Jelle - Posted - 08/10/2025:  03:42:14

Hey guys,
It's that time in the year again in which I promised myself and my wife not to buy a new banjo and an irresistible deal presents itself to me... Someone is selling a gourd (they're pretty hard to come by around here) and it would be a great addition to the family. However; it's fretless and I already own several fretless banjo's.
I'm thinking about fretting the gourd so I can enjoy that nice mellow sound on the one hand and the precision of frets on the other. I saw some videos of fretted Romero gourds on YouTube. Frets on a gourd seemed like a strange idea to me until I heard them! Wonderful sounding banjo's. Anyone that has experience with fretting a gourd?

banjered - Posted - 08/10/2025:  05:19:48

As I read your post the thought occurred to me, "I wonder if there is a way to attach a" bowl" to the back of his wonderful sounding Tupelo to achieve that fretted sounding goal?" But what do I know...." banjered

Joel Hooks - Posted - 08/10/2025:  05:49:49

The “gourd banjo”, a 5 string early banjo style neck attached to a gourd body, is strictly a modern concept. This was developed by Scott Didlake with Clarke Buehling and, separate but concurrent, Pete Ross in the 1980s (that was not a typo, 1980s is correct).

There are no known extant examples of these historically.


So, since these are a modern concept, there are no “rules” and you may do what you wish. Go ahead and add raised frets if you want.

banjobrewer - Posted - 08/10/2025:  08:50:21

There are no rules anyway. It’s your banjo! Go for it.

Jon Borcherding - Posted - 08/10/2025:  19:13:45

Yep!
I can imagine a gourd banjo is kinda rare in the Netherlands.
Better just snap it up and figure out the fret question later!

chuckv97 - Posted - 08/10/2025:  21:45:48

.

 

Kuukjen - Posted - 08/22/2025:  05:41:36

Hey Jelle,
Over the past few years, I've made my own gourd banjos. Three with frets and three without. The gourds are available in the Netherlands, but they're very thin-walled. So I reinforced them. But the sound is excellent!

Tony