As someone who cn't resist a freebie, I ws given a wreck of a five string banjo and rebuilt it.
Was going to tune it to the bottom strings of a guitar as I thought I would be confused with differant tuning.
never the less I decided to try it tuned to a G chord and ws surprised I had no trouble making the change.
As to sound. I m a rotten guitar player being real thrasher and the chinks i get playing with a standard pick are a pain even to me so the othre week I made a leather pick and that really made a differance to my guitar sound.
So much so tht there re several guitar players now using, or intending making angd using lether pick. The e-mails have been overwelming.
I gave the leather pick a whilr o banjo as well and it really did the trick for me.
Russian Balalik player use leathre picks when they don't finger it. I play balalaika a little too and they sound woe awful played with plastic pick.
So. I don't see ny hassle with swapping twix guitar and banjo.Nuth thing I do with banjo on occassions is play it with a slide.
Try it. hit an open G then slide up and shake on the first sting third fret then bak. side up and play the c chord on fifth fret. and so forth. seventh fret is D and s a variation try sliding from that to seventh and back to open G rather than doing the usual three chord wonder . Bit of tremalo o the left hand does wonders.
have fun. I do.
Oh by the way. Playing banjo helped me remember where i was on lap steel guitar too as the tuning is the same in G.
I don't play any of these good enough to go public other than among friends but I sure have fun. and you will too
Regards,
Graham


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