I have been playing my Trujo since 1965, when I purchased it from Jack Dupen. Jack owned the Red Garter chain of nightclubs, the first 'Banjo Beer Parlors' in the U.S, a theme later purloined by Joel Schiavone, Bob Snow and others. While playing in these clubs, the limitations of certain banjos and their various models became all too apparent. We needed cutting power and clarity, without too much percussion. Most of the banjos save the best B&D's, broke up, acoustically, when driven to certain levels. The Trujo banjo when set up properly and handled correctly, met all of the requirements of those venues.

The Trujo banjo, when played quietly, has plenty of sweetness born in spun brass and a very tight 5-Star transparent mylar head. With a strong left hand, one able to hold the strings down hard for just a microsecond longer, the banjo will produce sound which has more lasting ability than the other banjos I have played, i.e. the banjo actually gives you something back in reverberation. The deep pot adds considerable bass response, especially with the correct string selection. I have never found a use for the overhead mute, other than to simply quiet the banjo. I replaced the tail piece with one similar if not identical to the Oettinger. The bridge was made for me by Oliver 'Bud' Puckett in Atlanta and later duplicated by another Atlanta associate and wood instrument maker, Wade Lowe. It is of low mass, consisting of rock maple, bone and ebony. It is seated on the banjo head with bow rosin. With La Bella plectrum banjo strings this banjo sings a clear and mighty song. I chose La Bella due to their balance and proper mass/length ratio. They have good tone and are responsive to rapid fingering

On the down side, the banjo is heavy and unwieldy and better played in a seated position. Because of its depth, when standing, one is forced to 'side saddle' the banjo to get the right hand and arm into proper position. When in a stationary, standing, reading environment, where one is looking forward over the banjo, after about 40 minutes, it becomes unbearably heavy. The scale is longer than most standard banjos due to the intrinsic design objective of being tuned guitar style. Thus single stringing, challenging on plectrum "C" tuning to begin with, is made more difficult because of the longer scale.