Foggy Mountain Breakdown
So okay … admittedly I’m a Slow Learner, one of those yahoos who apparently makes the same mistake repeatedly and goes ahead one more time, hoping, I guess, the previous mistakes were all flukes. I’m building my 4th or 5th banjo, not sure exactly but somewhere in that ballpark, hard to say since some were taken apart and cannibalized for the next attempt at 5 string luthiery. I know what you’re thinking because my folks ask it every time the subject comes up: how many damn banjos do you need? Give me a year or seven and I’ll get back to you on this, right after my doctoral thesis is accepted on the Quantification of Drone Stringed Instrumentation.
I’m actually taking a bit of a break right this minute on the current banjovarius. I’m trying to fit the neck to its body for good playability. I won’t bore you with details — so let’s just say it’s really difficult and I’m fairly frustrated. The thing is beautiful, I’ll tell you that flat out. Laminated hardwoods, walnut and Honduran mahogany and bubinga, a neck carved by a sculptress up the road, gold hardware, a work of wood art I could hang on the wall with all the others. But! It’s a musical instrument, not a sculpture. It needs to play well and sound good. Fitting that neck is really a big part of the Key.
I read today that they blindfolded a pack of violinists, professional fiddlers, and gave them a Stradivarius … plus an inexpensive newly built violin … and asked them which sounded the best, the multi-million dollar Strad or the $30,000 newly crafted one. If you own a multi-million dollar Stradivarius, stop reading right now and get your butt down to the nearest pawn shop ASAP and salvage what you can.
A banjo — well, a banjo pretty much sounds like a banjo. At least mine do. Every last one. But for the connoisseur, for the orchestral banjo aficionado, for the fine tuned elite whose sensibilities are measured in harmonic undertones and percussive rhythmics, let’s assume we merely have to blindfold them to dazzle them with the Yankee Daddle 5 String Deluxe. Beauty, after all, is in the ear of the Bewildered.
Hits: 90572