“Either – Or”
While sitting on the couch, I glanced over at my two banjo’s sitting side by side on one of our recliners. I keep them in plain sight so that I will remember to practice. I can see them from anywhere in the room. One of them has flower inlays on the neck, While the other has the tree of life inlays all the way up the neck. They are both beautiful but different. The one with the flowers is tuned in a G tuning, while the other one is tuned in Double C tuning. The reason they are tuned differently is because playing Old Time Mountain style banjo you are limited to the amount of lead notes you can play. So, the banjo is tuned in the tuning where you can play those certain notes. For instance the old tune Cherokee Shuffle, is played in the G tuning. I had taught the folks in our music jam to play it this way. While I was gone, a man came along and taught them to play it in the key of D, The problem is that some of the lead notes are just not there. The tune now sounds nothing like The Cherokee Shuffle. The tune could be played on most all of the other instruments, but not the clawhammer banjo. Everyone was having a great time playing the tune, while I just sat there quietly. When playing in public, someone might ask me to play a certain tune, I choose the banjo that is tuned in the only tuning that can play the tune correctly. I kid people sometimes and say, let me change banjos because that song is not in this banjo. Continue reading ““Either-Or””
