{"id":17,"date":"2005-10-16T15:12:22","date_gmt":"2005-10-16T20:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/?p=17"},"modified":"2005-10-16T21:38:16","modified_gmt":"2005-10-17T02:38:16","slug":"a-very-small-banjo-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"A Very Small Banjo World"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I’m finally getting frustrated with my cheap “beginner” banjo. The The pegs are super-cheap; whenever I try to tighten the drum head, they slip off<\/em>. The action above the 5th fret is terrible, probably due to cheap-neck curvature. The tone is weak, and I’m insanely jealous when I listen to my teacher play his banjo. One day I asked my teacher: “why does your banjo sound so GOOD?”. He said that it was “all about the rim” — it turns out he’s playing a Stelling Bellflower<\/a> with a Tony Pass rim<\/a>. What an incredible, punchy tone. It just cuts right through you.<\/p>\n

Oh Yes, It Will Be Mine.<\/p>\n

It’s funny, I used to think that it was wrong to buy expensive instruments unless you were a truly great player and “worthy” of such hardware. But now I realize that even if you’re still an intermediate player, having a really nice instrument is just an incentive to practice more often… it makes everything more enjoyable! My teacher was right: if having a nice instrument makes you pick it up more often, then it’s worth every penny.<\/p>\n

In any case, I posted some of my questions about rims to the discussion board on www.banjohangout.org<\/a>, and it generated a number of interesting responses<\/a>. Even more interesting is that a couple of days later, I got a private email from Tony Pass himself! He offered to answer any questions I had about building or buying a banjo, a really sincere email. Tony said I’d be “surprised at how cheap I can put together a professional quality banjo.”<\/p>\n

Moral of story:<\/p>\n