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Well spotted Jody, what a cracker!

It's got a scalloped fingerboard like those on electric guitars!  Very cool.

And like Van Eps banjos and also a recent banjo made by Eric Stefanelli .



John Cohen said:

It's got a scalloped fingerboard like those on electric guitars!  Very cool.

Jody, have a look again.  Unlike the Van Eps, the frets aren't flush on the zither banjo, just like an electric guitar with a scalloped board.  It's interesting since I can't think of a real benefit of having scalloped (non-flush) frets on a banjo... guitarists do it since it makes wide vibrato much easier.

Oh! I see what you mean.  hmm. sitars have ultra scalloped boards and non flush frets for deflecting the string a pulling as much as five tones higher. Vinas have no fingerboards at all. the advantage of flush frets on a zither -banjo is to aid in the characteristic slides up the fingerboard in z-b music. Scalloped non-flush? gosh I don't know. 

John Cohen said:

Jody, have a look again.  Unlike the Van Eps, the frets aren't flush on the zither banjo, just like an electric guitar with a scalloped board.  It's interesting since I can't think of a real benefit of having scalloped (non-flush) frets on a banjo... guitarists do it since it makes wide vibrato much easier.

Looks like an escapee from a salad-bowl factory. I'll bet that it was miserable to play sitting down...squirming all over the place. You'd have to have a strap on it of some sort.

Weird that it has standard frets with scallops. I'll bet you could indeed get quite a few steps out of bending the strings on that one. No need for D-tuners on it at all...

It really depends on the string gauge... all of my electric guitars are scalloped like this, and even with light strings you'd be surprised how difficult it is to bend notes out of tune just by fretting.  If you're really heavy handed you can manage it on the lower frets, but it just isn't going to happen on the higher ones.

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