the strings behind it. (Remember that when you change strings — do it one at a time.)
- Resonator or open back — a resonator plate throws the sound forward and is the bluegrass standard; an open-back is mellower, the old-time choice. Either one works for this path.
- Neck, frets & tuners — the same job as on any fretted instrument: press a string just behind a fret to sound a higher note.
Now the famous oddball: the short fifth string. It starts at the 5th fret, where its own tuner peg sticks out of the side of the neck, and it is tuned to a high g — the highest-pitched string on the instrument, even though it sits nearest your chin. You will almost never fret it. It is a drone: your thumb strikes it over and over inside every roll, ringing that high g against whatever chord you hold — and that drone is the sound people mean when they say "banjo". The banjo hub collects everything on the site for your instrument, and the banjo gear guides go deep on rims, heads, bridges, and resonators.