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[Video & Photos] Green Heron's Banjofiddle Mutant Instrument

[Video & Photos] Green Heron's Banjofiddle Mutant Instrument

We recently got to know Scott & Betsy Heron of the duo, Green Heron at a gig up here in New Hampshire. Since then, they've appeared on the Gitty Gang show a few times and have quickly become good friends.

When we created the 2021 Musical Mutants Build-Off Contest, they jumped right in and created their own double-instrument hybrid.   The only way we can introduce this instrument is to play the video first.  It features the trad music duo somehow pulling a fantastic tune out of this mutant beast!

Scott describes the instrument:  

Is it a banjiddle or a fiddilanjo? Whatever you call it, it's definitely a mutant. 

We took an old pine crate, a busted piece of cedar fence, some C. B. Gitty parts, and a few other random bits to create this old-timey abomination.

The pine box makes up the back, sides, banjo top, and even the violin fingerboard. A rejected maple neck was used for the fiddle while a C. B. Gitty walnut neck blank was used for the banjo. The fiddle top was resawn from a chunk of cedar fence that fell victim to a fallen tree branch. The calfskin head was fit atop a bent strip of metal from an old steamer trunk. We're still trying to figure out how to actually play it.

Learn more about their music at www.GreenHeronMusic.com

15th Apr 2021

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