How To Play the 5-string Banjo

[Trevor Boyd]

 

I recently picked up a second hand, 1962,  copy of this book by Pete Seeger,  and this reference to nylon strings and Fred Van Eps caught my eye. 

I thought other members might be interested to see it.  Is the American Banjo Fraternity still in existence?  Unfortunately, since this dates from 1962 there is no website address!

[Jody Stecher]

Marc, I agree with much of what you have written. I especially concur about the right hand. It can down or up on banjo strings. Sideways gets us nowhere. But I disagree on several points.

I do not think that most old-time musicians in the 19th century got their technique and repertoire via minstrels and via stroke style. I think they got it right from the source, the same source from which the minstrels got it. The same place that Sweeney et al got it.  And that is from black southern banjo players.

I hadn't forgotten about fingerstyle. I do not agree with oft cited (not by you) idea that finger style banjo was adapted from guitar and was the "elevating" element. The down-picked akonting is not the only African banjo parent. Fingerstyle is  African as well. I have even seen African fingerpicks. They are made of bone and tied on the fingers with leather. I saw these in use on a banjo-like instrument at the 1990 Tennessee Banjo Institute.

Yes, people got around in the 19th century. Tommy Jarrell's dad was a moonshiner in Oregon for a while! But Tommy's music was not really traditional. He and his cohorts, including Fred Cockerham, were making *new* music. They considered it very hip and modern and when they were young, indeed it was. That revivalist old-time musicians think this is the old stuff is not our concern here. But read Cecil Sharp's account of getting around in Appalachia in the early 20th century. A 20 mile journey could take several days. It was rough going and people tended to stay put. If they did not stay put there would be no regional styles.

As I have said in my responses to you and to Joel, the memory of individuals may be good, fair or poor. The collective memory of a community about past events is terribly unreliable. But the collective memory of a community about craft —about how to do things — can be considered reliable. If it wasn't reliable how could anybody manage to do *anything*?  We couldn't dress ourselves, use a spoon, talk, etc. Where playing the banjo is a regular occurring activity like talking or milking the cow, it is not possible to forget. If our human memories about daily things are so bad, how do we ever find our way back home each time we go out?  If your banjo playing model is a "foreigner" (like from the next county), then yes, your memory might be unreliable. But not when your model is a family member. We learn from our family for better or worse and whether we like it or not.  This does not mean that changes to words and melody were not made, both deliberately and unconsciously. But when the variants are examined en masse, one sees a unified whole, well remembered and well transmitted.

[Jody Stecher]

It was people with such abilities who played old time banjo in the old days. Those without that kind of memory had no time for music. Survival was on their minds. Those with the abilities became overwhelmed by music and had no choice but to submit. They all tell the same story. 

Trapdoor2 said:

 I'm well aware that there are exceptions to every rule...and savant-like capabilities. 

[Trapdoor2]

LOL, I did say "disseminate", not "invent". In my mind, the most likely pollinator is the itinerant white musician, be that via minstrel show or snake-oil salesman or circus. I have no problem with having an African Adam 'n' Eve for the banjo and its proto-styles but the movement of slaves was pretty tightly controlled. You had to be both interested and capable of contact...two things the Sweeney family had. Sweeney was a marketeer as well...he knew he had a unique selling point and he pushed it: tuckahoe banjo, learned from slaves, etc. It took another 2.5 nanoseconds for other entertainers to make the same claims to promote their programs.

Fingerstyle banjo...that's a hard one to pin down. Yes, I'm familiar with African fingerstyles, even on the Akonting. The problem I have is that the Europeans had it too...and from way back. Did the Portugese infect costal Africans with the fingerstyle bug back in the 15th cent? It is possible!

Jody Stecher said:

Marc, I agree with much of what you have written. I especially concur about the right hand. It can down or up on banjo strings. Sideways gets us nowhere. But I disagree on several points.

I do not think that most old-time musicians in the 19th century got their technique and repertoire via minstrels and via stroke style. I think they got it right from the source, the same source from which the minstrels got it. The same place that Sweeney et al got it.  And that is from black southern banjo players.

[Jody Stecher]

I agree with all your points here, Marc. I think they complement my points, rather than contradict them.

[Trapdoor2]

Well, I've always been a complimentary kinda guy. That's why I like the CB so well. ;-)

 

I hope we didn't put the rest of the crew here asleep!

[Jody Stecher]

I doubt we put them to sleep, but we might have given them a stomach ache.

Trapdoor2 said:

Well, I've always been a complimentary kinda guy. That's why I like the CB so well. ;-)

 

I hope we didn't put the rest of the crew here asleep!

[Joel Hooks]

Sorry that I cannot join in more, I'm at a trade show in Jody's state and I am limited to my iPhone-- it is close to impossible to type more than a paragraph.

Just as impossible to be eloquent in my replies.

Food for thought though. Our pal FBC played the rivers, as did other popular banjoists. In the mid 1850s (I don't have my notes) Frank had a pretty successful run at teaching banjo in Mempis (I think).

Also, though off topic, are a couple of historical works that can be compared as a reference as how memories can change for the audiences. "Log of a Cowboy" was published in 1903 about a cowboys on a cattle drive. A great read with plenty of action and a fiddle contest. No reference to the 1920s era "cowboy songs."

Then there is "We Pointed Them North." Also a true account about a cattle drive around the same time (late 70-80s) this one reads like a movie western. Lots of gunfights, drinking- even a chapter on cowboy songs. This was written in 1939. The author, Teddy "Blue", admits to have seen every western to play on screen. It shows in his book.

Some times you just have to give your audience what they want.

[Jody Stecher]

I understand the limits of your mobile device, and that I have the advantage of a real keyboard at home. You can name the conspirators without constructing sentences if you like.

 I will be brief. I can sum up what I have to say in three words: context, chronology, compass.

Memphis is 500 miles from Bristol, a place generally accepted to be the epicenter or at least *an* epicenter of traditional old time music, a genre, which although not unchanging, actually exists.  The Canadian border in the middle of Lake Erie is closer to Bristol than Memphis is. I can't see how Converse teaching in Memphis mid century could have had an effect on the descendants of immigrants who had not yet crossed the atlantic. and….Of course there were few or no guitars on a cattle drive. The fiddle was practical. The guitar was not. This has been widely accepted for a very long time. But in Texas the Mexican vaqueros who worked one ranch certainly played guitar and sang. And so did "anglo" cowboys when not on the move. I've met a few singing cowboys myself. I mean working ones, not musicians in hats and boots. The songs are real, Joel. They are for the most part composed and the authors known. Many are early 20th century songs but some are older. There was of course some singing on a cattle drive, as there was singing everywhere in the world anywhere there were people who worked in the days before mass media. But they did not sing Tumbling Tumbleweed and they did not play Gibson L 5 guitars.

[thereallyniceman]

After the comments regarding "folk banjo" above in the discussion I thought that the article was amusing.

I assumed that this article in its original context was nothing to do with Sweeney or the octave peg! In the 60-70s the BMG magazine was full of "Folk Banjo" articles, much as it seems, to the disgust of the traditionalists. It was "common knowledge" that Pete Seeger "invented" the Folk Banjo with its extended neck.

I think the Capitalised title of the article sums it up as a swipe at these "Folk Banjoists" in that the illustration shows  a banjo that if the octave sting is an octave of the first string, the fingerboard looks to be extended as Seeger's was....  So maybe Seeger didn't "invent" the extended neck Folk Banjo as they thought?

We all know that Sweeney actually invented the banjo :-)

thereallyniceman said:

Jody "making a bit of noise?".. Well done Jody!

Here is a bit of trouble stirring too... For the  "SO CALLED FOLK PLAYER" and  this time also for those who have trouble regarding the origins of the banjo.

Caribbean or Africa?????

I found this in an early copy of the BMG magazine:

[Jody Stecher]

What do you mean about the octave string being an octave of the first string? Why of the first?

[Jody Stecher]

To clarify my question: ever since there was a five string banjo, the short string has been typically tuned to be an octave of the third string. The article shows two banjos. Why would the short string on the banjo on the left (which seems to have a total of 4 pegs) ) not be tuned an octave above one of the inner long strings? And in the banjo on the right, which seems to have 5 pegs and 5 strings, why would this banjo not have the short string tuned an octave above the third string, but an octave above the first instead? 

The banjo on the left has more strings shown than there are pegs. Many of these strings end abruptly where the gourd meets the neck. I don't know if this reflects artistic license,  poor observation skills, or are meant to depict shadows.

Jody Stecher said:

What do you mean about the octave string being an octave of the first string? Why of the first?

[thereallyniceman]

Of course you are correct Jody.. I have no idea what I was talking about.

... but it sure looks like and extended neck.