Mechanical banjo mutes

[Mike Moss]

So yesterday I was using a mute on my banjo (first time I used a mute in a long time) and I noticed that the tone I got was very effective for some pieces/passages; the imitation of the harp in Morley's "Pompadour" becomes much more obvious with the mute, for instance, and many of Cammeyer's pieces also seem to benefit from it (I was very pleased with how "The Dancer's Dream" sounded with the mute).

So that got me thinking about the various mechanical mutes that were used/patented throughout history; the SX Stop, the Farland Harp Attachment, the Bacon Soft Pedal, the Hartnett tone lever... none of them, however, seem very convenient and they all require some form of invasive surgery on the 'jo, such as drilling holes through the perch pole or rim.

Has anyone ever come up with a more practical alternative for a mute which may be applied and removed at will during playing? Last night I gave it some thought and came up with something based on a side-pull bicycle brake, but I'm curious to know if anyone else has given this problem a shot.

[Mike Moss]

The proliferation of such implements is nothing new, of course. One of my ancestors, in the 18th century, was an expert on banjo muting, and he was awarded 10 guineas for inventing the world's first banjo mute. He even wrote a book about it.

[marc dalmasso]

i have these :  the 3 mutes ( sourdines )  for violin works perfectly for the banjo to mute the sound but could be unhappy if you have you right hand over the bridge ;

i use the Elton , perfect  for the bridges with the central ebony wedge or the Grover which offer the interest of having a %  of muting , depending of the position on the dowel S / perch P

[Richard William Ineson]

Yes Jody, a very effective noise reducer which I have been tempted to use myself when somebody has been playing 'Old Joe Clark' unsuccessfully, at 3.00 am at a Bluegrass festival.

Jody Stecher said:

Richard, perhaps someone's neighbor invented *this* banjo mute with its "100% sound reduction".

[Richard William Ineson]

This book changed my life, I literally could not put it down, I read it through six times and cannot put into words the effect this gripping treatise, on this fascinating subject, has had on my life and the lives of my family and friends. I can recommend this book without reservation.

Mike Moss said:

The proliferation of such implements is nothing new, of course. One of my ancestors, in the 18th century, was an expert on banjo muting, and he was awarded 10 guineas for inventing the world's first banjo mute. He even wrote a book about it.

[Trapdoor2]

Personally, I have adopted the "Friends don't let friends mute their banjos" motto. If I espy a banjo mute lurking in the darker regions of a friend's banjo case, I will sieze upon it and drive a stake thru its evil heart. One must have the requisite tools handy though.

 

[marc dalmasso]

Mike , the book waf tranflated in Srench  in 1789 by Guillotin (  which alfo ossered hif fervices for human muting ) ; my grand grand grand sather Mariuf Dalmaffo had met him at the time

[Mike Moss]

Ah, the perils of science in the wrong hands! Poor Godfrey did not live to see it put to use on the unfortunate king Louis; he died in his workshop when he was tragically crushed by a contra bass banjo mute he was carving from a slab of solid granite. That's why it's bad luck to mute a banjo and his magnum opus, the Tractatus Banjoisticus, was never published.

Almost a two centuries later the coffin was opened and Clifford Essex stole his fourth cervical vertebra, which he used as a mute to amuse his friends until he was instructed to return it several years later. It is said that, as long as the remains were incomplete, the restless ghost of G. Moss, LL. D., haunted banjoists the world over -- legend has it that when S. S. Stewart saw the wraith he died from a stroke of apoplexy. True story.

[marc dalmasso]

Incredible .......... and here ' s another true story

[Mike Moss]

Yes, the rangers eventually captured "Mad Marc" Dalmasso and the Stefanelli Gang -- but they never found the stash of tone rings they had stolen in the Great Nashville Heist. Rumour has it that, in the cave where they hid them, the wind howls with a pre-war sound.

[Richard William Ineson]

I remember my Grandad telling me about the Steffanellis and the Dalmassos running the banjo rackets in the 1920s and 1930s, in particular they had the vellum market tied down and they had a cut out of every packet of banjo strings sold in the world. Even Al Capone, no mean exponent on the tenor banjo himself, fell prey to their extortion and protection empire, culminating in the notorious Saint Samuel Swain Stewart's Day massacre.

The end came for them when Alfred Cammeyer was employed to set up an 'untouchable' police force which brought their reign of terror to an end; the price of banjo vellum had risen to such levels during the D&S domination and control of the market, that the American government, due to widespread public discontent, initiated research into the production of a plastic substitute, and the rest is history.

[Trapdoor2]

Ah...but it wasn't until after the "Roswell Incident" of 1947 that plastic banjo heads became a viable commodity. America didn't invent the plastic banjo head, it was stolen from aliens along with the transistor, titanium and the multiple blade razor.

It is said that the original alien banjo mute is so good that it can completely eliminate all unpleasant sound within a 3km radius. It was supposedly secretly brought to Carnegie Hall for testing and that Toscanini accidently switched it on during a performance of Tchaikovski's "Serenade for Strings"; all the violas were knocked out and it was days before anyone noticed.

[Jody Stecher]

About those knocked out violas, Trapdoor: many years ago in the days of cassettes I had a student who had just returned to California from a holiday in Scotland. She was eager to play the cassettes she had acquired but the one of bagpipe music would not play at all. She swears that when she disengaged the Noise Reduction button, the music then played. She interpreted this to mean that the Dolby noise reduction function interpreted everything on the cassette as "noise".  She and I are both big fans of the highland pipes when well played, by the way. But maybe not Mr. Dolby.