I have a crush on an instrument. The banjo. Such a characteristically cheery, happy sound but I crave from it an ethereal darkness. Minor chords with creepy progressions, those thin plunky strings swelling in the distance under a sinister distortion reverb. A song emerges. It’s about a cemetery. I need to get my hands on a banjo. Immediately. I’ve needed to get my fingers around the neck of a banjo immediately for three days now.
This sound that I want, it’s messing with my senses. I can’t quite hear it. The closest analogy I can think of is a decadent smell that I don’t get to taste. I’m walking to my apartment as the hallway fills with the scent of cinnamon and vanilla coming from some neighbor’s oven.
I don’t think I can quantify the time I’ve put in to making this happen. The Brooklyn Folk Festival had a banjo giveaway this week. I downloaded an app and played a banjo throwing game for hours, trying to get the high score. I went in person today to the Gowanas Canal and literally threw a banjo into the water in a weak attempt to fling it farther than any of the women I was competing against. Over the weekend, I researched how to fix up the banjo I recently acquired. I naively thought it only needed strings, but soon realized there was no hardware to even string them through. It needs tuning pegs, new skins, tailpiece, bridge, bracket hooks, a couple of more metal thingies I don’t even know the name of. Oh, and the tool to tighten everything. Intimidated, I went online to price out a new banjo. Whoah. Those things are EXPENSIVE. MUCH more expensive than guitars. I know that’s arguable, but for my purposes, I’ve always found inexpensive guitars that I absolutely love. Don’t get me wrong, I like masterpiece guitars as much as the next person. I’m also not a snob, my standards are as low as they are high.
So all the time I spent trying to win a free banjo + all the time I researched trying to fix up the one I have times how much $ I make an hour = ???? Looking at it mathematically, I should have bought a damn banjo 3 days ago.
And now, as I wrap up my weekend, I am still banjo-less. And instead of working on the songs I feel I should be trying to finish, I’m writing in you, lamenting about my banjo-less life. Truth be told, once I acquire, learn and actually play a banjo, this “soundscape” I’m craving may never actually materialize. As crushes on instruments sometimes go. Then again, scattering my energies so often helps me focus my writing. I have no idea how that works. However, I will optimistically conclude that this new obsession will somehow turn out to be fruitful.
