School of The Rock™

Care and Choosing of Acoustic Instruments

Note: This article is being archived, as parts of this web site are being rearranged, and redundant articles are being eliminated.  The links below will take you to the current location of the articles we have moved or removed to avoid duplication.

When we founded this site, we planned for this page to list articles about choosing, buying, tuning, and maintaining acoustic fretted instruments, starting with guitar, banjo, and mandolin.  As it turns out, a sister site CreekDontRise.com has generated a lot of interest, and we’re posting most of our articles about acoustic instruments on that page (see below).

Our Acoustic Instrument Articles, now hosted on CreekDontRise.com include:

• What Kind of Guitar Should I Start On?
• Evaluating and Buying Used Guitars
• What Kind of Banjo Do I Want?
• Setting Up Acoustic Guitars and Other Fretted Instruments

• Whatever Happened to the Banjo? - Marginalization of an American Icon - Banjo was once every bit as popular as guitar in this country - why don’t you hear them on the radio much these days?
• Are 6-string Banjos For Real?- Despite the false claims of manufacturers and the ridicule of 4- and 5-string players, they are real instruments with a respectable  history. 
• Banjo Pickups - a review of aftermarket pickups that will work on most acoustic instruments.
• Axes in my Life - Fretted instruments I’ve owned over the years, including what I learned from each.  Banjos, guitars, mandolins, bases.  Brand names include Kay, Harmony, S.S. Stewart, Ovation, Cameo, Deering, Hondo, Fender, Dean, Samick, more.
• What is a Bluegrass Banjo?  You can learn Bluegrass styles on any playable 5-string banjo.  But if you want to play “out,” you’ll need certain features.
• Dean Backwoods Six Shootout - Dean’s “electric-acoustic” 6-string banjo is not just an upgrade to their acoustic 6-string - it’s a different banjo with different pros and cons.
• Beginning 5-string Banjo - the first of several planned articles to help folks trying to get started on this instruments.  We explain multiple styles so you can choose your favorite.

If you have questions, ideas, or articles you want to share on these or related topics, please contact us.  If you know of a link that would be helpful here, please send us the URL and we’ll evaluate it.