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50 free Banjo trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Banjo trivia follows an instrument from West African gourd lutes to Grammy stages. Enslaved Africans built the first banzas in the Caribbean and American South from calabashes and goatskin; a Virginia minstrel named Joel Sweeney took the instrument on stage in the 1830s and is credited with the short fifth string; by 1866 New York had an estimated ten thousand banjos and the country was in the grip of 'banjo mania'. This quiz covers the etymology and the akonting, the minstrel, classic and Jazz Age eras, the difference between five-string, tenor and plectrum banjos, clawhammer versus three-finger picking, the reentrant tuning and the fifth-string capo, the resonator and tone ring, and the twentieth-century revival: Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and The Beverly Hillbillies, Pete Seeger's long-neck banjo and its slogan, Dueling Banjos and Deliverance, Béla Fleck's Grammys, Steve Martin's prize, George Formby's banjolele and the tenor banjo in Irish sessions. Easy questions suit anyone who has heard a bluegrass roll; the expert tier is for pickers. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the banjo, its players and its styles, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is stretched over the frame of a banjo to make it sound?
A thin membrane, or head
Early heads were goat skin; modern ones are usually BOPET plastic film.
Q 02Where do the earliest forms of the banjo come from?
Enslaved Africans in the Americas
They were built from split gourds with animal skins stretched across them and gut or fibre strings.
Q 03Which West African gourd-bodied lute with a short drone string is a likely relative of the banjo?
The akonting
It is played by the Jola people of Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau; its short 'thumb string' mirrors the banjo's fifth string.
Q 04The Mandinka phrase 'ban julo', a proposed root of 'banjo', also gives the name of which capital city?
Banjul
It refers to the bamboo neck of the akonting; another theory traces 'banjo' to the Kimbundu word mbanza.
Q 05What fruit did early Caribbean players cut in half to make the body of a banza?
A calabash gourd
A former Saint-Domingue planter described the goatskin nailed over it and three strings of agave fibre.
Q 06Which Virginia minstrel performer is credited with popularising the five-string banjo in the 1830s?
Joel Walker Sweeney
He learned from enslaved people near Appomattox and became the first white performer to play banjo on stage.
Q 07Which Baltimore drum maker did Sweeney persuade to manufacture banjos commercially?
William Boucher
The move marked the shift from home-made folk instruments to a modern commercial product.
Q 08Which touring group introduced the banjo to Britain in the 1840s?
The Virginia Minstrels
It became hugely popular in the music halls.
Q 09How many banjos were estimated to be in New York City in 1866, up from a handful in 1844?
About 10,000
The 'banjo craze' was fed by minstrel, medicine, Wild West and vaudeville shows, and by soldiers in the Civil War.
Q 10What was the first instruction method for the instrument, published in 1855?
Briggs' Banjo Instructor
It taught the 'stroke style', ancestor of today's clawhammer.
Q 11The finger style of playing, dominant by 1870, was first taught in a method by whom?
Frank B. Converse
Players used the thumb and two or three fingers, resting the little finger on the head near the bridge.
Q 12What was the aim of banjo 'elevators' such as William Huntley and S. S. Stewart in the 1880s?
To make it respectable, on European standards
An 1888 newspaper reported that 'all the maidens' were strumming and banjo recitals were the newest fashion.
Q 13Which two four-string banjos, played with a pick, emerged in the ragtime and jazz eras?
Tenor and plectrum
Q 21What is another common name for the clawhammer style?
Frailing
It is a mainstay of American old-time music.
Q 22Who is regarded as the father of the bluegrass style of banjo playing?
Earl Scruggs
His three-finger picking, aired nationally on the Grand Ole Opry in 1945, lifted the banjo from rhythm to solo instrument.
Q 23In whose band, the Blue Grass Boys, did Scruggs develop the three-finger style that bears his name?
Bill Monroe
'Bluegrass' became the name of a whole genre; Scruggs quit in 1948, worn out by touring.
Shorter necks and steel strings helped them cut through brass and reeds in the dance halls.
Q 14The tenor banjo has become an intrinsic part of which folk tradition, though a relative newcomer?
Irish
Players use a pick to play single-note melodies rather than strummed chords.
Q 15What is the metal assembly in most modern banjos that clarifies and projects the sound?
The tone ring
Many older banjos lack one; the body itself is called the 'pot'.
Q 16What is the plate on the back of some banjos that projects sound forward called?
A resonator
Resonator banjos dominate bluegrass; open-back banjos are lighter and mellower.
Q 17Where does the short fifth string of a five-string banjo begin?
The 5th fret
It is three-quarters the length of the others and tuned higher, giving the banjo a reentrant tuning.
Q 18What hardware-store item do many banjo players install at the seventh fret as a fifth-string capo?
Model-railroad spikes
The string is hooked under the spike to press it to the fret.
Q 19What is the most common five-string banjo tuning, especially in bluegrass?
Open G
Written G4 D3 G3 B3 D4; the older G C G B D 'C tuning' is still preferred for some styles.
Q 20In clawhammer style, how are the main strings struck?
Downward, with the back of the fingernail
The thumb catches the fifth string with a lifting motion, usually on the off-beat.
Q 24With which guitarist did Scruggs form his famous duo after leaving Monroe?
Lester Flatt
Flatt and Scruggs recorded more than 50 albums over 20 years before splitting in 1969.
Q 25Which Scruggs instrumental, recorded in 1949, was revived by the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde?
'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'
It won two Grammys and entered the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2005.
Q 26Flatt and Scruggs's first chart-topping hit was the theme to which TV sitcom?
The Beverly Hillbillies
'The Ballad of Jed Clampett' carried bluegrass into mainstream American living rooms in the early 1960s.
Q 27Scruggs-style banjo is played with picks on which fingers?
Thumb, index and middle
The ring and little fingers are braced against the head; the technique was first recorded in 1946.
Q 28What are 'rolls' in five-string banjo playing?
Right-hand picking patterns of eight notes per bar
Rolls and drone notes on the short fifth string are idiomatic to the instrument and define the bluegrass sound.
Q 29Whose book How to Play the Five-String Banjo was for years the only banjo method on the market?
Pete Seeger
He learned finger styles in Appalachia and inspired players like Dave Guard of the Kingston Trio.
Q 30The 'long-neck' banjo invented by a famous folk singer differs from a standard one how?
It is three frets longer and tuned a minor third lower
At 25 frets it is slightly longer than a bass guitar, and it suits singing keys comfortable for folk guitarists.