{"id":2874,"date":"2014-12-21T18:26:58","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T23:26:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=2874"},"modified":"2014-12-21T18:29:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T23:29:32","slug":"banjos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=2874","title":{"rendered":"banjos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have a checkered history of experiments with banjo-family instruments, the most recent episode of which features the current New Instrument, a rare bird indeed: a 1923 5-string plectrum Vega, just arrived from Gryphon in Palo Alto. It&#8217;s essentially a tenor banjo, but 5-course instead of 4-course, and with a longer scale (27&#8243;) than most tenors, and tuned lower. So perhaps a baritone.<\/p>\n<p>\nI tripped over it on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gryphonstrings.com\/\">the Gryphon website<\/a>, which I visit from time to time, usually about the time that a new issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fretboardjournal.com\/\">Fretboard Journal<\/a> arrives (and of course I stop by Gryphon whenever I&#8217;m in Palo Alto). <\/p>\n<p>\nLarry Chung plays the very instrument in this YouTube video:<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b--dgaNot6k\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><br \/>\n(his approach is essentially plectral and tenorish; I tune it differently (GDGCF) and am exploring a fingerpicking style, derived from what I&#8217;ve been doing with the Apollonio cittern, which is tuned CGCFBb)<\/p>\n<p>\nThere&#8217;s pictorial evidence of former encounters with the family: a brief 5-string flirtation 1973, and the mandobanjo at Deep Gap 1979 (which started my own case of Mando Madness):<center><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/326678235\" title=\"Brief Flirtation with the Banjo by Hugh Blackmer, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/144\/326678235_4effedfc3f_m.jpg\" width=\"159\" height=\"240\" alt=\"Brief Flirtation with the Banjo\"><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/blackmerh\/4552260265\" title=\"mandobanjo in Deep Gap NC, 1979 by Hugh Blackmer, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1371\/4552260265_1d6fb87c72_m.jpg\" width=\"159\" height=\"240\" alt=\"mandobanjo in Deep Gap NC, 1979\"><\/a><\/center><br \/>\nAlso in the stable, and played occasionally, are Turkish <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rootsworld.com\/turkey\/cumbus.html\">c\u00fcmb\u00fc\u015f<\/a> and a <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/I6KpooPr114\">long-neck saz\/tanbur<\/a>, and I also have a very funky old friction-peg 5-string that has never been exactly playable (<a href=\"http:\/\/antebelluminstruments.blogspot.com\/\">Jake Wildwood<\/a> may be able to do something about that). And I once had a Silvertone 5-string, totally undistinguished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have a checkered history of experiments with banjo-family instruments, the most recent episode of which features the current New Instrument, a rare bird indeed: a 1923 5-string plectrum Vega, just arrived from Gryphon in Palo Alto. It&#8217;s essentially a tenor banjo, but 5-course instead of 4-course, and with a longer scale (27&#8243;) than most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2877,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions\/2877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}