Forum Activity for @strumelia

Hi Ted, just type in a key word or key phrase into the Search field - click the white 'magnifying glass' icon at the very top right corner of any page. That will search the entire contents of the site.

There are also similar search fields available in various sections of the site, such as our Video section, or Photo section. Those will search only within that section.  For example, type in "cat" in the photo section and you'll get various photos with the word cat in the title or description.

An 'archive' is a collection of older material that is stored in a separate location from the current material, perhaps stored by date. In that sense, there is no 'archive' here on FOTMD because all our content from ten years is all kept in the same place here- you just have to use the search feature to find the specific things you are interested in, or else just browse older discussions and older pages from the Video or Audio sections. It's all there for the browsing.

Hope that helps.

Cindy that's great that you are able to support and help your mother this way.

My uncle was 95 when he passed away this past December, and all the way until his last year or two, he and my aunt took a one or two mile walk every day.  A great way to stay active for older folks especially!  They always called it their 'hike' even after it had slowed way down as they got older.   :)

Brian and I once stayed in Burnsville for a couple days.

Ken what's the VSL on that little stick?  Do you have a clip of it being played?  It looks small like an epinette?  How do you like to keep it tuned?

@ken-hulme that's a very purty walking stick!

Tell us what your current favorite song or tune is right now, and why it's your current favorite.

also... Tell us what your current favorite instrument to play right now is, and why.

Let's hear it, friends! 

This is super cool.
I think it would be additionally fun to make a little folded paper origami boat to float in the 'canal' while playing it.

Dusty I guess if/when we get those old fashioned in-person things back again, we'll appreciate and savor them so much more. FWIW, I think your 10 foot distance with masks was smart behavior.

On another note, I tried a different chocolate chip cookie recipe out today, since my last attempt came out disappointingly mediocre, and were a bit of work.  Strangely, this new recipe was way easier to make (no chilling of dough) and the results were incredibly good:
https://www.thewholesomedish.com/the-best-easy-chocolate-chip-cookies/
I should mention that I changed a couple things: -->unfortunately I had no vanilla (it's coming in two weeks) so i left that out. -->I first browned the butter as opposed to simply melting it (giving it a subtle caramel flavor), ...and -->I reduced the choc chips to 1.5 cups instead of two cups, since I wanted to conserve our precious chocolate and i don't care for cookies that are practically solid chips anyway.  Oh, and --> I used Ghiardelli Dark chocolate chips, which is an amazing chip. 

Man, these cookies are out of this world good!  (or as my mother used to say "OTW!"...lol)  You can taste the caramel-y browned butter flavor.  It yielded a generous 38 cookies of 3" diameter.  I'm glad i reduced the chips, because they came out perfect with plentiful melty chips.
Brian said this was called "stress baking".  Ok, whatever.    He also said they were the best cookies ever.  He almost went ballistic when he saw the price of chocolate chips nowadays- we had to order them on Amaz, since baking supplies are a little scarce right now. But now he has 'seen the light' for having the ingredients for cookies. My stress baking alleviated some stress for both of us.

Finding places to exercise outside.
My husband and I used to drive to our county fairgrounds to do fitness walks for the first few weeks of covid isolation.  It's open to the public and much like a pleasant park when the fair is not on, with asphalt paths everywhere.  It was a great place to walk and not get close to people! In pre-virus times we used to sit and eat ice cream cones there.

Unfortunately, it's now become crowded, with everyone in town now having 'discovered' it for exercise and for getting out of the house and socializing. Very hard to stay far from others. No matter what time or day we go there, the paths and even the grassy areas are sprinkled everywhere with little kids on bikes, dog walkers, moms with strollers, joggers, roller bladers, and walkers. People tend to just whiz right by you at close range. It amazes us to also see groups of moms with babies, standing like 4 feet from each other yakking away, no masks, while their kids are all randomly running around them and playing together, touching. These are not just one family. Yikes, I want to stay well away from them!  The fairgrounds became too stressful for us to walk there.

Anyway, we tried walking on a lovely country dirt road yesterday just out of town, but again people were jogging, biking, dog walking, and even standing around in the middle of the road talking and socializing. Meandering all over the road so it was hard to avoid them when you pass by.  :(

So we are going for fitness walks now at the high school.  We look over the situation when we get there and choose one of four large outdoor loops we could walk without bumping into groups of people:  looping around the softball field (in the grass), around the circumference of the football field, around the huge parking lot, or going around the running track. Making several loops around any of these gives us our 2 mile goal.  I wear my pedometer so I can keep track of our distance no matter where we walk.  So far so good, there's always at least one of these four choices that has nobody there at all.  :)

Funny how we have to plan such elaborate strategies now just to go for a walk and feel safe.  But we have various choices... I really feel for people in the cities who have few choices. How do they manage to exercise safely now that all the gyms are closed?

It's always a struggle to force myself out of the house to go for a brisk fitness walk somewhere. Usually i get my exercise from going to contra dances, but no dances while the virus is on.
I did manage a 2 mile walk a couple days ago, and another 1 mile walk today. I get creeped out when I have to pass by someone on the road (I try to hold my breath!) but it's not too much risk since we are about ten feet apart and outdoors.  But still...

Anyway, I know it's important to get exercise and leave the house occasionally.  So I force myself.

It's still been mostly cold and wet here in NY, so the various seeds I planted in the garden for lettuce, radish, carrots, and scallions are only just now little half-inch tall baby plants.  BUT... with warm weather in the 50s coming real soon on a regular basis, these babies should start shooting up much faster them.  So I'm glad I planted the seeds a bit early. They did not freeze and die.

Yesterday I planted a second batch of various lettuces, radish, scallion, and carrots.  The trick is to plant only a small amount of each, and then do another batch in two weeks, and a third yet another two weeks after that.  That way they won't all mature at the same time. Some types of lettuce do well planted all through Summer, others can't take the heat.

Meanwhile, I pick up an order of produce, milk, eggs, and bread from the contact-free store once every two weeks.  And I am growing a constant supply of alfalfa sprouts in the kitchen. Enjoying making yogurt.
Baking choc chip cookies occasionally as a treat. They came out 'ok' but I rationed the precious chips to like 4 or 5 per cookie. Even so, my mediocre choc chip cookies tasted sublime!  At our house we consider small doses of dark chocolate to be essential for both our medicinal and psychiatric well being. For the past year or so I've been using a teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder in my coffee cup instead of 2 tsp sugar like I used to for many years.  That must surely be good for me.

I had to order a big bag of dark choc chips online as we are running low. Baking staples are now more expensive than they used to be, for sure. Brian was shocked by the online price, but then he realized how important it was to us to have some dark chocolate here for cookie making and snacking... and how dreary it would be to not have chocolate to perk us up.

There's a lot to be said for those generic lovely blank cards, Dusty. This sounds terrible, but the last time i bought a sympathy card, I bought like four of them so I could avoid the ordeal of picking one out the next few times someone I know passes away.
As we get older, more people we know pass away and this was true in general, long before Covid19 times.  Having some pretty cards with blank inside just makes sense.  I have some with Japanese paintings of birds and branches.

Jan that's very sad about your friend. I assume you've been phoning or writing/emailing to her? Very dismal, but it's good she has someone like you who touches base with her.

Our banks and pharmacies are closed, but you can use their drive-throughs. You can make an appt or order if you need something or service in particular, but you can't just walk in anymore. Maybe I can make a potato stamp card to send to my friends if I need to!  And then eat the potato of course, because no wasting.   ;)

I am glad your covid test came back negative Jan!

Feeling so grateful to the two little stores in my town that are offering contact-free curbside pickup of groceries.  Feeling sooo grateful to have been able to go pick up some fresh milk, apples, eggs, and produce today without having had to navigate a crowded supermarket.

One of the 1/2 gallons of milk i got today is earmarked for me to make it into yogurt tomorrow. I've enjoyed learning that new skill and I love the resulting yogurt I've made so far. It really helps my digestion when i eat a little yogurt every day. My fave is to chop some apple into a 1/2 cup of yogurt, and throw on a handful of granola and nuts, maybe a couple of chopped dates or raisins... and then drizzle honey on it before eating. To me that's a Heavenly meal. 

Yesterday I made some chocolate chip cookies from scratch, which I haven't done in years.  I lacked the vanilla, used the last of my brown sugar, and had to ration the choc chips down to three per cookie   but they came out well enough and taste good- satisfying our sweet cravings.  We figured out that if we each eat only three cookies per day, they'll last us three whole days. Oh boy!

I had a funny thought today, inspired by how giddy i was when I got home with fresh apples and such.  I'm imagining a Christmas 2020 where it'll be like a throwback to the 1880s again- with little children being thrilled to find an orange or tangerine in their Christmas stockings.    Not bloody likely, but the thought made me laugh.

I like that in my small town, people seem to be checking on each other more.  I'm 65, but I've phoned my next door neighbor a couple of times now- she's a widow who's 80. I've been in touch via text with my neighbors across the street (two public school teachers now teaching online). Then just this morning the owner of one of the cafes in town (around aged 50) emailed me asking if my husband and I are ok. It warmed my heart. 

Ariane's new Spring 2020 Calendar has been added as a new Event here on fotmd:

https://fotmd.com/ariane/event/240/musical-spring-calendar-2020

I'll lock this discussion now so as to encourage folks to continue comments on the event page itself. Thanks!    :)

But... super short bangs are so ... French!  

You should feel guilty Dusty... that sounds a bit over the top uber deluxe! 

...are you sure it wasn't alfalfa sprouts?

We all love you Terry, we think you're perfect just as you are!

Steve, I think we are all tending to appreciate our neighbors more during this virus thing.
I had a new neighbor buy one of the houses adjacent to ours at the beginning of Winter, but it being winter I never saw her or had a chance to even say hello and introduce myself.  Today was beautiful weather and i finally saw her outside putting her garbage out, so I went to the edge of my property corner and we talked for about 20 minutes catty-corner across the embankment that separates our houses, and got to know each other a little from twenty feet away. It was nice. She lives there alone with her dog so I'm sure she was happy to meet a friendly neighbor.

I wanted to spend some time out in the sun, so I pruned our blueberry bushes some more, nipping off some dead and crossed branches.  And I planted some more lettuce and radish seeds.  Last week's seed is now sprouting up. I love to look for the seedlings poking up.. it's hard to know which i like better: planting the seed and watching for the baby sprouts, or harvesting and eating the results.
I took the little window box outside of Brian's office window that I usually plant with flowers in the Spring, but this time I instead planted it with a seed mix of baby mesclun salad greens. 

About 5 weeks ago when all this virus crisis started, I had a half tank of gas and figured I'd fill it up when it went down to a quarter tank. Over the past five weeks I've used it to go to pick up food in town twice, gone for medicine once, and driven to a good place to go walking about eight times now. But it still shows a half tank. Must be magic gas. 

Terry thank you for your kind words!    I did enjoy writing those blog posts.

For the benefit of those wondering, here are links to the two posts on my dulcimer Blog that Terry mentioned:

https://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-ever-happened-to-singing.html

https://dulcimer-noter-drone.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-have-no-musical-talent-at-all.html

Am seeing some seedlings coming up in the garden now- of lettuce, carrots, bunching onions, and radishes... these are things that sprout and grow well in the cold Spring weather. They can be direct-seeded in the garden in early Spring, before the date of the last frost.  Exciting to see the tiny baby seedlings pushing up through the dirt!  Now if only the squirrels and birds will leave them alone.

Meanwhile, I've had to get creative concerning the warm weather veggies like peppers and tomatoes.  Most people either just buy started plants (like I usually do) or start ahead of time from seed in their basement under grow lights.
I realized a few weeks ago that it might be impossible to buy started plants next month at the garden store, what with the Covid-19 shortages and everybody suddenly starting "victory gardens" in their yards.  So I had ordered some seed early enough to get some before online sources run out of seed.

I didn't have the typical seed starting equipment or little seedling pots, and I imagined the local garden shop would be already out of all that anyway. So I cut in half a plastic milk jug and a cardboard milk carton, and also had a tupperware shallow container. I filled them with dirt from the garden and planted the seeds of tomato, red and orange sweet peppers, and purple tomatillos.

I had an electric pet warming pad that gives very low heat (as in 85F), like the kind you can put under reptile tanks. I stole it from our cats' bed... LOL.  I sandwiched the heating pad between hand towels in the large wooden tray, and put the planted containers on top and covered loosely with plastic wrap.  Put it in the bright window of the guest room... the only room closed off from the cats, who would likely tear all this up if they were allowed access.  ;) I think I'll get a little table lamp and put that near it as well. (update: borrowed a 60w shop lamp from Brian and set it up overhead as well.)

I think they take 10 days to 2 weeks to germinate, so I'll need to monitor it all to not be either too wet or too dry.

Anyway, here's my crazy setup- I hope I did not waste my precious seed!:

Hi Bob!  I really enjoyed that video, and you explain things very nicely!

Your instrument sounds just great and looks like huge fun to play. 

Hey I have a helpful tip for you concerning tremolo... I learned this back in my mandolin and and Puerto Rican cuatro playing days.  I see you are moving your hand and your whole forearm when doing tremolo, as though you are trying to strum fast- that just makes it hard on your arm and makes it hard to become fast and delicate. Instead, keep your arm completely still and move ONLY your hand while tremolo-ing.  You'll be rotating your hand at the wrist, best described as hiding a little cheat card in your palm and taking a quick peek at it... but doing this in rapid succession.  Try practicing the tremolo on a single string only,  ...trying to keep your hand relaxed and not moving your arm at all.  It takes some days of practice to 'get' this, but once you do get it you'll find your tremolo to be much easier and more sweet sounding, like a kitten purr.  Most mandolin players will play or strum across multiple strings but then when they get to their sweet tremolo at the end of a phrase they'll often just do it on the string that played that last melody note on, while letting the other strings continue to ring from the last chord but not tremolo on those other strings at the same time. Tremolo is more like a delicate 'tickling' of a string or maybe two strings in an interval sound, rather than fast whole-arm strumming across all strings.  I hope this may be helpful in some way.

Keep up the good work Bob!    Such a pretty instrument and has a sweet sound.  I think the eea tuning is like a different version of the dulcimer's daa..  simply reversed because you play it upright against your body and with your hand wrapped around the neck instead of down on the lap like a dulcimer.

I made a quart of yogurt for the first time yesterday.  To make it i used a quart of milk that was nearing expiration, and for the culture a 1/4 cup from the last of our store bought yogurt.  I incubated it for 12 hours in a cooler that contained a jug of warm water. The result was pretty much perfect yogurt.  Drizzled some of our own honey on our new homemade yogurt, with a chopped half apple and some granola and we had that for breakfast.  :D   I used to make kefir years ago, but I like this yogurt making even better, so looking forward to making more yogurt as soon as I can get hold of some more store bought milk.

For dinner we ate sandwiches with a frugal amount of salami and cheese, but with plenty of fresh alfalfa sprouts Ive been growing in jars in the kitchen.

Last night we watched Burt Lancaster in Birdman of Alcatraz... an excellent and fascinating movie that I remember from my teens, based on a real man, Robert Stroud.  It reminded me of 35 years ago when I used to raise canaries as a hobby... and back then I had a copy of Stroud's book of bird diseases.

Dusty for social distancing, you'd have to get someone who has a six foot long pair of scissors...

Not seeing any seeds sprouting  yet  in the garden where I planted lettuce and radish and such several days ago. But might be slow since it's rainy but quite cold still. Will be excited when i see something come up!  Just wish the squirrels would quit digging around in the garden.     Nuts to them!

But I started some alfalfa seeds in a sprouting jar a few days ago in the kitchen, and the sprouts are growing nicely and will be ready in 3 more days.  Yay, fresh greens!  We love sprouts and I usually do grow them in jars in the kitchen all winter when the garden is asleep and we're craving fresh greens.  I almost always have a jar going during winter. Alfalfa is our favorite because we like mild sprouts that are not peppery. For some reason I didn't do it this Winter, but now with the virus isolation and so few trips to the store and the garden not producing yet, now is the perfect time to start sprouting again!   
I ordered a pound of fresh alfalfa sprouting seed from amazon, but I do have enough seed for another two weeks til the new package gets here.  I'm starting a quart jar size of sprouts every three days which is about what we go through when we eat it often. Each qt jar requires 4 level teaspoons of seed to start it. It's covered with a screen top. Days later when ready to harvest and all greened up it takes up the entire quart jar- amazing. Once you pull it out of the jar, tease the sprouts apart to rinse the hulls off, it's a nice generous amount of sprouts and you just keep them in the fridge in a plastic tub and use them. It takes 5 or 6 days to grow from start to finish.  It's fun and easy, you just have to remember to rinse the jar with fresh water twice a day and drain.

It's been two and a half weeks since I went food shopping anywhere. I found out my favorite restaurant/deli/bakery has put up a website offering "contact free purchasing"... you pick out what you want and pay online, then the next day they email you when your order is ready and you drive there and pick up the shopping bag with your name on it, left in the vestibule with no one else around.  I made an order yesterday. When I get it home I plan to immediately transfer all items into our own bags and containers just to be extra safe. Waiting for the email sometime around midday.
I am sooooo looking forward to a couple of fresh baked croissants, loaves of multi grain and rye bread, and fresh farm eggs this afternoon... it will be such a huge treat!!  Before the VirusTimes, my husband and I would savor going for breakfast there every saturday and sunday. It was our big weekly treat and I'd dream    of their wonderful croissants.  It's been weeks since I had one, or had bread that hasn't been frozen, thawed, and refrigerated.  :)  
I know we are lucky to have food at all , of course. But this is such a nice pick me up for us during this time of endless days at home while slowly going through our supply of perishables.
Can't wait!
I feel your excitement over the fresh eggs and chicken, Dusty! 

Our backyard veggie plots take on a new sense of importance during these strange new times of self isolating. They become like the WWII "Victory Gardens" the govt used to encourage.

I have fresh veggie seeds coming in the mail soon from Park Seed Co.   But two days ago it was sunny and 55F and the weather predicted several days of rain and high in the forties for a week.  I couldn't resist- i hoed a little one square yard patch in my garden and planted the leftover 2019 lettuce and radish seeds from last year... might as well use it up and see what is still able to germinate.  Then when the fresh seed arrives I can start some of that too, a week later. I usually direct-seed into the ground the cold-loving things like lettuce, carrots, and radish.
Naturally, the next day all the rain forecasted turned into snow instead and this morning there's two and a half inches of New York snow out there. It'll briefly get up to 45 today and I'm hoping that's enough to melt it all.  I'm thinking those little seeds are still ok and that maybe 1/8 of them might wake up and sprout... hopefully just enough to get a few early leaves of leaf lettuce and a few radishes. The last time I did this same thing, i got zip ... but no harm in trying I guess!  In any case, it was therapeutic to be out there in the sun for an hour digging into the earth. 

The state-focused groups here on FOTMD don't get a whole lot of activity, as Dusty said. Especially for states with few and far players and gatherings.

Groups such as the Beginners Group and the Builders Group do have regular activity, and of course our discussion forums and video/audio sections are pretty popular.
We have thousands of discussions here on FOTMD on various interests, so using the Search function can bring up all kinds of site items both recent and older that might be of special interest to an individual.  Try searches for "dog", "feather quill", "TMB", "groundhog", "Farina", "cajun", "Spring" or other words or terms you are curious about...and be prepared to discover some fascinating nooks and crannies of the site. There's a whole lot to see here and enjoy, but it's not all laid out right on the main page.   

Facebook dulcimer pages never have old posts- posts are made each day and then sink down out of sight and disappear. So if one prefers to see new posts only, joining or creating a FB group might be another good option to look into.  

Yeah, there is some serious stay-at-home action going on everywhere now.

My husband and i are now planning every meal with much forethought and care.  It's really making us appreciate and savor every egg, apple, quart of milk, or fresh banana that we still have. After all the fresh perishable stuff is gone, we'll be digging into dried, frozen, and canned stuff, but that can taste good too.  Made rice and beans on tortillas tonight, with some pan-seared raddichio tucked in.

We take a brisk 1.5 mile walk around the mostly empty county fairgrounds several times a week- it's pleasant and is only a half mile from our house and is open to the public. It's got lots of paved asphalt paths and loops. Only a few scattered people are there at any given time, walking their dogs or with baby strollers or jogging. 

It's such a strange thing to look at a practically empty calendar devoid of 'running out' for various errands, shopping, appointments, or meetings. 

Stay well dulcimer friends! 

Greetings Don, and welcome to the site.   :)

Over the years, there have been a few groups dedicated to players in states that don't have a whole lot of dulcimer players who are active on the internet. After a couple years of no activity whatsoever in some groups, I sometimes delete them. That's in order to make the main Group list a little easier for people to visually sort through.
I'm thinking that a group specific to NH is not going to have much activity (I say this from prior  experience). I'd suggest that you join our NorthEastern US regional Group:
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/group/2/northeastern-us-dulcimer-players
and start some posts or discussions there if you like.
Or perhaps better yet, simply join groups that have subjects you are interested in about playing styles or types of dulcimers (fingerpicking, stick dulcimers, dulcimer traditions, modern playing styles, dulcimer building, etc). There are groups that focus on all kinds of great dulcimer interests!

Thanks Don, and I hope you'll enjoy it here. 

@silverstrings, that is inspiring about your hand stretching more over time!  I imagine others will have renewed hope after reading your story.  :)

There's yet another factor helping people with small hands who practice or play often-  I don't think most folks think about how our hands get more nimble with more playing.  New music makers move the hands stiffly or somewhat awkwardly of course, and they also simply think too much before each note. With time our hands learn how to more swiftly and gracefully move, jump, or slide from fret to fret or string to string. We learn how to hammer on, slide a bit, or lift off the string.. all of which facilitate smooth moving along the melody of a tune without needing to purposefully stretch quite as much.  So even if your hands don't stretch very much, it will get easier with time and patience.

@pmundy , what a lovely and uplifting post and so well expressed about your journey in the joy of music.  Thank you! 

Yeah Ken, it stinks when someone implies in an opinionated way that other ways of playing, methods, or instruments other players use are less valid.   I agree!
That includes dissing: chord playing, noter playing, diatonic frets, chromatic frets, using tab, DAA tuning, DAd tuning, calling people 'sheep', disparaging teaching or group practices, playing jazz or playing hymns, whether someone's instrument is what we consider a 'dulcimer', and in fact includes the entire concept of either traditional or non-traditional being somehow more valid. 

Instead of putting down other people's enjoyment of their preferred way of playing their music, we should all lift up and share our joy in how we can play something, sheesh anything , to begin with!  It's such a privilege that we humans can produce sweet notes that are something we call music. We should be trying to help people achieve their goals in simply playing personal music in a way that makes them happy, helping them solve their problems. We should strive to be encouraging rather than boastful or patronizing, while always, always being respectful that there is more than just our own preference or opinion. We can share the joy of our own ways of playing music without putting others' methods down.

I have to say I think this whole concept of "dulcimer police" is very tired and negative. It may have had its use in the past, but it's time to retire it already. IMHO, perpetuating the idea that other people are being 'police' is in reality just another way to continue dissing others and keep alive an "us vs. them" mindset while boosting our own legitimacy.  To set a good example and actually make a real difference, let's look closer to home and examine our own selves before we push the same old ideas about other people being villains. 

My positive things today:

My husband was finally able to get his pneumonia vaccine...yay!

We had a yummy tortilla dinner by candlelight in the kitchen.

Vacuumed the whole house! ...and now (for a little while at least) it'll feel so nice to walk around the house barefoot. 

Ah, the little things in life can be so nice.

Soups are like the most nutritious and comforting meal we can have during these stressful times.

I didn't make soup today, but we're just about to make some smoked salmon w/egg in soft tortillas, with our own home-canned tomatillo green sauce!    Followed by maybe watching a movie in bed.  A little slice of humble Heaven.

Yeah, any instrument that makes you feel happy when playing it is just plain GOOD.  :)

(Cynthia I would love to hear more of you on your kantele- I loved what you posted a while back... so full of feeling and so ...from a Different time and place.)

There are many more gourd banjo makers now than there were ten years ago.  You can actually get a decent playable one for $300 or less.  Gourd banjers are less expensive than regular banjos in general. 

Bess, for that tune (from an old WV Hammons family recording) I was playing in clawhammer style. Other times I play in minstrel style and tuning.  Even though the two styles have a lot in common and can look like the same thing to an observer, I do find the actual physical playing styles of clawhammer and minstrel banjo to be different in significant ways other than simply because they use different tunings.  It took me a few years to actually notice that there were these differences.  To this day it takes me a minute or so to mentally/physically adjust when I switch back and forth between those two styles of playing.  There are always some moments of "Uh, what the heck are my fingers supposed to be doing, again?"... lolol.

I do suggest that a beginner decide which of the two styles to concentrate on for a while, rather than jumping back and forth between clawhammer style/tunings, and minstrel style/tunings.  Mixing the two up could be problematic unless you've had at least a year or two of playing one style before exploring the other style.  It's possible to learn both styles at the same time as a beginner of course, but the result would very likely be a hybrid style, so you have to decide on what your personal goal is.

If you mostly just play alone at home or with family you can play however you like without worrying about styles at all.  But if you plan to play with other folks that seriously play one of those styles and not the other, it might not be the best idea to jump into their established jamming group and start playing their customary repertoire in a hybrid style.   ;)   Playing in groups means we try to blend harmoniously and enhance what the group likes to do, rather than sticking out and possibly disrupting what they like to do. 

Some banjos are loud and beautiful, others can sound mellow and beautiful.  I have quite a few banjos.  My most mellow sounding banjo is my lovely gourd banjo with nylon strings: