Everything begins with curiosity and maybe sometimes with wanting to annoy other people. I bought my first banjo to make noise in my office during late-night work sessions. Digging into the history, I kept discovering earlier banjos but always failed to get older instruments at auctions. At the same time, I discovered the Foxfire books, an encyclopedia of sorts covering Appalachian crafts. With some notes, plans, and a banjo to measure I began to make my first banjo, just wondering if I could get it to tune. I made all the pieces I could and bought a few things from Stewmack. Lots of trial and error and learning along the way, but it did tune, and held tune well. The next lightning bolt to help me was during a visit to the Colonial Williamsburg Folkart Museum, where I saw instruments made over the last 300 years, all by hand, all beautiful and resourceful works of art.
Making instruments became an excuse to buy and experiment with old tools and learn more about wood and wood and woodworking. You quickly get back to geometry and engineering as well.
My first mountain banjo started with a rough body I found at the local flea market. It must have been a discarded shop project. I gave in rosewood accents including hand-shaped pegs, fretboard, and tailpiece. The can and head were a bit tricky to figure out. I resolved to make the head out of packing tape and wrapping the can with that. The roughness, balanced with Rosewood, gave it a wonderful Hobo-Sheke feeling, and surprise, it sounded loud and awesome.
My remaining first group of banjos got better and better. I experimented with different woods and hardware. Two were built with wonderful Cherry wood, two more built from wood recycled from an old Detroit house, all successfully tuned and had their unique sound, as they should. The wonderful lesson I learned through this journey is that no two were going to be the same, even if I tried. There's real beauty in that.
The best part of any artistic endeavor I've been a part of is letting it go, Getting it out there into the world, and seeing people enjoy it. Most of my instruments are in the hands of better players today and I hope that they last and are cherished for a good while.
