Benji Flaming

Crestwood tuning (FAFCD)

This is my primary, or “default” solo banjo tuning. Most of the other tunings I work with are derived from it, and it is almost always the place I start from when I need to write or arrange a new solo banjo piece.

I arrived at this tuning by accident; when visiting relatives in California, I had my banjo in double-C tuning, and after a slight adjustment to the angle of the neck I found the instrument in a tuning very similar to this: FBbFCD. After some experimentation, I found that dropping the 4th string down from a Bb to an A made it very easy to build basslines in the key of F, with the open string and the 1st, 3rd, and 5th frets producing a “1”, “4”, “5”, and relative minor, respectively.

I ended up naming my first composition in this tuning after the street that my relatives lived on: “Crestwood”. I’ve since used this tuning in many other compositions and arrangements, but I still think of it as Crestwood tuning.

The following “sketches” and videos make use of this tuning:

Where to next?

Check out misc. banjo stuff
Explore my solo banjo tunings
Follow and support my work
Visit the homepage

Copyright © 1998-2024 Benjamin Flaming
All rights reserved.
This website does not use cookies.
Some 3rd-party music or video players
used here may set their own cookies.