There are oxidation spots from the sweat on the ring around the sound box. A brown and a green streak runs across the sheet. The brown is from Bart van Strien’s thumb, the green from his metal fingerpicks. His little finger and ring finger, on which his hand rests while playing, have drawn an extra stripe of wear across the skin. He once bought this Gibson banjo as a commodity in America, but he couldn’t sell it. It became his “workhorse.”
Actually, the model is not optimal for the sound of the Blues Grass Boogiemenhe explains. The band, which plays with Tim Knol and many others, and who tours extensively internationally, approaches the bluegrass tradition in a punk way. “Everything for the public. So I have to play hard, but the nice thing about this banjo is that you can also play those sweet, high-pitched bells.” Van Strien has to do his best for that, because they only use one microphone for the entire band, where the mandolin solos quickly dominate. So over the years, he’s started wearing the banjo higher on his chest, pushing it toward the microphone. “It also helps that I have a little more belly.”
When he bought it thirty years ago from a specialist in America, he thought another banjo, the Kentucky, actually sounded better. But it is easier to sell a Gibson in the Netherlands. The low dollar rate would allow him to repay his trip to the Tennessee banjo convention.
When he got home he started playing on it. He noticed that the overtones, which were not to his taste, were coming from the neck against the tone ring. He started to file, to improve. And to play. There was no selling. He still got attached to it. When he sees him standing in the room, the beauty sometimes overtakes him.
If parts need to be replaced, he disassembles it himself. That’s part of the relationship. When someone else does it, it always feels like he has to get to know his whole instrument again afterwards.
Although the banjo is seen as a typical American instrument, its origins lie in Africa, with a gourd as its sound box. And that sound box remains the most important. “This skin fits best with the tone ring that is on it now. I’m a bit worried now, because my sheet factory has stopped production.” That’s why it now has an old one, with a little more dirt. “Actually, everything should be shiny.”
A while ago he bought another, supposedly better model in America. Not a replacement, but the dollar was low again, it’s a good investment. Yes, he also knows that he will never sell it. “I don’t see instruments as machines. They have a soul. Okay, that’s mostly your own projection. The soul of my first banjo has to do with playing on the street in France and that of my current workhorse with festivals in Ireland and America. When I have it around my neck, I am suddenly no longer afraid to stand in front of a microphone.”
#banjo #workhorse