Yes, we'll google it, pick out and highlight the information we want, punch "print," and turn it as the written part of our high school senior projects. Having been involved as an senior projects evaluator for a local school district, it was obvious that this was the approach that about 40 percent of the seniors had taken. I suggested that they be required to turn in a hand-written copy, so they would at least have had to have read what was submitted.

Basically, the mute (or clothespins) dampen the vibrations being transmitted through the bridge. A banjo tends to sound a bit like a resophonic guitar when muted. I teach banjo at a college, and many of my dorm-dwelling students have managed nicely with a mute, or, more often, a couple of clothespins.

You can clip wooden clothespins to the bridge to act as a mute. They also make commercial mutes that slip on the top of the bridge that will reduce the volume to about that of your nylon stringed guitar.

Tommy2 I use what are often called Chicago screws to attach the quick connectors to a banjo strap by just making a loop with each end of the strap. Mine have leather straps that thread under the hooks as you describe, with one part of the connector where the "tail" comes out by the tailpiece, and the other connector on a longer tail with several holes to adjust the length. (I came up with the design after having shoulder surgery and wasn't able to lift the banjo to put my head and arm through the strap.) ( I don't have one high shoulder like Earl did.) :D

A couple of posts had the best suggestions for dealing with the issue. Just don't shop on Amazon. I have had problems with some of their vendors, (although I eventually got refunds) so I choose not to help pad Jeff Bezo's bank account, and shop locally, and if I can't get what I need there, I look online at businesses not connected to the tentacles of Amazon. At some point we will all regret the fact that we helped to create a monopoly of such a magnitude, when we can't buy a loaf of bread at the local quickmart.

Just shop elsewhere. My few shopping experiences with Amazon have been less than positive, and their monopolistic business model is not going to be in the best interests of customers in the long run. I wouid rather pay a little more than find we have no other choices a bit farther down the road.

I ordered an item on ebay, and the next morning, there were ads for more of them that appeared here when I checked to see what was happening on the hog, so we're not safe anyplace.

Getting close to that one hundred thousand posts mark, Jerry.

Whenever the subject comes up, it brings back to mind the Canadian couple who stopped in my home town for fuel and food as they were passing through, and then disappeared. The wife was found alive, approximately six weeks later, with their vehicle stuck in the mud on some rarely used dirt road in Nevada, and the husband's body was found by hunters many months later, where he had died trying to walk out for help. They were following instructions from a GPS, which knew the road existed, but nothing about the fact that it was little more than a path, and was not maintained. A similar thing happened to a family from SF in the mountains of southern Oregon. The wife and children survived, but the husband died of exposure, trying to walk for help. Thanks, technology!
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I rode with a techie friend of mine on a recent trip, and his device never got us within 40 blocks of our destinations. I guess that's why they have street signs. I suppose we will all be lost when those systems get hacked.

And they seem to have great desire to remodel wooden houses. . .

At the time, most of the songs that were on the Beatle Country album were new to me, not being a Beatles follower, and I still haven't heard the Beatles' versions of several of them.

At the time, most of the songs that were on the Beatle Country album were new to me, not being a Beatles follower, and I still haven't heard the Beatles' versions of several of them.

A Boston area-based Bluegrass group, The Charles River Valley Boys, recorded an album on Elektra in the late sixties with nothing but Beatles tunes done Bluegrass style. It was entitled "Beatles Country" if I recall, and at least one of the songs, "I've Just Seen a Face," became a bit of a Bluegrass standard, recorded and/or performed by a lot of Bluegrass bands.

A little trivia regarding the British Naval Rum tradition: Major General Edward Pakenham, an Irish nobleman, and brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, was killed at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814. His body was placed in one of the casks of rum on a British navy ship to be sent back to the British Isles for burial. Unfortunately, the cask, apparently stored with all the others, was not clearly identified as not being for consumption. . .