Tempted and tried

Ozark 5-string resonator banjo

I've long been tempted by the haunting sound of the five-string banjo, but I was worried about overextending myself again. Then the obvious occurred to me - that I could use a banjo (or, indeed, my guitar or mountain dulcimer) on the same repertoire of songs that I'm currently performing with mandolin. I would be stretching my instrumental focus but wouldn't necessarily have to extend my song repertoire.

Back in August a chance Google search for something else led me to a promising lot on eBay which I managed to win. It's an Ozark resonator model, i. e. the type most associated with Bluegrass, but that doesn't prevent its use for Old Time as well.

As I got it for song accompaniment, my initial plan is just to learn some very simple playing patterns, i. e. Clawhammer for Old Time and Alternating Thumb Roll for Bluegrass, and to play these over the chords. I'll just be dabbling with the banjo for now as it will, in any case, probably take months to get the right-hand patterns working smoothly, and I already have a lot of work to do on the mandolin.