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BrentSims |
My new Deering Parlor banjo's shorter scale makes it a lot easier for me to keep on playing when my shoulder is acting up. When I'm feeling good I always reach for my Vega Ole Tyme Wonder and my Prust tackhead fills in when needed so my Goodtime Americana has been gathering dust for the past couple of weeks.
So I got this wild idea. I got myself a new 4 string tenor banjo bridge and a new set of steel strings (I'd been using nylguts on the Americana since it arrived). Based upon my research plectrum banjos are usually tuned CGBD or DGBE however being that I'm familiar with a bunch of chords for the Open G (gDGBD) tuning I prefer to use on my 5 string banjos I decided to go with DGBD - which, of course is close enough to CGBD so nobody other than a banjo player will notice.
Wham. Bam.
I grabbed me a plectrum from my “picks” box and and started doing a simple chord progressing hitting the 4th string then a strum and then hitting the 3rd string and giving it another strum and repeating that through a few bars of my personal favorite chord progression (C/Am/Em/G7).
That sounded good enough for government work so I tried strumming and singing my way through a couple of old standards: “Bill Baily” & “All of Me”.
Nice.
I'm still partial to frailing on my 5 string however having another very pleasing way to pursue music is a good thing indeed.
Now I'm kicking around putting the Americana's 12 inch rim with the fiberskin head on the Parlor banjo and putting the Parlor banjo's rim on the Americana...
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