I'm in the market for a banjo with at least 24 or 25 frets. I've noticed fretboards extensions are usually only on professional instruments, with a few exceptions, which makes a lot of sense somewhat. I find if I had an…

          Hi everyone.    I am sorry if this isnt the right place to say sad news, but I dont know how else to let everybody who knew Brian,  that he sadly died on Wednesday.

A big man with a big heart, so kind, generous and thoughtful I know he will be missed by everyone who was lucky enough to have known him.

                         Best wishes  to you all at this very difficult time 

                                        Sincerely    Jill…

            It is with great sadness I have to report that Brian Dingley passed away on Wednesday.   

           A big man with a big heart he will  be remembered for his talent, his generosity, and his enthusiasm for everything to do with the banjo.

I have sorted out my BMG collection and have a huge number of duplicates for sale.As follows,

1925 - 1929 x 48 (2 missing)

1930 - 1939 x 116 (4 missing)

1940 - 1949 x 108 (12 missing)

1950 - 1959 x 120

1960 - 1969 x 120

1970 - 1976 x  76

Please contact me for more details,

Keith Wilson

Following the sad death of Derek Hall (Kendall) just before Christmas, six top of the range classical banjos that I built for him will be coming up for auction soon.  If probate goes through the likely date will be 9th March and the auctioneers are www.1818auctioneers.co.uk at Crooklands near Kendall.  I can provide photos and info re the instruments if you would like to email me at staceybanjos@hotmail.com.  Typical examples are Whyte Laydie…

Would anyone have an idea of a half decent A tilley 5 strings value . One for sale here in Canada for 350 canadian. it had the first five frets replaced with a brass plate otherwise not bad. thinking it may be a good player for classic. 

Just back from Crémona where we played , as usual , Classic Banjo on the bluegrass external stage .   The sound engineer love us  ' cause there are only 2 mikes , ...LOL…

Hello there...well I started about 2 weeks ago learning to play the banjo...been working on Round Peak rolls...and some normal bum ditty ....i set up my banjo with a fiberskyn head and some nylgut strings...not really knowing about Classic Banjo...i was heading towards fretless playing after hearing some wonderful music.

I'm a jazz piano player by trade for over 45 years...and really didn't pay much attn to the banjo...and then going to the internet I found this music to be more than…

Hello there...well I started about 2 weeks ago learning to play the banjo...been working on Round Peak rolls...and some normal bum ditty ....i set up my banjo with a fiberskyn head and some nylgut strings...not really knowing about Classic Banjo...i was heading towards fretless playing after hearing some wonderful music.

I'm a jazz piano player by trade for over 45 years...and really didn't pay much attn to the banjo...and then going to the internet I found this music to be more than…

some news from Remi & me ; we ' ll be in Cremona at the end of the month ; It 's  a bluegrass festival but Rémi like that

he hadviews on my old Ibanez 'banjo for some times ; i used to buy for him a fretless U-bass , a Flatiron F mando and a D40 Guild guitar ; he play all these but ………….

we will play 30 mn of CB  ' tunes in Cremona ; only 30 mn because there are several bluegrass & folks

bands from Italy mainly . we are the lonely CB band…

Working through the Wiedt book and looking at videos that have been posted by members here has given me a push to try a few other pieces and I've got three in the works:

• Kaloola--memorized but still working on playing it cleanly and consistently
• Sunflower Dance--memorized, but I believe I need to tweak some of the right-hand choices to make it flow better and feel more comfortable
• Pink Lemonade--still reading…

Week 6

Elfin Waltz (Banjo 2)

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With this week's addition to the practice list, I believe we will have covered the whole book. 

I finally printed a copy and bound it together with the first forty pages of Herbert J. Ellis, Ellis's Thorough School for the Five Stringed Banjo (London: John Alvey Turner, n.d). More about that later.

My plan is to spend this week working on the new material and then to take the next two weeks to…

Week 5

Elfin Waltz (Banjo 1)

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I confess. I jumped ahead and started playing through Elfin Waltz this week, both parts, and I like it. It feels more musical than some of the other pieces and the second banjo part takes my fancy.

One challenge will be to follow the right hand fingering in the second part of measures 2 and 4. It's easy for me to move a string using middle-index, but it's much harder for me to do it using index-middle. I see…

Week 4

The Fairies (Banjo 2)

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This coming week my plan is to work on the accompaniment to The Fairies, print out a good copy of the book so that I can easily work on the exercises, and review. I have cleaned up the sheet music from Week 3, but I want to compare it with the notation in A to make sure I haven't removed any notes that were in the original -- right-hand finger choices, for example -- and I haven't had a spare moment to do it.

Week 3

Exercises on time 4

The Fairies (Banjo 1)

[A clean copy of the notation will be posted soon.]

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It's silly, really, but having a schedule worked out in advance and posting it here every Friday is, at the moment, making it really easy for me to stay focused on working on something I've wanted to do for a long time.

I'm looking forward to adding The Fairies to the mix this week. Onward!