Comment by Carl Anderton on January 1, 2010 at 17:20

That gourd has a good tone. How do you get such tight, crisp sound?

Comment by Ray Jones on January 1, 2010 at 22:09

I enjoyed your ALS mate. Stay with it, as you have a great sound. There are quite a few pieces of music written with variations for the banjo, give me a buzz if you want some more.

Comment by Jason Smith on January 2, 2010 at 18:34

Thanks! I do like theme and variations and would welcome any new music. I am working on Yankee Doodle with variations by Ossman- it is fun.
As for a crisp sound, I definitely do cheat and break tradition by using finger picks- this particular banjo is tough to play without picks.

Comment by Ray Jones on January 2, 2010 at 20:02

Hi Jason. I could never get used to picks, it was like playing wearing boxing gloves, but the famous Tom Barriball ( who was my Hero ) used picks and he had a fantastic sound, fast and clear.

Comment by Jody Stecher on January 2, 2010 at 20:41

I did a banjo gig wearing boxing gloves once, or nearly. Actually it was mittens the size of oven mitts. And the banjo was fretless so that should count for a few points in the Absurdly Difficult Department. It was exactly this time of year, just after new years in 1969. GULP, that's 41 years ago. My cousin, our neighbor, and I were living up in the woods and had no money, my cousin's dog had given birth to 8 puppies, and we found 144 half pint milk bottles at the county dump. The other 2 guys had been involved in theatre productions so we came down to the Big City and put on a Medicine Show, selling Magic Elixir (that was our local well water in the little bottles) and advertising door prizes (that was the puppies). We did 4 shows, actually made some money, though the only bottles of elixir we sold were to "plants" in the audience. One of the musical numbers was me playing a banjo solo on my fretless 19th century Gatcomb (the banjo I learned on) while wearing enormous mittens. Another highlight, which by pre-arranged signals always resulted in a (staged) fight (involving thrown pies) between the band and certain audience members (actually our friends), consisted of a trio of bugle, washboard, and "shower horn" (a garden hose with a trumpet mouthpiece at one end and a shower head at the other. The hose was wrapped around the player.) Boxing gloves might have come in handy in the brawl but it's just as well I had only mittens, as I found out later that I was throwing the pies with more enthusiasm than necessary to achieve maximum theatrical effect.

Comment by Jody Stecher on January 3, 2010 at 2:15

Just like a typical day in Scotland.....

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