Posted by Mr. Disco on Friday, March 7, 2008
(See my craftsmanship in my photos.)
-- All this Edward Dick and Goldtone Banjola buzz has got me to thinking that since I'll never discipline myself to learn to play the guitar properly, I might as well mess with the Yamaha 6-string to string and tune it to play banjo.
-- And I can use 6 strings and a spike and get a 6-string banjo out of it. Heck, when I finally get my hands on a cheap 12-string, I can really get nutty.
My Yamaha has an interesting family history anyhow. I might as well add to it. The one brother-in-law (wife's younger bro) was teed I took it from the mother-in-law's cottage at the end of the season because it had been there since the sister-in-law divorced her first husband 15 years ago. He'll flip when he sees I've undone the open tunings I was using to play slide and totally funked it up for banjo. He wasn't crazy about me playin' slide on it and not tuning it back standard for him. I got the fragility of the neck lecture.
It's strung with super slinky guitar strings 1 though 5 and an 11 I had sitting around for the 6th: 11-15-22w-30-42-11.
At first I really liked the extra bass string at G. Now, every time I hit it it seems out of tune until I tune it -- at which point it's perfectly in tune for a moment. It plays nice. I'm working on a Bach Minuet on it. -- Nice because it's not painfully obvious I'm playing a guitar if I'm not strumming chords. -- Closer alignment of the strings is especially challenging on the single string stuff because getting the fret finger out of there clean is critical to cutting off the sustain. -- Good fun.
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