World’s Only Cuban Cigar-box Banjo
Some people have a gift for choosing presents
I may have mentioned number one son before. He’s the consultant anaesthetist who never quite let go of the techno music fad when the rest of the world moved on. He is still quite adept at tracking down warehouse raves wherever they pop up around the country.
Well, I should mention, lest he seem two-dimensional, that he does a great sideline in choosing just the present that is going to make the recipient’s face light up at birthdays and Christmas.
The trick seems to be to have an accurate read on how the person really is, rather than how you or others might want them to be, and to choose a gift that honours the essence that you have seen in them. To get a present like that makes you feel understood, accepted and, well… loved!
In the case of his old Dad, he never forgets that I’m a wannabe musician. Before the banjo, he had already recycled some four-track mixing equipment in my direction, and one year bought me a beautiful octave mandola. The Greeks would call this a bouzouki but, tuned an octave below the mandolin’s GDAE, this is just the ticket for blasting out the Irish jigs and reels that I love.
At a snail’s pace, in my case, but the tone of the instrument is arresting, with its lower strings paired…
