Editing Pete Seeger (section)

===Banjo and 12-string guitar===
[[File:Pete Seeger banjos at the American Banjo Museum.jpg|thumb|Four long-neck banjos inspired by Seeger's. The instrument on far left was closely constructed to match Seeger's. [[American Banjo Museum]].]]
In 1948, Seeger wrote the first version of ''How to Play the Five-String Banjo'', a book that many{{who|date=December 2023}} [[banjo]] players credit with starting them off on the [[musical instrument|instrument]]. He went on to invent the ''long-neck'' or ''Seeger'' banjo. This instrument is three frets longer than a typical banjo, is slightly longer than a bass guitar at 25 frets, and is tuned a minor third lower than the normal 5-string banjo. Hitherto strictly limited to the Appalachian region,{{Citation needed|reason=5-string banjo history outside Appalachia as witnesses by Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York manufacturers prior to the Great Depression, especially in 1880s-1910s. See [[American Banjo Museum#Classical, 1880s-1910s]]|date=February 2020}} the five-string banjo became known nationwide as the American folk instrument par excellence, largely thanks to Seeger's championing of and improvements to it. According to an unnamed musician quoted in [[David King Dunaway]]'s biography, "by nesting a resonant chord between two precise notes, a melody note and a chiming note on the fifth string", Pete Seeger "gentrified" the more percussive traditional [[Appalachia]]n "frailing" style, "with its vigorous hammering of the forearm and its percussive rapping of the fingernail on the banjo head".{{sfn|Dunaway|2008|p=100}} {{citation needed span|text=Although what Dunaway's informant describes is the age-old droned frailing style, the implication is that Seeger made this more acceptable to mass audiences by omitting some of its percussive complexities, while presumably still preserving the characteristic driving rhythmic quality associated with the style.|reason=This is OR as presented; a reliable citation for these multiple claims is required.|date=April 2025}}

Inspired by his mentor Woody Guthrie, whose guitar was labeled "[[This machine kills fascists]]", Seeger emblazoned his banjo head in 1952 with the slogan "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender", writing those words on every subsequent banjo he owned.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/114357902/in/photostream/ |title=Pete Seeger's banjo |date=March 18, 2006 |publisher=Flickr |access-date=September 5, 2012 |archive-date=March 22, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140322184319/http://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/114357902/in/photostream/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

From the late 1950s on, Seeger also accompanied himself on the [[12-string guitar]], an instrument of Mexican origin that had been associated with [[Lead Belly]], who had styled himself "the King of the 12-String Guitar". Seeger's distinctive custom-made guitars had a triangular soundhole. He combined the long scale length (approximately 28") and [[Capo (musical device)|capo]]-to-key techniques that he favored on the banjo with a variant of [[Drop D tuning|drop-D (DADGBE) tuning]], tuned two whole steps down with very heavy strings, which he played with thumb and finger picks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.acousticguitar.com/issues/ag115/gear115.html |title=Acoustic Guitar Central |publisher=Acousticguitar.com |access-date=November 20, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120913142102/http://www.acousticguitar.com/issues/ag115/gear115.html |archive-date=September 13, 2012 }}</ref>