Learnin' me some banjo

superhappypanda

So I'm heavily considering picking up a 5-string banjo to learn some bluegrass. Only kicker is I don't know a ton about them, I've hear some fairly good things about Gold Tone and Deering.

Anyone have any recommendations on a particular model or a site to get one? I've been looking at http://www.banjo.com and was thinking about one of their beginner packages.

MrMonroe

Oh hey, another bluegrass buddy. I'm a mandolin player myself.

While Gold Tone are great instruments, I would not buy anything new for your first instrument. Browse Craigslist in your area and pick up an <$200 used instrument. If you can stick with it for more than like six months, consider trading it in.

Khavall

Yeah, a banjo to learn on can pretty much be anything, you don't have to worry about quality so much when you're starting. For reference, I learned on a banjo that was $10, but without a fretboard, that I then put on. It sounds like total ass in comparison to my good banjo, but it was absolutely fine for learning. And my good banjo still was not that expensive. And gun to my head I still probably could use my crappy banjo for gigs if I really wanted to. For just playing around or casual things, it's still good enough.

Banjo's are really, really simple instruments, and they're really, really hardy. My learning banjo was, from what I understand, from around the time of the civil war.

Definitely I would suggest the ebay route or even garage sales nearby, craigslist, that sort of thing.

It's one of the advantages of banjos that you really don't need to be worried about dropping a large amount of money on a good instrument, and that's even if you're sticking with it and serious about it. If you're just learning, get the cheapest banjo you can fine and it'll be just fine.

EggyToast

The other advantage to going used for a first instrument is that if you don't like it, you can resell it and you know what the market price roughly is. You may find that it's a lifelong love and you never part with your first instrument, but you may also find that banjo isn't really where it's at and you end up playing guitar or mandolin or resonator guitar or pedal steel or whatever. Sinking a ton of money into an instrument at this point doesn't make sense. Of course, you don't want to buy an instrument that will make you hate playing music because the instrument is so shitty, but like Khavall points out, banjos are pretty hard to get a real bad one.