Banjos in England

[Michael Wright]

Hello.  New member from Philadelphia in the US.  I've written numerous books of guitar history, am a columnist for Vintage Guitar Magazine, and am a presenter at the annual Banjo Gathering.  If you don't know of the latter, it is a 25-year-old meeting of banjo enthusiasts that moves mostly up and down the East Coast of the US.  There is always a display room for dealers and collectors, but the main activities are historical presentations, a field trip (this year we met in Williamsburg, VA, and were given an up close and personal viewing of The Old Plantation, which is not on display otherwise), and lots of good fellowship and conversation among good people.  Virtually all of the recent books on banjo history have been written by Banjo Gathering members.  My presentation this year was on how banjos (and guitars) got wire strings.

For next year I will be speaking on the 1890s running argument between American banjoists and English banjoists over notation.  Banjos evolved from being tuned in F around 1850 to being tuned in C by around 1885.  When banjos hit A tuning around 1865 they had become enormously popular and music publishers began publishing tutors and sheet music written in the key of A.  Out of stubbornness (and built up inventory), when banjos rose further to the key of C, the music continued to be notated in A, continuing up until the 1920s.  When C banjos came to England, English musicians said, "What the heck is this?  The banjo's tuned in C, but the music is in A.  No way, Jose."  And music became C Notation in England.  Hence the ongoing skirmishes seen in the banjo press of the time.

So, what I'm interested to learn is if you can steer me to any good sources on the history of banjo in the UK.  I know the Virginia Minstrels came over in 1843 and that blackface minstrelsy became popular, but beyond that I know very little.  The subject is rarely much addressed in American books on the banjo.  I don't intend to focus on that story, but I have to paint some background of how there came to be any English banjoists at all, much less how the C Notation controversy came about on that end.

Thanks in advance if you can be of help!

Michael

[Mike Bostock]

One and the same. Here he is in 1857 without his black-face minstrel persona.

[nick langton]

When the photo was taken Mackney was apparently making regular appearances as one of a company of vocalists at the Canterbury Hall in Westminster, accompanied by Cecil Hicks on the pianoforte. 

[Mike Bostock]

That's nicely circular with the earlier mention of the 1852 tutor!

nick langton said:

When the photo was taken Mackney was apparently making regular appearances as one of a company of vocalists at the Canterbury Hall in Westminster, accompanied by Cecil Hicks on the pianoforte. 

[Joel Hooks]

I sort of spaced on the obvious about the Dobigny method.  "English Method" likely means the same as "English System" which refers to C notation. Opposed to the American System of A notation. 

[Mike Bostock]

There are more compelling reasons to associate the references to ‘English system’ or ‘English method’ with technique i.e. finger or guitar style. Not least that the English adaptation to 6 and 7-string is far more conducive to finger or guitar style. If attempting stroke style on anything but the very widest 7-string spacing is an excellent real-world experiment to discover this. Not impossible, but then neither is walking on our hands. Guidance for English banjo construction is that ‘ the strings are spaced as for guitar’. A particular key, among musicians, is not suggestive of a style or method, only the timbre.

We are examining a colloquial usage of the term(s) which originate from an insular self-referential perspective. That loosens the link to a wider, non-English perspective.

[Joel Hooks]

Here is a clear explanation of "English Method" as a description for notating the banjo in the key of C or C notation.

[Joel Hooks]

All I can find in reference to "English Method" is in the context of notation systems.  Mike, are you able to provide other examples that are clear in context of playing styles?

[Michael Wright]

Hi guys!  So I actually started this thread a year ago when I was thinking of doing a presentation on the controversy between A Notation in America and C Notation in Great Britain.  My presentation later morphed into an exposition of the historical contexts of Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1781 commentary on the 4-string “banjar,” which I’ll be giving in a few weeks.

One of Jefferson’s assertions is that “its [the banjo’s] chords [strings] being precisely the same as the lower 4 chords of the guitar [closest to the floor, not basses].”  What he means, and what I present an elaborate proof of, is that the 4 strings of the banjo are the same as the first 4 strings of the English guittar, at least in terms of intervals, which they are, with the exception of 4 on the banjo being an octave higher than the English guittar, but with the same interval relationship (4^th).  Jefferson was a trained, skilled violinist.

The English guittar was at the height of its popularity in the 1780s when Jefferson was writing and the Spanish guitar was just being born, so he was not referencing the Spanish guitar.  The English guittar was played fingerstyle.

At the time the “argument” between American and British banjoists heated up, the banjo in both the U.S. and England was tuned in C, but Americans stubbornly held on to A Notation, mainly because older players had learned on A-tuned banjos.

It may be possible that English or C Notation and the English Method (fingerstyle) may both be also related to a memory of the English guittar.  By this time the first 3 strings of the banjo would still have been tuned the same as the English guittar (which had been tuned in open C).  The English guittar had ceased being popular in the early 1800s, but it likely would still be remembered.

I guess what I’m saying is that there may not actually be much of a distinction between English C Notation and English Method fingerstyle and that the English guittar may have had an influence, at least.

 

[Mike Bostock]

This is where I am currently, based on contemporary colloquial references. That said, there was no standardisation and in addition to fingerstyle in C tuning there are examples of early English banjo instruction of fingerstyle in A tuning and a simplified chordal fingerstyle 'vamping' intended to accompany songs. 

The print references to English method that Joel posted contain a fascinating debate that refers solely to notation and two are expressing/asserting a noticeably proscriptive American perspective. Interesting in and of the later Victorian (1892) and early Edwardian (1903) period they were written. In the BMG article Nassau-Kennedy directly refers to: 'The new, the English, the universal, the modern - call it which you will - system of notation". Yet we have evidence that English banjo players had used C tuning notation for 40 years when the earliest of those articles was penned. Therefore it's a later bone of contention about what was likely a historic culturally informed choice and not a debate and a perspective that really has any particular relevance to the early English banjo context.

Michael Wright said:

>I guess what I’m saying is that there may not actually be much of a distinction between English C Notation and English Method fingerstyle and that the English guittar may have had an influence, at least./p>

 

[Jody Stecher]

The tuning of the English guitar that Jefferson reported being the same as banjo  may have been in fourths as you say.  One tuning of its four highest courses I found on the internet (which is often wrong) is a major chord represented as G c e g.  This is the same as the open G tuning of bluegrass or the "elevated bass" tuning of classic banjo transposed to C.  If this particular banjo was an octave above English guitar then it would be up a 4th from present day Open G tuning rather than  down a 5th. . Also the English guitar had the 4 highest courses doubled. So it had 8 double strings and 2 single bass strings.  

I think it's unlikely  that in Jefferson's day there was only one banjo tuning and only one type of banjo. It seems that one type of 4 string banjo had 3 long strings and 1 short one. But he can't have been talking about that kind of 4 string banjo. But if he was talking about actual strings as opposed to double courses then the tuning of the banjo Jefferson refers to would be cc gg. 

So my question is "how do you know what he meant?"

Michael Wright said:

Hi guys!  So I actually started this thread a year ago when I was thinking of doing a presentation on the controversy between A Notation in America and C Notation in Great Britain.  My presentation later morphed into an exposition of the historical contexts of Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1781 commentary on the 4-string “banjar,” which I’ll be giving in a few weeks.

One of Jefferson’s assertions is that “its [the banjo’s] chords [strings] being precisely the same as the lower 4 chords of the guitar [closest to the floor, not basses].”  What he means, and what I present an elaborate proof of, is that the 4 strings of the banjo are the same as the first 4 strings of the English guittar, at least in terms of intervals, which they are, with the exception of 4 on the banjo being an octave higher than the English guittar, but with the same interval relationship (4^th).  Jefferson was a trained, skilled violinist.

The English guittar was at the height of its popularity in the 1780s when Jefferson was writing and the Spanish guitar was just being born, so he was not referencing the Spanish guitar.  The English guittar was played fingerstyle.

At the time the “argument” between American and British banjoists heated up, the banjo in both the U.S. and England was tuned in C, but Americans stubbornly held on to A Notation, mainly because older players had learned on A-tuned banjos.

It may be possible that English or C Notation and the English Method (fingerstyle) may both be also related to a memory of the English guittar.  By this time the first 3 strings of the banjo would still have been tuned the same as the English guittar (which had been tuned in open C).  The English guittar had ceased being popular in the early 1800s, but it likely would still be remembered.

I guess what I’m saying is that there may not actually be much of a distinction between English C Notation and English Method fingerstyle and that the English guittar may have had an influence, at least.

 

[Mike Bostock]

Michael mentioned the guitar and in England in the 1830's just preceding the introduction of the banjo the Spanish guitar became widely popular. This print (from The Guitar in Georgian England: A Social and Musical History, Page, C, Yale University Press, 2020) highlights the relevance of social context to the depiction of ordinary English folks engagement with music and is a stark and pointedly nasty example of 19th century English snobbery and class prejudice in action. A graphic reminder of the pernicious English social context which the banjo entered when it reached our shores only a decade or so later.

[Mike Bostock]

I can confirm Nick's publication date for the Christy's Minstrels Banjo Tutor (price 1 shilling). This reference under the heading 'new books' is from the Daily Express 23 August 1861:

Joel Hooks said:

Oh, I just thought about a mid century example of British knockoff... the Christy's Banjo Tutor.  Undated but published about the time that the Phil Rice book was published, 1858.  It is very clearly a knockoff of the Phil Rice book.

The digital copy I have was sent to me by Greg Adams years ago and he did not tell me where he got it, only that the person did not want anyone to have it for some reason.  It is too bad whoever that person is wants to keep it to themselves.