As a friend on this list who emailed me about his own efforts to master both 
guitar and banjo, I managed to learn to play both equally bad, and perhaps 
this colors my view of being able to easily play both. Seriously, I did not 
mean to imply that Twain or anybody else could not at least strum chords on 
a four or five (or six or seven!) string banjo something like they would on 
guitar. I was talking about 19th century banjo playing, not blue-grass, but 
I see how my comments would seem to imply otherwise.

On the subject of "Mark Twain's guitar" I hope that anyone curious about 
that topic will google that subject (the owner invoked the Mark Twain Papers 
and the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing to support his assertion), and 
then google the name of the owner and read about the lawsuit against him in 
which he mounted an imaginative defense when he stood accused of copyright 
infringement, and draw their own conclusions.

Kevin
@
Mac Donnell Rare Books
9307 Glenlake Drive
Austin TX 78730
512-345-4139
Member: ABAA, ILAB
*************************
You may browse our books at
www.macdonnellrarebooks.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bird" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: Mark Twain, banjo player?


> At great hazard, I risk contradicting Kevin about anything, Twain or 
> music.
> But--at a certain level, it is not that hard for a guitar player to play
> banjo, as in strum rudimentary chords. If Mark Twain did ever try to play
> the banjo, and if he could play some on the guitar, he could easily pick 
> up
> some banjo chords. What Kevin refers to is playing three-finger bluegrass
> banjo, something that did not exist until the 1930s or 1940s. Earl Scruggs
> learned from people surrounding him in Flint Hill, NC, notably Snuffy
> Jenkins, and then perfected his amazing technique. Banjoists in the
> 19th-century were either strumming chords (not that hard to get the
> rudiments of) or doing some kind of frailing (later called clawhammer). 
> But
> we digress far afield from Mr. Mark Twain...
>
> John Bird
> --former banjo strummer in a Dixieland band, living proof a guitarist can
> make the switch
> --and that was on a tenor banjo, which did not come about until the early
> 20th century
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Kevin Mac Donnell
> Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 3:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Mark Twain, banjo player?
>
> Twain strummed a little guitar in his youth, but not banjo. He also 
> plunked
> a little on the piano most of his life, but not the banjo (his sister 
> Pamela
> gave piano lessons in Hannibal). Playing the banjo is not like playing
> guitar and playing one does not mean you can play the other. My Dad had 
> (and
> still has at age 90) a bluegrass band and was a friend of Earl Scruggs and
> they exchanged 8-track banjo tapes all the time. I tried learning both
> guitar and 5-string banjo, soon gave up, and masteed classical piano
> instead. Scriabin is soooo much easier.
>
>
>
> -----
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