PRACTICE HAS BEGUN

What an incredible sounding instrument! I have never played a banjo, and have almost zero experience picking fretting double sets of strings. It's nice to step away from the things you know sometimes!

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The action on the fretboard is not great overall, but a nice slow, deliberate approach is paying off for me. I have read some guides on how to hold and pick the mandolin, which called for your arm to be horizontal from the elbow down. I've been trying to practice this, and discovering that when I pick the strings at around the neck-end border of the velum head it sounds far better than down near the bridge.

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The Mandolin Banjo Page has proven an utter godsend for me. It has notes on playing and tuning the instrument plus rundowns of the notes on its fretboard and so forth. Best of all is the tunes section, a searchable database with mandolin tunes categorised by the type of rhythm (eg/ hornpipe, reel, mazurka) or country of origin. You can then view each tune's sheet music & tablature as a PDF, GIF or use Noteworthy Composer to listen to the tune.

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I have been trying my hand at 'Mason's Apron' and a little bit more successfully, 'Marie's Wedding' - both Scottish reels. I often lack the patience for the ultra-beginner books which dictate exactly how to hold your fingers and such... So this seems like a great way to start learning!

VIOLA!

The banjo mandolin is home after its repairs. And with a new velum head fitted and tightened, it looks stunning!
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Both of the original machine heads were unfortunately replaced. One tuning peg simply would not turn due to a problem in its internal mechanics. The music shop even used their time and petrol to show it to another person who tried taking it apart, riveting and welding the peg back together. But in the end it was a choice between originality and authenticity or having a playable banjo mandolin! Who knows, perhaps I will be able to find a replacement machine head in my travels over the internet? It would be nice, as the extra width of the new set make it that tiny bit harder to fit the instrument in its case (as well as being slightly less elegant!).

The instrument was strung with 'number 9' mandolin strings, which are apparently nice and soft. It was also fitted with a bridge which they warned raises the strings quite high. Lower down on the fretboard they run 5mm above the frets, which will make those higher notes a little harder to fret. This was the best they could do in the circumstances, but I will need to keep a look out for an even lower bridge if this is possible.

The final repair was to replace a missing inlay on the fretboard. Since they need to order these in, they advised to bring the instrument in next week for a couple of hours. They will file the hole down a tad and glue the inlay. They consider that I have already paid for this too.

All in all the repairs cost $160. That included a Maestro pitch pipe for mandolin/violin to help me tune this instrument which is really quite foreign to me in a lot of ways...

MY INTENTIONS

The banjo mandolin has been lying around in cupboards for nearly two years, and I've really wanted just to set things right by restoring it and learning to play this instrument that somebody had the audacity to throw away. It almost seems like the universe smiles on you when you repair something that wouldn't otherwise have had a hope. So on top of just being a great way to reward myself and to enjoy my holidays, perhaps restoring and learning to play this banjo mandolin will be a sort of karmic exercise that inspires others.

It was absolutely heartwarming to stumble across a related internet blog from Sweden entitled The Year of the Mandolin Banjo. The music loving author, Anna, set herself the goal of restoring and learning to play a battered old mandolin banjo, detailing her thoughts and progress along the way. I found her page only shortly after I committed to restoring my own instrument, and must admit that her writing has provided huge inspiration for the creation of this blog. Armed with a compatible instrument, I stand to benefit enormously from the considerations she has described and the resources she has already assembled. To the left is a picture of her mandolin banjo, as seen before her restorations begun.

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With this current blog I hope to describe my own thoughts and learning journey on the instrument, and continue to collect and make available resources that others might enjoy using. Let's really kick start an online renaissance for the banjo mandolin wohoo!

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This information was on the inside of the case. It lists the manufacturer of the banjo mandolin as John Grey & Sons, from London. 'Dulcetta Banjo Mandolines' must be a sort of brand for the company. Between the machine heads on the instrument itself is also a serial number '7349'. I'm sure this number must help to date the manufacture.

There is a surprising amount of background on the John Grey & Sons company on the internet. The website for Arizona music label White Tree Productions has a vintage section with background on American & British banjo producers, as well as a handy serial number list with dates.

John Grey & Sons Ltd was a subsidiary company of Barnett Samuel & Sons created to make and market banjos, guitars and drums. Their factories had been producing banjos since the very first years of the twentieth century, but it wasn't until 1911 that this subsidiary company had been created and the name used as a trademark on the instruments. Prior to 1911 the instruments displayed 'Grey & Sons Ltd'. In the post-war decades the company changed hands several times. But it is hard to use this information for dating purposes, as it was not until 1967 that the trademark on the actual instruments changed.

So I believe the banjo mandolin is a pre-war model, but as yet I have nothing to back it up...

IT ALL STARTED WHEN...

She surprised me when she brought a leather case inside.

She had been trawling through the neighbourhood's hard rubbish with our housemate on an evening in the Summer of 2005/06. Since moving away from each of our parents' homes, my partner and I have always shown off a hard rubbish household. Couches, ornate furniture items and even wonderful stereo systems have all come from the sides of the road. This same evening she threw an old sculpted vase into the tray of the ute - and it has since been identified as a rare Castle Harris collectors piece worth hundreds of dollars even in its chipped state. But the most impressive find was in this tattered leather hardcase. She slid the case toward me and said it was for me: a beautiful old English banjo mandolin.

Of course it looked worse for wear. The instrument was dirty, the velum head had a large puncture and tear, what strings remained were rusted over and the fretboard was missing one of its metal inlays. Still what a terrible waste, I thought. And the instrument was put away in a cabinet of mine, little disturbed for nearly two years...