I have the answer for me.

I am more notorious for murdering the squeeze box, but I pick a bit on an ancient baby Fender. A couple of years ago, my sis crossed the pond to attend a wedding in a hilly bit that was never penetrated by the bicycle. Real Deliverance country.

She got kinda hooked up in the music thang, and treated herself to an Appalachian Dulcimer, and salved her conscience by buying me a present of a McNally Strumstick.

I ran a search on previous threads, and Spaw and Roger in Baltimore seem acquainted with these amazing mini banjos.

To get to the point, the troublesome frets are missing, ie the bum notes, so one gets about three inches between most frets, and landing anywhere produces a crisp twang, without any string stretching.

The trouble is the banjo playing snobs (?) I have showed it to are pretty sniffy about it, and the tune has to be in D (You can easily get GDA and B#m chords out of the three strings) I think it makes a great sound, if somewhat quieter than a banjo.

You can see a picture of one of these strumstick thingies at :-

http://www.netstuff.com/strumstick/index.htm

Blue clickey apologies.

Skipjack