September 2011 Blog Posts (6)

In case anyone is interested in purchasing a beautiful period instrument or just wants a little eye candy, there is a really gorgeous Teed-style banjo with wood inlay marquetry and flush wooden fret markers on the Elderly Instrument site.  They want a little less than $2000.00.  That doesn't seem to be an outrageous price.  It is dated as circa 1870.

I heard a great story on the weekend.

I got talking banjo at a gig with Lewis Melville, an old musical acquaintance of mine from Guelph, Ontario. He had recently sponsored a visit to Canada by a musician from Mali who plays one of the many banjo-like traditional instruments in use in Africa these days. (I forget which)

In any case it's one of the ones with a thumb string (or two) and is basically played in what we'd think of in a stroke style.

He took the guy around to…

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This looks pretty good if it's as described.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Antique-JAS-A-Morrison-1882-NY-Serial-215-Proffessional-5-String-Banjo-NR-/320757702600?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aaea61fc8#ht_500wt_1156

Ian

WHY WE DO THIS

 

Today my fiddling friend Norm Boggs and I did our usual monthly living history summer presentation at The Duke Homestead Historic site in Durham North Carolina.  It was a perfect day, the sun was shining, it wasn't too hot, there was a nice breeze, we were in the shade, there were lots of visitors, all was well with the world.  We were situated in the front yard of the homestead which is on a hill which overlooks acres of woods, pasture, and a tobacco plot. …

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I was talking to Mr. Bechtel last week about this tune. No tab, but this is the version of the tune we were discussing. It is Emmett's 1st version (c. 1844) of Blue Tail Fly...the minor one.  

I saw Don Gardner, who is  am member on this site, last weeked. Some folks have mentioned his banjos as an under $400.00 alternative. I am posting a video of my "test drive"....