Zither-banjo

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Source: Samuel1911 (A CD-ROM ebook facsimile of the source is available from my eBay store. The ebook includes - among other things - a version of the picture with a higher resolution than the ones available online.)

Key data Main category: Instrument Instrument code: bjz Nationality: USA / England Languages: En main, No main

A closed-back banjo popular in England and to some extent the USA during the late 19th and early 20th century. The first closed-back banjo was patented by William Temlett 20th November 1869. In 1888 Alfred Cammeyer introduced an improved version in New York and also came up with the name zither-banjo for the instrument.

The zither-banjo is very different in construction and sound from a modern resonator banjo. Instead of a rim and resonator it has a one-piece cylindrical round body with a number of Z-brackets screwed to the upper edge and reaching down an inch or two, with tapped holes in the horizontal part. The "banjo" bit consists of a flanged, cast-metal "tone-ring" and a cast-metal "bezel", which acts as the tension hoop.
Flange and bezel have matching holes, through which screws are passed to screw into the bracket feet. The flange of the tone ring sits on the brackets, and the tension of the screws draws the bezel down over it, tightening the head, which has a normal flesh-hoop and is considerably smaller than on a regular banjo (typically 8 to 9 inches) and mounted onto z-brackets across the opening of the body. The neck and the body are glued together, like on a guitar.

The zither-banjo was instroduced during one of the periods when the five-stringed banjo was the best known banjo type. Therefore most zither-banjos were five-stringers. There were however also four-stringed tenor banjo models, six-stringed guitar-banjo models, small eight-stringed mandolin-banjo models and even unique six- and seven-stringed zither-banjos with thumb string. The mandolin-banjo version survived long after zither-banjos went out of fashion and were common from East-European manufacturers at least until the 1990s.

One unusual feature of thumbstring-equipped zither-banjos is that all the tuners are mounted at the (Spanish guitar style) peghead. The thumbstring is led through a tube inside the fretboard from the fifth fret up to the peghead. Five-string zither-banjos often have six tuners. Allegedly the reduntant tuner was there to give the peghead a more balanced look

The regular five-stringed zither-banjo is typically fitted with a combination of metal and gut (or nylon) strings: first, second and fifth strings are metal while the third and fourth are gut or nylon. It seems Cammeyer is the one who came up with this configuration that gives the instrument a more sustained, ringin tone quite different from a regular banjo. Cammeyer may also have been the one who came up with the slightly unusual right hand technique: strings are plucked with the nails of the index and middle fingers and with the flesh (not the nail!) of the side of the thumb.

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Instruments family tree

• Zither-banjo

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Technical data

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Tunings

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• Instrument gallery

Extrenal links

• http://www.zither-banjo.org/ ()

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