I just looked through Buckley's Banjo Guide from 1868  Some of the tunes indicates use of other tuning than the standard tuning. On page 15 on Lon Morris's Jig the following tuning is shown: from low string to high string B E G B d#. With todays pitch and todays notation we would call it f# D G Bb D. However, when looking at the melody I can't see how this tuning would work. The standard tuning seems to be working good. The fifth string in the notation is notated as e. The lowest note in the…See More

Anybody ever taken a run at Lon Morris's Jig in the 1868 Buckley Book?  (p.15)I think he's telling me to retune the banjo to raised bass and with the fifth string tuned flat but then finger the notes it as if I haven't retuned it. There are low A notes that are lower than where the bass sting is tuned. My (more highly educated) fiddle playing friends call this "scordatura". It seems to be working, but I never totally trust my sketchy music reading.See More

Fun new buzzword in the site. I'm glad to hear it. I put back up an old video...Buckley's March. I played it twice...once in Fingerstyle, once in Stroke Style in the same performance. No particular reason, just experimenting. It just shows that often it makes no difference which way you choose.See More

This was the ship that carried Tom Briggs and Eph. Horn to Panama where Briggs unfortunately caught Yellow fever and soon died before ever performing in California.