The goal of head tightening is to find the tension that produces the combination of sound quality and responsiveness that works for you. When you find this magic spot it's good to figure out what note the head is tuned to so you can maintain it or do it again with a new head. It's also important to be able to check if the head is tightening evenly.

Here's how to do this. You need to tap on the head very close to the stretcher band. The note will change farther in and be very difficult to hear clearly. I use my right index finger with a finger pick on it to do the tapping. Tap about ½ an inch or so from the edge. When I say “tap” I mean strike the head sharply with your finger and then pick it up immediately so you can hear the tome pruduces. You should hear a fairly clear though not loud note. Keep trying until you can do this.

This note should be close to the sound of the 1 st string between the 5th and 7th frets. The range most people shoot for is between G at the 5th fret and A at the 7th fret. You may need to compare the tapped note to the fretted note several times until you start to hear how the both sound together. You can tune the head further to hit a specific note or use this method to find the note the head is tuned to so you can accurately reproduce it later. I usually tap the head in front of a bracket. To check if the head is tightened evenly go around the head tapping every by every other bracket or so to see if you hear the same note each time. The odds are that you will hear some variation. Getting the head evenly tightened really improves the overall sound so give it a try.

There's another subject that comes up frequently in connection with tuning the head. This involves tuning the tone chamber by modifying the depth of the resonator. Different banjo makers do design them with resonators that are deeper or shallower than others as well as have the inside of the back curved or straight. My feeling is that a quality banjo has a particular sound that the maker intended so if you don't like it you shouldn't have bought it. I don't think too many of the lucky owners of original Gibson flatheads from the late 30's are playing with their resonators to get more sound out of them.

Having said that, I did experiment with this in the 70's after talking to Eddie Adcock who did it for years. I used washers to go between the brackets on the resonator for the screws and the bottom of the flange. If you tape them to the bracket and poke a hole for the screw to go through they won't fall off every time you take the resonator off. A couple of them do produce a different sound that is basically louder than before they were installed. Given the volume of a good banjo properly setup and the quality of microphone and sound equipment today volume is rarely an issue. Try it for yourself if you think it might improve your sound.