Why build your own banjo (or instrument)?

For me, if I really unravel the thread since building my first banjo in 1975, it dramatically changed my life experience, my confidence level, brought music into my life, opened up my circle of friends, impacted my children's lives, my work life, and a whole bunch of other things... Wouldn't change any of it for anything.

Like others who learned to build in the 60's, 70's and before the internet was available, the early journey was at times a very hard road and a whole lot of trial and error. Character building as they say. There was virtually no written information available, and unless you met someone who knew and would show you, it was hard to figure some things out. I had not seen an actual fretted banjo up close when I made my first fretted one. I inlayed it at every other fret, because I had not a clue about the reason for where inlays were supposed to be....should have burned the neck but it ended up in Mexico... Inspired by Foxfire book 3, I started with fretless mountain banjos. The sum total of my tools for number one banjo were a jacknife, coping saw, my grandfathers old eggbeater hand drill, a rattail rasp and half round rasp, and sandpaper. I heard a brother duo from Virginia play some old timey fiddle tunes which drew me into the music (I made a shift from Jimi Hendrix to Doc Watson at the same time and never looked back once), met Bob Buckingham in a music store when I went to buy strings for one of the first banjos, and before I knew it was learning to build banjos, trying to cut and inlay pearl, carve heels, learn to play clawhammer and learn to fiddle all at the same time. Tough on a young marriage at times but we weathered my period of early madness and these days my wife of 37 years and I play music together and our son plays bluegrass banjo for a living. I can easily trace it all back to that first little fretless mountain banjo.....

A few of the many rewards include: The satisfaction of doing something yourself with your own hands and mind, the pleasure of learning and developing new skills, the satisfaction of playing music on something you made, meeting all kinds of people from all walks of life and places while playing that music (many of whom you probably never would have crossed paths with without that interest), the connection to the past, and meeting craftsmen and builders from all over as well. Some of these people are lifelong friends and just knowing them brings much joy, pleasure and richness into our families life and also inspires us all to raise the bar and try new things.

I eventually got into building fancy banjos at times, and people have sometimes said "how do you do that, I could never do that". I hate to hear that and disagree, its all a process, you start out simply with a goal and learn and build on it a little at a time. I think people can do a lot of things they don't think they can do, they just have to decide they really want to and go for it. A lot of my banjo building and even the playing didn't come easily but they were all more than worth it in the end.

I love playing clawhammer banjo more than just about anything else. At home, I'll pick up an old simple fretless banjo that is strung low and thump away on that most of the time. It connects me to my past ancestors (I'm Scots/mother and Irish/father) and is enjoyable and relaxing.

Glenn C.