Short Scale Gourd Banjo, Super Low Tuning (Wild Bill Jones) 

thanks! damn high praise, there are some real masters out there like Jason Romero, Jeff Menzies, Pete Ross... I've got my own style though which I'm really happy with

thanks! can't wait to make a fretless version and take it camping

thanks! me too, I've used mahogany before but this piece had a special kind of hypnotic grain to it

thanks! yeah I really wanna make more of these little ones, and really wanna do some fretless versions

thanks! yeah it's funny, it never even occurred to me to try tuning it low until then

yeah! that's called a zero-th (0th) fret. I just recently learned it from my friend Jesse Head who makes beautiful gourd instruments. I think it does make it more precise, it sort of acts as the nut, and the actual nut just holds the string spacing. Something about the way I recorded this created a buzzing on some frequencies, my mic levels were way too high for one thing. I wasn't hearing any of that in person though, except for when I plucked really hard on the downtuned fourth string

I don't think the shorter scale particularly lends itself to lower tunings, but I was just really surprised that it was even able to go this low and still have a nice clear tone and no fret buzzing. I'm using nylgut medium tension with the red 4th string. I think it's something about the combination of the gourd body and the skin head that just makes these things super versatile. A larger gourd would give more resonance and richer deep tones than this though.

the banjo videos literally only exist to raise money for more Plant Tasters. One for them one for me

at the beginning I'm playing what most people call two-finger thumb lead style, which uses the exact same "boom-chick-a" pattern as clawhammer, then I switch to clawhammer around around 0:27 I switch to clawhammer

thank you, maybe I could get a lesson?