BanjoTom2.Org – Banjo Tablatures…

If you watch this long enough, you may get some chuckles…

Beethoven’s Version of the Classical Digeridoo – CLICK HERE…

Digeridoo – CLICK HERE…

Ain’tcha glad yer a banjer picker? 😉

Just kidding, of course, I love music and all instruments are welcome!

BanjoTom2

I decided to shop for my gal online this year.

I got a promotional e-mail or two from Banjo Ben Clark, so I decided to shop with a ‘banjo brother!”…

I got Janie the Purple Hulls’ “A Christmas Album” and…

A bar of ‘Bath Barn Goat Milk Soap’ with a banjo on it…

Janie and I listened to the album on Christmas day several times and we both love it!

Ben’s sisters (and he too, of course) are extraordinarily musically talented folks…

Needless to say, Janie and I were both very impressed with their singing and playing…

It’s a great album and Janie and I highly recommend it…

Janie loves the banjo soap!

Banjo Ben Clark and his site have my endorsement as a great place to shop online for the musician’s and pickers in your life…

The quick service was excellent…

Banjo Ben Clark’s online store – CLICK HERE…

Thanks Banjo Ben!

Tom Arri, alias BanjoTom2

The occasional addition of electric bass and drums, and the general demand for greater and greater volume in bluegrass bands has created an occasional need for electric amplification of the fiddle.

Our forefathers played through giant steam-driven amplifiers. Primitive and bulky, it took as many as twelve hours to get the boiler temperature up, and was a nuisance to move during indian raids and hailstorms.

The first recorded incidence of amplified fiddling occurred in 1789. Captain Obidiah Grunte was playing “Leather Britches” under an elm in Dunwich, Massachusetts when a sudden thunderstorm sprung up.

A lightening bolt struck Obidiah hurling him 50 yards to a stone fence containing some copper-rich ore. Still resounding and glowing, the vibrations of “Leather Britches” by the now charged fencing were transferred to an abutting hollow log which amplified the strains of the tune to monstrous proportions.

The clientele of the Bull & Stoole tavern, some twenty miles away heard “a mighty scream and thence a huge fiddyle playing a reele” and immediately began a barbarous round dance which lasted until the echoes died away the next morning.

Thus Obidiah Grunte is credited with the invention of both the amplified violin and reverb unit.

Loaded to the Mando Hangout…

60 Christmas Mandolin Tabs – FREE! – CLICK HERE…

BanjoTom2, alias MandoTom2 on the Mando Hangout

12/22/2018

Dogs and Heaven

A man and his dog were walking along a road.

The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead. He remembered dying, and that the dog had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them. After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble.

At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it, he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother of pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, “Excuse me, where are we?”

“This is heaven, sir,” the man answered.

“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” The man asked.

“Of course, sir. Come right in, and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.” The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

“Can my friend,” gesturing toward his dog, “come in, too?” The traveler asked.

“I’m sorry; sir, but we don’t accept pets.”

The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going.

After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road which led through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.

“Excuse me!” He called to the reader. “Do you have any water?”

“Yeah, sure, there’s a pump over there” The man pointed to a place that couldn’t be seen from outside the gate. “Come on in.”

“How about my friend here?” The traveler gestured to the dog.

“There should be a bowl by the pump.”

They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree waiting for them.

“What do you call this place?” The traveler asked.

“This is heaven,” was the answer.

“Well, that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said that was heaven, too.”

“Oh, you mean the place with the Gold Street and pearly gates? Nope.

That’s hell.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”

“No. I can see how you might think so, but we’re just happy that they screen out the folks who’ll leave their best friends behind.”