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Riverboat Music Banjo Buyers' Guides
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Written by Paul D. Race for , , and

Banjo Buyers' Guides - Introduction, from Riverboat Music(tm),

So you would like to buy a banjo. The first thing you need to decide is what kind of music you want to play. Believe it or not, that will go a long way to determining the kind of banjo you should be investigating.

  • Bluegrass, "Old-Timey," or Folk-style banjo - Consider a Five-String banjo. Also, in today's culture, Five-String banjo is by far the most popular. When someone says they play or want a "banjo," chances are pretty good they're talking about a Five-String.

  • Dixieland or other kinds of Jazz banjo - Consider a Four-String banjo.

  • Celtic or "Stomp Band" music - Consider a Four-String banjo, although if you already know guitar chords, a Six-String banjo will substitute.

  • Acoustic music with a banjo tonality, but not Bluegrass - Consider a Six-String banjo, expecially if you are already a pretty good fingerpicker or lead guitar player. That said, if you like "roots music," you may find adding Five-String to your arsenal more rewarding in the long run, as you can play styles on a Five-String that you literally can't play on a Six-String.

For more information about your best choices, check out CreekDontRise.com's article What Kind of Banjo Do I Want?

That said, most of the accessories for banjos are similar, so we will only have one page for those.

Other Resources

Though this is in our "buyers' guide" section, we are mostly concerned about you getting the best instrument for your purposes at the best price. For that reason, we recommend that you shop used before you lay out a fortune and realize you bought the wrong instrument anyway.

We have some instruments that we plan to list here eventually just to give you an example of the kinds of things to look for. But in the meantime, I recommend checking out the following CreekDontRise.com articles:

Please check back for updates, and contact us with any questions, corrections, additions, or reader responses.

How To Help Our Site for Free: If you find our tips, explanations, and recommendations helpful when picking out a product, Please Bookmark This Page and come back through it when you're ready to order. It costs you nothing, and we never see who placed the order, so you don't have to worry about us pestering you with followup e-mails or some such. But it helps us know what pages you find useful, and it helps our advertisers know who to support.

And that, in turn, helps us provide more useful resources. Thank you!


Note about Suppliers: While we try to help you get the instruments and other products you want by recommending suppliers with a good record of customer service, all transactions between you and the supplier you chose are governed by the published policies on the supplier's web site. So please print off any order confirmation screens and save copies of invoices, etc., so you can contact the appropriate supplier or invoke the product warranty should any problems occur.*

Note about Ordering Musical Instruments Online: Buy only from folks with a reasonable return policy and be sure to have any musical instrument you ordered online checked over by a professional as soon as you receive it. Every musical instrument has the potential for being damaged in shipment, even if the box looks fine when you get it. In addition, musical instruments shipped across the Pacific have a very high percentage of manufacturing defects. If you look at online reviews, a surprising percentage of the one-star reviews say something like "By the time I realized it was damaged (or had a critical manufacturing defect), the period for returns had run out, so now I'm stuck with a useless piece of . . . . " Yes, the manufacturer should have better quality control, and the store should pack things better. But in the end, you are responsible for making certain that an instrument or product will serve your needs while you still have time to return it.

Consider Buying Used: Before you spend $2000 on an instrument that will be worth $800 once you get it home, check out the used market for that sort of instrument in your area. Depending on where you live, or what kind of instrument you're looking for, it may not be an option. But if you can get a used professional instrument for the same price as a new student instrument, it is often worth taking the risk. Especially if you have a knowledgeable friend who can go along and check it out for you. In fact, many of our pages include links to articles on how to shop for used instruments of various types. However, we recognize that many folks have limited access to good used instruments, and everyone needs to see what is available in the various price ranges. So we do list, when possible, live links to real vendors with a good return policy, in case they're your best choice for getting what you want. Again, once you buy something, your satisfaction is between you and the seller.

Note about Availability and Pricing: Although I try to keep an eye on things and to recommend products that are reasonably available, the musical instrument market does fluctuate, and any product on this page may change price or become unavailable without prior notice. If you "click through" to see details on a product, and nothing happens at all, or you are routed to a supplier's home page, please let me know and I will remove the product from the online listing until I can find a replacement or another supplier.

*Here's an irony: every year, I receive about a dozen complaints from folks who have never been to my sites before, angry that a deal between that person and a vendor or manufacturer I recommend went south (in their opinion). They "googled" the product, saw my recommendation or review, then e-mailed me to tell me they were going to sue me or report me to the Better Business Bureau for personally ripping them off by recommending a product they had bought from someone else. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the problem is really because the customer didn't read the whole ad, or ordered the wrong thing, or threw away his paperwork and doesn't know where he bought it from, etc. I'm always polite, and sometimes I can even help them get things straightened out with the vendor, but it's not, technically, my problem.

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