Mutant Banjo!

My banjo, which is essentially a guitar with a banjo body (Guitjo, Bantar?), was due to be sold to raise funds for a good quality tenor ukulele (more about this plan in a later post).

At BeHeld's rehearsal a couple of weeks ago I mentioned my plan and listed the items that were on their way to market.
Mystic Rog expressed disappointment about the sale of the banjo as he'd worked out an arrangement for the song 'When I Was On Horseback' in which he 'heard' a banjo.
I explained how, after over a year of not playing a six-stringed instrument, I found it nearly impossible to play anything with more than four strings.

Another plan suddenly hatched.
Convert the banjo to a four string, in effect turning it into a tenor banjo.
Mystic Rog is a bit of a dab hand at musical instrument repair and offered to have a go at the conversion.

Using the same string spacing as my baritone ukulele seemed like a good idea and I asked if it could be DoGBonE re-entrant strung and entrusted it to Mystic Rog's care.

A week passed and Rog returned with this:

The Mutant Banjo

Rather than set it up as a straight forward four string Rog has done something rather ingenious.
He's grouped the bottom D string with it's octave a-la a 12 string guitar (are you following this?) thus:

Don't get confused by the shadows of the strings!

The sound of this hybrid instrument is amazing.
Primitive I'd call it.

I could add a sound file to demonstrate the noise it makes but, as we all know, a gentleman is someone who can play the banjo, but dosen't.

Thanks Mystic Rog, it's brilliant!