What we're playing

I changed my banjo strings the other day when I found out they make Elixer's for the banjo. Elixer's are my very favorite guitar string because I really don't play more than 2-3 times a week and they keep their tone for such a long time. I only play the banjo about every 2-3 months, much to the frustration of my parents. You see, they paid for banjo lessons and I hardly ever play. I didn't have the average banjo teacher and she actually taught me a LOT of music theory and not so much how to play the banjo. With guitar and keyboard I just play chords, not the actual written notes so I can play just about anything with words and chords. I learned some basic chords, hammer-on, pull-off, basic picks and some tabulature for banjo and I just never really did much with it. But the theory skills, like transposing, chord structure, song structure, etc. is what I really picked up from my banjo lessons. Anyway, it got me thinking about the instruments that we have in the house at any given time. None of them are real special and they certainly aren't expensive but we do what we can with what we've got.

The banjo is an Antares that is about 27-28 years old. I sold my pony to buy it. Here it is with it's new Elixer strings. Did I mention how much I like Elixers?
Complete with the piece of McDonald's straw to raise the string a little bit. Yeah, the straw piece is about 27-28 years old too.
T has a Fender acoustic guitar that he plays about as much as I play the banjo. I have an Epiphone acoustic electric that I like to play through a chorus pedal. I'm not that fond of the acoustic sound it produces but the action and small neck width are perfect for me.
I keep it in an old beat up case that's about 25 years old. Yes, that is black duct tape but I refuse to buy a new case just to beat it up too.

This is my $25 piano that I bought when I was 12, with my own money. It had funky brown paint on it, not a single solid ivory on the whole thing, and some of the keys didn't work. We took it home in the back of my dad's old rusted 60's model pick up. My brother and cousin sat in the back of the truck to keep it from falling over, which it almost did. All the way home my brother played the only song he knew how to play, over and over and over. When we tipped it to load it, a bunch of pennies fell out of it and all the keys worked after that. I sent the keys off to be redone and painted it shiny black. It has awesome sound for an old $25 upright, but it does need tuning.
I love any kind of strange or different instrument that I come across. On top of the piano is some of my collection. There is a maraca from Mexico, a Haitian flute, a cowbell, an African board piano, two harmonicas (one which is an antique made in Germany that has two keys on it-one on each side-and awesome vibrato) a jew's harp, some kind of noise maker from Mexico, and a flutophone that is 30+ years old.

R has a yamaha E413 keyboard that she bought last spring. Our favorite thing on it is the arpeggio function.
At church I play a yamaha PSR730. We actually use the accompaniment feature on a lot of songs. My favorite part about this keyboard is that I can take out single components of the accompaniment and leave the others going. Like, I can use the drum and the bass and turn everything else off, 'cause let's face it, some of that "canned" stuff is pretty lame. Overall, we like the yamaha keyboards.

Oh, we also have a beautiful dulcimer that was bought in the Smoky Mts. R and I can each pick out a couple of simple songs on it but neither one of us has time to sit down and really learn to play.
Look at the soundhole design. Isn't it beautiful?

And that's what we're playing. Maybe next time I'll show you a picture of my canjo.

Our papers finally all got to DHS and our approval is pending review of the file. Please pray that it is 100% correct and complete and that they don't ask for anything else and we can get the approval and then a visa. Thanks.