It's a Whole New World

I was lurking on Banjo Hangout, which I've been a member of for several years, when a posting caught my eye: Here was a fellow, a clawhammer banjo player at that, who wanted to trade his nearly new National Triolian guitar for an open back banjo.

For some reason that is still unclear to me, I was the first one out of the gate and responded to him that I had some instruments to trade that he might find of interest. Having a stable of 12 or 13 open-back banjos, some of which I never played, I offered him two banjos for his National Triolian.

Much to the ire of my wife, I relied on the honor system and shipped the banjos off. Then I waited, and waited bit more. But I was confident that this man, who I had spoken to on the phone, would do the right thing. I just knew it. He would either accept the trade or ship my banjos back to me.

When the resonator guitar arrived via UPS, I was like a kid on Christmas morn. For the first week, I just looked at it as it had a beauty of its own.

But keep in mind that I had no idea how to play the darn thing. I mean, no idea. I didn't even know if it should be played on my lap or upright. I soon determined through joining this website that I owned a round-neck resonator and that it should be played upright or "Spanish style" and that this was a favorite instrument for blues players.

My first mistake was tuning it like a standard guitar, but I soon realized the error of my ways through a little internet research and tuned it into open G. When I did that, a whole new world opened up for me.

You see, when I tuned it into open G, I was suddenly familiar with the left hand fretting. Holy cow, this is just like a banjo. Of course, it wasn't just like a banjo, but it was close enough that I could immediately start picking out melodies.

But fingerpicks were totally foreign to me. As a clawhammer banjo player, I never needed them, never used them, never wanted to use them. When I went to the music store and bought metal finger picks, it took me a few days to realize that I was wearing them backwards. I had a tendency to want to frail or clawhammer the resonator guitar with fingerpicks worn backwards. Yes, let me tell you that was not such a good sound.

Finally, it dawned on me that I was wearing the fingerpicks wrong. But I still wasn't used to using a three-finger style of playing. I was a babe in the woods.

But slowly, I started to use a thumb lead in picking out the melody and using other two fingers. And I was having a ball. I mean, this resonator guitar was addicting. At one point, my wife asked, "So are you not going to play the banjo anymore?"

I will always be a clawhammer banjo player. Indeed, I travel in old-time music circles and it's the instrument that I play. And I am uncertain if the resonator guitar, with its volume, would work in old-time circles. It might or might not. I will have to experiment on that with docile and accepting friends. LOL.

But I am playing principally old-time fiddle tunes on my newly acquired resonator guitar, and like I said, having a ball. I still don't know how to use slides. Have tried but have yet to get the hang of that. But I'm happy with the progress made to date.

I have even come up with some original tunes on the resonator guitar.

So there you go. Having fun. A whole new world opened up to me. Now all I got to do is stay away from that fiddle that is sitting in the closet.