Ok, I will admit it.

I have turned into a musical slouch. After many years of struggling with bluegrass banjo, with limited success, and then ending up with tendinitis problems in my picking hand (I can’t do the three finger picking anymore), I just want to have fun playing music, with a minimum of work.

I have come up with two solutions:

One is I made a bass banjo out of a 12 inch pot, and a large scale four string neck I got off e-bay real cheap. I use baritone guitar strings on it, and I tune it to A D G C (one string up from a standard bass tunning). This makes a pretty handy bass for playing with fiddles, mandolins and 5 string banjos, and allows me to play a little bluegrass from time to time with my old bluegrass buddies. This thing is so easy to play, and I find I enjoy just listening to the others players, as I just sit back and thump along.

The other thing I am doing is exploring the plectrum banjo.

At the age of 56 I am not the only person in my musical community to start having physical limitations with their instrument of choice. Some of my friends have just plain quit, but I am seeing the plectrum as a second chance at continuing my musical adventures. The neck is easy to work, with a minimum of stress on the left hand, and all I have to do with my right hand is hold the pick. I am trying to develop a lay back bluesy approach to playing. I built the banjo from a Stew Mac White Lady pot, and a Gold Tone plectrum neck. I have it set up as an open back and keep the tension down on the head to maximize the dark sounds of the banjo.

So far the adventure with the plectrum is going well. The instrument sounds just the way I had hoped it would. I am playing in the standard plectrum tunning C G B D, but trying to play in a more guitar style. Basically making a cross instrument out of it. I have been playing some local jams with the plectrum, were they do mostly country type stuff, and I have found the tunning lends itself well to the pentanoic scales they like. I would be interested in taking it more in the direction of playing blues and jug band, but I don’t have much experience at playing either. I have gotten some CD’s and have done some monkey hear, monkey play, and the instrument seems to be up to the job, now I just have to be.

Getting rid of the 5^th string and dropping the 4^th string from a D to a C changes the personality of the banjo, and I think makes it, particularly for what I have put together, a great blues instrument. Anyone out there interested in what I am doing? Any ideas or suggestions?