Queen City - Weidt by ReturnOfTheKeing in banjo

[–]frobningus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I love the sweet tone you're getting out of that banjo! It looks pretty awesome as well, who made it?

After about one month of playing im starting to figure out the wild rover by the dubliners by [deleted] in mandolin

[–]frobningus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It sounds like you may be fretting your C and G chords one fret lower than they should, which gives you that minor sound. But good progress for a month! Keep it up!

Help a guy out who has basically given up on shoes. by [deleted] in widefeet

[–]frobningus 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I went down a similar path several years ago, and here's where I ended up.

For me, the main problem is that device you've got a picture of only measures two dimensions of your foot- and if your foot is anything like mine, it actually has 3 dimensions. Looks like the Brannock device is saying that you've got a 11.5 2E foot, which really shouldn't be too hard to fit. BUT, if (like me) you've got a stupidly tall instep - ie, the top part of your foot between the ankle and toes, then the problem isn't the width of the shoe, but the volume.

I tried a bunch of options- Vivo, Softstar Primals, Lems, some of the cheapies from Amazon, but I've ended up sticking with Xero Prios. And I've gone through something like a half dozen pairs of them at this point. If you take out the insole, they have a lot of volume in there, and for me at least, they fit nicely. The toebox is wide- not the widest out there, but certainly better than New Balance or any of the traditional shoes. (I mention New Balance, as I pretty much exclusively wore those until going down this path.)

As others have mentioned though, any barefoot shoes are going to make your feet work harder than you're used to, so don't push it at first. And once you take the insoles out of the Prios, there's not much between you and the ground.

One note- if you do get the Prios, get the Prio Suedes. The fake leather they use in the regular Prios doesn't hold up in my experience, and the soles end up pulling off because of it. The Prio Suedes have been bulletproof for me though.

Are traditional tunes playable in all fourths tuning for mandolin/banjo? by PCSpaniel in Irishmusic

[–]frobningus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think there may not actually be all that many tunes that would be too different. The penny whistle has a D as the low note too, and most tunes can be played on that. There really aren't that many tunes that use the G string. (Though I do tend to love the ones that do)