I've posted an audio file of Baur's Twisted Rope. I played it from memory and got lost in the music and accidently repeated some lines and also dropped some mini-beats etc, but this has the feel I'm going for more than a more perfect rendition I also played.

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?queryType=%40attr+1%3D1016+&query=banjo

Fred Bacon, Fred Van Eps, Vess Ossman, Olly Oakley

This is a great resource. Good music and a free ride on a time machine

I've posted two sound files of Ernest Jones playing Return of The Regiment on zither-banjo. The first is at the pitch and speed heard when I play the cassette which is about a half step high. It's easy to tell that banjo is being played in C fingering; if nothing else, the open fifth string makes that plain. The second file has been slowed down so that the pitch is close to C (assuming A 440). I've never heard it that way before this evening. The banjo tone sounds convincing lowered to concert… Continue

"Return of The Regiment" was recently suggested as a tune of the month or season or something, (good idea I think) and music was posted by Dave Wade who today also posted a photo of Joe MacNaghten. This provokes a question that some of the English players here might be able to answer. It might be a case of UK and USA being "divided by a common language" but I've looked at the dots, listened to the recording of Ernest Jones playing Return OTR and read what "Mac" had to say about it and hit a… Continue

I use Aquila Nylgut sets on several banjos and am happy with the feel and sound but there comes a time when the winding on the bass starts unravelling and this is always before the plain strings have died. Has anyone else had this problem? I also use Aquila's D type copper wound on nylgut for zither-banjo bass and the problem exists there as well. I wonder if those here with an Aquila connection can put in a word about this?



I also wonder why the fifth string is a heavier gauge than… Continue

I've uploaded two photos of an old Temlett zither-banjo. It's going to my student Ken who says it reminds him of his grandmother. Who am I to deprive him of his grandmother? It needs a bit of work. It seems that over the last 120 years or so the wood of the neck and fingerboard have dried out and shrunk so all the frets protrude on both sides. The fret ends are sharp and can draw blood. It's a small, light z-b with a string length of only 25.25 inches (just over 64 centimeters). The sound is… Continue

I've just uploaded an mp3 of a catchy little tune called Champion Waltz. It's from Winner's New School for the Banjo (1872). I learned it from the ABF quarterly 5 Stringer where it was transposed to C notation by Eli Kaufman. I'm playing it on a fretless banjo made in the 1890s by J Clamp in Newcaste-on-Tyne. It has a big pot and a short neck so it looks a bit like a skillet. Today it sounds like it has a cold. Calfskin head, heavy nylon strings, low tuning.

A Banjo Revel is a Joe Morley tune I learned from some very large sheet music I won on ebay. I've never heard a recording of it. It seems to be the only one of Morley's compositions to be published by Larking. (Larking's Banjo Budget #1). It anticipates "melodic" bluegrass technique by several decades not to mention the theme of The Ballad of Davy Crocket ("born on a mountain top in Tennessee....." ). I'm playing it on an anonymous American banjo with a 12.5 inch metal clad pot and a playing… Continue

I'm not sure where to post info about mp3-s I've posted so I guess I'll do it here. I've just uploaded a casual recording of St Louis Tickle that I had made for a friend so he could get a feel for the tune. Imperfect as it is, I like the feel of this rendition. It was recorded on my mac using Garage Band and the mac's built in mic. No too bad at all. Sorry about the talking and interruptions. The "technical difficulty" was the banjo sliding off my lap.



St Louis Tickle was written for… Continue