Two questions: [1] I have 2 mandos, both early teens: Gibson F2 & Fairbanks/Vega Tu-ba-phone banjo mandolin. I'm going on the road for a month and have decided to take the banjolin rather than the F2 because I suspect it will hold up better while traveling. Am I right? Or should I just buy a beater? [2] More generally with the banjolin, I am concerned that it is too loud, especially if I was a stranger at an out of town jam. At present, I've got the pot stuffed with my household white goods, but I wonder if I attached little binder clips to the ends of the bridge, would it help at all with muting?
There are various ways to mute a banjo/banjolin. You can use 2 clothes pins attached to the bridge. You can put a small piece of porous plastic under the bridge. Or.... you could just pick lighter and be quieter that way.
I took my good banjo wherever we went. If I went to a new jam at a new town and got that banjo out, I was always welcomed and asked to join the jam and people didn't want me to leave. Of course, we had a motorhome so the banjo was kept there unless I was playing in a jam. However, I played it outside, inside, wherever a jam occurred. A few times we've had to quickly abandon the jam and put our instruments in their case to keep them from getting wet and make a run for shelter.
When we stayed at RV parks, we'd sit outside and play and sing and almost always someone would come up and want to join us and we had a jam going. It was much fun.
