Quality control is dogma at the Banjo Rehabilitation Center. Our young CEO takes a personal “hands-on” approach by inspecting each finished banjo. Every rebuilt instrument must be suited to both backwoods and uptown jam session picking. Although he has no formal musical training, our CEO is a role model to the BRC support staff because of his quiet commitment to banjo craftsmanship and music.
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Our young CEO pauses during a hectic day at the Banjo Rehabilitation Center. Unlike high-dollar CEO’s that you read about in newspapers, the BRC chief officer works for no salary. In his scant spare time, he daydreams of a “Banjotropolis” new society with the banjo woven into its cultural fabric. Because of the rock-bottom prices of our refurbished starter banjos, however, the BRC has never turned a profit, and the young CEO must focus on this tangible reality.
Although the banjo is considered by some to be a uniquely American musical instrument, the BRC founder has seen and appreciated its cousins in other cultures on distant continents.
In a trio of traditional Thai musicians, he enjoyed the “saw duang” which is a bowed mini banjo with a python skin head, the traditional “taphon” drum, and the “sueng” which has a wooden drum head.
As pictured along the shoreline of the upper Nile River, the BRC founder vocally echoed the tones of the lyre-like tambura to a surprised but pleased Nubian tribesman who responded, “No money,” when offered a tip by the singing American.
To comprehend the architectural principles of various interior banjo pot support systems, the Banjo Rehabilitation Center founder studied the larger model of the Roman coliseum. These ancient circular ruins helped him to grasp the advantages and disadvantages of dowel stick versus connecting rod supports (see BRC workshop photo).
When the BRC founder purchased his first banjo in 1960, there were no Bluegrass radio shows in his hometown near Albany, New York. To hear and learn banjo picking, he set his alarm clock for 2 AM to wake-up and listen to WWVA radio broadcasting over the nightly airwaves from Wheeling, West Virginia. Learning and re-learning to pick the banjo at any age is an unending lifelong journey. Playing music by ear is a talent that sounds very romantic, but it is also a disadvantage. Being a musician, like the BRC founder, who cannot read sheet music or tablature, is like being a poet who cannot write. The BRC founder’s day job is orthopedic hand surgery-which fortunately is not unlike rebuilding vintage banjos. Lucky him.
Banjos and hand surgery have a connection in this Banjo NewsLetter. Click here to read more BNL.
Made with in Missouri.