The Banjo Guru

Earl Scruggs learned to play the 5-string banjo on an instrument that belonged to his older brother Junie.  The banjo did not always stay in tune well, and the young virtuoso found himself having to retune mid-song.  Scruggs’s musical inventiveness took it from there, and he soon adapted that mid-song tuning sound into his developing style.  After recording his first tuner instrumental Earl’s Breakdown in 1951, Scruggs decided a little mechanical help would make playing a lot easier.  He installed a pair of cams onto his banjo peghead that raised and lowered the second and third strings to preset pitches.  The most common settings are for the second string to lower from B to A and the third string to lower from G to F#, moving the banjo from G tuning to D tuning and giving the devices the common name “D-tuners”. 

Scruggs’s new innovation was soon featured in such instrumentals as Flint Hill Special, Foggy Mountain Chimes, and Randy Lynn Rag.  D-tuners soon became required equipment for any aspiring bluegrass banjoist.  Melodic banjo pioneer Bill Keith took things the next step with a design that incorporated conventional second- and third-string tuners and the stop-setting mechanism in one unit, making it no longer necessary to drill extra holes in the peghead.  Keith tuners became the standard in the banjo world with over 30,000 sold to date and are still manufactured by Bill Keith in Woodstock, New York.  Players seeking the unique feel and sound of traditional cam-type tuners now have another option available in a new product called Cheat-A-Keys, which use the cam mechanism but are easily interchangeable between banjos and don’t require alteration of the peghead.