Recordings of Old Classic Banjo Players Needed

[Hal Allert]

If you have been following my previous post, you will have noticed that spilled the beans to Ian about my latest project. I hope to start an Internet Radio Station that will play restored music from my collection of tapes. It will be called Classic Banjo Radio. I have close to 500 songs ready to go with another 200-300 to clean up yet.

My purpose is to preserve the playing of these old performers forever by posting their songs on the Internet.When I am gone, all of my old tapes and such will have no purpose and will either degrade gracefully or be tossed. I am sure many of you have old recordings that you don't know what to do with. I am asking now if you would like to contribute to this project and help keep the music flowing.

If you have any old cassettes or recordings I would digitize them, clean them up, and send you back MP3s of your music just for letting me use them. I would not send back the cassettes as not many of you probably don't have a way of playing them anymore.

Please look through your collections and determine if you have anything I might use. You can reply to this posting or contact me at [e-mail] with what you have. I can let you know if I have it or not. I suspect there are a lot of copies of the same music floating around out there and would not want you to mail me something that I already have. If I already have it, I could possibly send you a clean version of what you have on tape.

Again, my mandate has been to keep this music alive for the future. Our group shares that philosophy or we wouldn't be contributing to this site as we have been. So please help me out in keeping Classic Banjo alive.

[Jody Stecher]

Just imagine: classic banjo in airports and elevators and barber shops etc. I agree with Mike —random play does make for interesting listening. Carefully selected sequence is good too but for non-study listening it's better to hear one banjo player after another rather than 2 hours of the same player.

[Hal Allert]

The podcast idea is great, Mike. I hadn't thought of re-purposing them like that. Thanks.

[thereallyniceman]

Hi Hal,

Anything that promotes Classic Style is just fine by me! As Mike says your Podcasts are a delight to hear and I would recommend them to everyone (there is a link to them in the ad for Hal's site on the MAIN page)

I think that listening to Classic Banjo 24/7 would even drive me crackers, but I am sure it will be appreciated in short bursts!

As Jody pointed out, our site Jukebox is not in competition and I guess that he is correct that it is more a reference resource. I will be delighted to send you all the audio files in our Jukebox database to be used on your internet radio, how's about letting me put a selection of your albums in the jukebox where they can be browsed by the enthusiasts?

Let me know as I would be delighted to share our resources with everyone!

[Steve Harrison]

Maybe we could offer some simplified arrangements that would be achievable for those that already play melodic or blue grass banjo. Single note stuff without the chords. When I first began playing banjo, I played melodic style and it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange some of the classic tunes in this style. It wouldn't appeal to the purists but may generate interest as 'cross over' music....Steve.

thereallyniceman said:

I agree Marc,

I agree fully that old CB recordings  do little to inspire beginners. They are on this site as an added extra.

The problem  with "live" CB playing here in the UK is that it seems that the majority of players are fairly old (with a few youngsters and the likes of Maestro Moss and Rob Murch being notable exceptions). When these older players are gone CB may go with them.

What I think we need is more young people to play the style. My original idea when taking on this website was to post videos of, modern day, good players that would inspire others just starting out to try the CB style. Reaching a vast audience with BHO and Youtube and promotion of this site was part of my plan, and then to offer beginner lessons to show them how to play. I may not have handled this correctly as perhaps I tried to put too much in my lesson videos. I am planning to produce a series of  5 minute lessons starting at the real basics and maybe working through tutor lessons.  The trouble is that I end up doing it single handedly and inspiration starts to fade. If others are prepared to help the job would be a breeze, but I won't hold my breath.

Any volunteers to help produce CB absolute beginners' lessons that can be promoted on the web?

marc dalmasso said:

All this is very good , jukebox , internet CB radio ' station , videos on you tube & on this site but i think the best way to keep this music live is to it play LIVE  in banjo festivals , for instance ; I have pain to explain this in English , but better is playing CB in places where the audience is not there specialy for this ; the rallyes & others CB banjo ' events between 4 walls  are fabulous but  will not make an advertising for CB banjo style

[Mike Moss]

The whole "getting new people to come to the style" aspect is tricky. Here are my thoughts on the subject:

There are several kinds of people who come to the style. The first demographic is experienced banjo players. For instance, some people on the Banjo Hangout have expressed an interest in learning Classic style, but they often list things they'd like to be "allowed" in Classic Banjo (as if anyone's stopping them...). These usually include fingerpicks (some CB players already use them), TAB (lots of tab already available) and open G tuning (as in Bluegrass, there are tunes in open G and tunes in drop C -- would they play Earl Scrugg's Home Sweet Home in open G?) -- in other words, not having to drop their previously acquired habits when tackling a new style. These people often fail to become commited enough to the style to stick with it for any length of time.

The second demographic is the cognitive dissonance crowd -- those who come expecting to find classical music. These are often banjo players, guitar players, or neophytes. These people are either disappointed by the absolute dearth of classical music in this style, or they follow the head-in-sand route by "classical-ising" their playing and pretending the cookie-cutter waltzes and schottisches they are playing are somehow "classical". These often don't last long, and either give up on the 'jo or become initiated in the forbidden teachings of Bullard.

The third group is the geek crowd. I belong to it. People who listen to a Classic banjo solo and suddenly know it's the style for them. When I started to learn how to play Classic style there were very few sound/video files online and relatively few scores available, and it's amazing how many more resources there are for absolute beginners just a few years later. I think we're on the right track when it comes to making the style accessible to motivated beginners as help and resources have become widely available.

I don't think we'll be "converting" anyone in categories 1 and 2 anytime soon, but the best thing we can do is raise awareness and let people know the style. I'm sure there are people out there who would enjoy listening to it and playing it who simply haven't heard of it.

[Hal Allert]

Good points, Mike. I am happy to be in the third category. I was getting bored playing Bluegrass when I discovered Fun On The Wabash in the Banjo Newsletter. It was the tabbed version by Bill Morris. It opened  a new world of interest in the banjo for me. I can't count the number of people who have heard me play and wanted to learn the style. Unfortunately, I never heard from them again. Once they realized the commitment they were going to make as part of their mid-life crisis, it sobered them up and they bought a sports car instead.

[Jody Stecher]

My opinion is that trying to make a style of music popular by dumbing it down has the unintended result of creating a subculture of bad musicians making bad music that does not much resemble the music that was originally thought to lack popularity.  Any time concessions are made in the interest of popularization the result, is that The Thing That Gets Popular has been transformed into  Something Else and that thing is never as musical as the Pre Dumb original.

That is one of the reasons that so much hobbyist bluegrass music and old-time music, and swing, and uke music and other Dumbed Down Genres  is so  unappealing to anyone but the active participants. Sure, they are having fun, but the fact is ... and I have studied this pretty carefully.... is that dumb music is not usually easier to play than Pre-Dumb music. 

As a matter of general interest (maybe) I have taught classic banjo pieces to perhaps a dozen banjo students over the last 15 years or so. None of them were interested in specializing in the genre, they just wanted to range a bit wider. Only one was a professional musician. The others have been hobbyists or talented amateurs (and even not-very-talented amateurs) and they all learned the pieces very well indeed. I used sheet music with some of them and with others we did it by ear. No tab. They all Got It  because I go step by step in digestible "bites" (not bytes). By the way, I love teaching the Not So Talented. They enjoy music so much and they give it their best and it's a pleasure to be in their company even if they slow down for the hard parts and speed up for the easy parts. I do urge them to play evenly of course but I'm not preparing them for the concert stage so I am pretty lenient (although they think I'm strict!)  Most of the not-so-talented learn to tune their banjos, once I wean them from their electronic tuning devices. All it takes to instill self-confidence in tuning is to demonstrate that competing brands of electronic tuners do not agree with each other as to what is in tune. After that they start to listen more carefully and most of them get their banjos in tune pretty good.  About half the students to whom I've taught classic banjo repertoire and technique have ended up with a dedicated classic banjo, strung with nylon or other soft strings. Those with one banjo either continue to play on steel or go over to nylon and use it for everything.

Sorry for the off-topic digression. I hope it was of interest.  

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Jody...As a youngster, more years ago than I care to remember, I took accordion lessons. My tutor, Bob Stevens, didn't believe in setting endless scales and exercises. His philosophy was to begin his pupils playing recognizable tunes from lesson 1. All the tunes I played were simplified arrangements of classical and popular music and I don't think Bob thought he was dumbing down by letting his students play this.

If we want to encourage others to enter the classic banjo fold then to offer them music that is both entertaining and relatively easy to play and where they can achieve acceptable results in as short a time as possible is no bad thing. Everyone has to start somewhere.

I've taught quite a few people  to play banjo over the years and it's a method that I have always found works well.....Steve.

y Stecher said:

My opinion is that trying to make a style of music popular by dumbing it down has the unintended result of creating a subculture of bad musicians making bad music that does not much resemble the music that was originally thought to lack popularity.  Any time concessions are made in the interest of popularization the result, is that The Thing That Gets Popular has been transformed into  Something Else and that thing is never as musical as the Pre Dumb original.

That is one of the reasons that so much hobbyist bluegrass music and old-time music, and swing, and uke music and other Dumbed Down Genres  is so  unappealing to anyone but the active participants. Sure, they are having fun, but the fact is ... and I have studied this pretty carefully.... is that dumb music is not usually easier to play than Pre-Dumb music. 

As a matter of general interest (maybe) I have taught classic banjo pieces to perhaps a dozen banjo students over the last 15 years or so. None of them were interested in specializing in the genre, they just wanted to range a bit wider. Only one was a professional musician. The others have been hobbyists or talented amateurs (and even not-very-talented amateurs) and they all learned the pieces very well indeed. I used sheet music with some of them and with others we did it by ear. No tab. They all Got It  because I go step by step in digestible "bites" (not bytes). By the way, I love teaching the Not So Talented. They enjoy music so much and they give it their best and it's a pleasure to be in their company even if they slow down for the hard parts and speed up for the easy parts. I do urge them to play evenly of course but I'm not preparing them for the concert stage so I am pretty lenient (although they think I'm strict!)  Most of the not-so-talented learn to tune their banjos, once I wean them from their electronic tuning devices. All it takes to instill self-confidence in tuning is to demonstrate that competing brands of electronic tuners do not agree with each other as to what is in tune. After that they start to listen more carefully and most of them get their banjos in tune pretty good.  About half the students to whom I've taught classic banjo repertoire and technique have ended up with a dedicated classic banjo, strung with nylon or other soft strings. Those with one banjo either continue to play on steel or go over to nylon and use it for everything.

Sorry for the off-topic digression. I hope it was of interest.  

[Mike Moss]

Hi Jody,

you raise a very interesting point from a cultural and historical perspective. I recall reading that the BMG movement eventually collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions -- its egalitarian pretensions and elitist undertones. The vast majority of the music put out by BMG publishers and periodicals was very dumbed down music, for all of the instruments involved -- carbon copy dance forms, easy keys, no barres in guitar arrangements, etc. etc. No wonder there was eventually a rift between the pro players, who had moved on to ragtime and more modern musical idioms, while the lumpen masses were still plunking away at outdated dances.

Nowadays we've pretty much separated the wheat from the chaff and there is a corpus of good CB music whereas the less inspiring stuff has fallen by the wayside, but it could be argued that dumbing down, and dumbed-down music, are also a part of CB's nature, due to its commercially-driven origins. The interplay between the innovative and the old-fashioned, between stasis and destruction, modernism and backwardness is at the heart of the banjo's unique identity -- the progressive, modern, machine-like instrument that is so often put in a rural, natural environment -- a musical Harihara, if you will.

[Jody Stecher]

Mike, yes, that's it. I'm speaking of the cultural/historical effects of fixing music that ain't broken. It doesn't hurt the novice musician to start simply. Simple and stupid are not the same thing at all however. The original forms of the genres I mentioned were not stupid musics, though some songs and tunes had an elegant simplicity. Listen to what passes for (pick your genre) now. All the good parts have been filtered out. Are the amateur enthusiasts harmed by this? Not at all. Is the music harmed? Nah, it's too sturdy. But humans in the aggregate are being short-changed.

Steve,  if there is a movement to attract new classic banjo players by creating arrangements that lack the harmonies and chord positions of the older arrangements, or are stripped down in some other way, and if this movement is successful, what will happen is that the entry level arrangements will be mistaken for the real thing and they will be remembered, and the fuller arrangements will be forgotten. I've seen it again and again in other genres. It's a kind of "natural law". 

Mike Moss said:

Hi Jody,

you raise a very interesting point from a cultural and historical perspective. I recall reading that the BMG movement eventually collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions -- its egalitarian pretensions and elitist undertones. The vast majority of the music put out by BMG publishers and periodicals was very dumbed down music, for all of the instruments involved -- carbon copy dance forms, easy keys, no barres in guitar arrangements, etc. etc. No wonder there was eventually a rift between the pro players, who had moved on to ragtime and more modern musical idioms, while the lumpen masses were still plunking away at outdated dances.

Nowadays we've pretty much separated the wheat from the chaff and there is a corpus of good CB music whereas the less inspiring stuff has fallen by the wayside, but it could be argued that dumbing down, and dumbed-down music, are also a part of CB's nature, due to its commercially-driven origins. The interplay between the innovative and the old-fashioned, between stasis and destruction, modernism and backwardness is at the heart of the banjo's unique identity -- the progressive, modern, machine-like instrument that is so often put in a rural, natural environment -- a musical Harihara, if you will.

[thereallyniceman]

Hi Hal,

I have now compiled a folder of the 300+ MP3 tracks that we have on the site Jukebox and they amount to 1.1 gig data. You are very welcome to have these to share for all to hear on your radio station.

Have you had any time to think about sharing your website tracks for use in our Jukebox for those enthusiasts  who wish to select specific players to listen to?

[thereallyniceman]

Anyone know what happened to Hal?

 I set the database for the Jukebox to allow downloading of ALL tracks for him and hoped to add some of his recordings to the database but have not heard a thing from him since.