G'day all,

I have also seen the odd seven-string banjo ... six guitar-like stings plus a drone. I saw one in the hands of a Canadian singer visiting Sydney back in the 1960s and I also noted that in a book The Diary of Charlie Hammond (?)(a facsimile of a late 19th / early 20th century illustrated diary of a young artist who moved between England, New Zealand and Australia) when his brother, who had been in the RCMP, visits he has a seven-stringer.

I presume the drawings are accurate as Charlie was a skilled artist (who did reportage illustrations for newspapers), a musician (autoharp, guitar and uke in one photograph of his studio) and a skilled photographer (he was the first to take action photographs of horse-racing in Australia).

The Canadian I met used guitar chords with a thumb-played drone. There must have been a lot of interchange across body types and stringings: occasionally I play a tenor guitar, the four strings of which can be tuned like a banjo instead of the four highest of the guitar, depending one the player's preference.

What was it they said about banjo tunings "... there are as many mountain banjo tunings as there are mountain banjo players ..."?

Regards,

Bob Bolton