White's Excelsior Method for the Banjo

[Joel Hooks]

Here is one I bought recently on eBay.  I fully expected to get an A notation version of the C notation book of the same name written by George Lansing.

While there are a few Lansing pieces in this book, there is no specific author credit for the for the complete work.

Turns out that this is a completely different book.  The music seems to be a cut above the normal "tutor" pieces.

What is of interest is the early instruction for alternate fingering (1894).  I just got it scanned so I hope you folks enjoy it.

https://archive.org/details/WhitesExcelsiorMethodBanjo1894

[carrie horgan]

Thanks for sharing, Joel - the music looks really interesting.  Excuse my musical ignorance but is there an easy method of transcribing from A to C notation? 

[thereallyniceman]

Thank you very much Joel. I have added the White's Tutor to the TUTOR BOOK page.

I agree, it is an interesting tutor. The "Double Fingering that enables the player to perform rapid passages which a few years ago were considered impossible" is particularly interesting.  It seems that "Alternate Fingering" as we know it originated around 1890 and maybe in America?

 

This was the way I was taught, but was told it was "Morley fingering". I guess the "Morley" part was the way he alternates on the first string, often using thumb index rather than index middle. The other strings are the same.

The explanation of  which finger to start on is the one on which we have had numerous discussions in the past:

Alternate fingering scales

[Jody Stecher]

Remove the top line from the staff. Add a line on the bottom. Do this either mentally or with "white-out" and ink. Then change the key signature.

OR…. find some software that will do it!

Either way it takes time.  

carrie horgan said:

Thanks for sharing, Joel - the music looks really interesting.  Excuse my musical ignorance but is there an easy method of transcribing from A to C notation? 

[carrie horgan]

Okay, thanks Jody, that makes sense.

[Joel Hooks]

I have a theory about that Ian but nothing to back it up but a few vague references.

I think pros were using alternate fingering all along (from the 1870s anyway)  they just were not telling anyone in books.  I suppose they were teaching it if you took lessons.

When George Gregory's work on practical fingering was printed in the Stewart Journal beginning with Vol. 12 No. 1 (whole no. 87) April and May, 1895 it "let the cat out of the bag."  Almost immediately you see RH fingerings added to sheet music.  It also shows up in new tutors.

That was why I was surprised to see this dated a year earlier.

[Jody Stecher]

I have a question for everyone/anyone: why do you suppose "alternate fingering" is the name given to a system that differentiates  itself from another  system that always begins a phrase with the thumb?  That other system/technique also alternates between the thumb and other fingers and between index and middle finger, and also does not repeat eighth notes or shorter notes with the same finger. Even more puzzling is the term "double fingering" in the Excelsior book. Doubling of any finger is exactly what is not done in this technique. Any ideas?

Also puzzling is the use of the word "fingering" in describing a plucking technique.  That word  usually is applied to the hand that pushes the strings to the fingerboard. 

 

[Jody Stecher]

To further clarify: "alternating fingering" can be substituted for "alternate fingering" in my first question. I am not asking anything about whether  the Excelsior technique or the Morley Technique or the Parke Hunter technique provides an alternative to another technique. I am asking why a technique that prescribes a particular order of fingering for various scales should call attention to the fact that each successive note is played with a different finger when there do not appear to be any earlier or contemporaneous techniques that prescribe using 2 thumb strokes in a row, or two index strokes in a row, or two middle finger strokes in a row. All fast playing is and was and will always be done with a new finger for each note. For half notes and quarter notes (crotchets) it doesn't matter. Anything quicker must be done with alternating fingers. But where is an earlier technique that disagrees? I am looking through the older tutor books on this website and I can find none that prescribe non-alternating fingering.

In addition since the Excelsior book advocates alternating fingering why does it call this "Double"?  Should it not be called "Single" because a right hand finger is used only once and then another finger plucks the next note.

[Jody Stecher]

Whoops, I was wrong. I looked at some more old tutors and sure enough, they are teaching the student to play successive strokes on one string with the same finger (in the same direction).This is sooooo silly!  It's like taking a pledge to play awkwardly. It's like walking with the shoelaces of your left and right shoes tied together.  It's like trying to play banjo wearing mittens or boxing gloves. Somebody please tell me: Why?

Jody Stecher said:

To further clarify: "alternating fingering" can be substituted for "alternate fingering" in my first question. I am not asking anything about whether  the Excelsior technique or the Morley Technique or the Parke Hunter technique provides an alternative to another technique. I am asking why a technique that prescribes a particular order of fingering for various scales should call attention to the fact that each successive note is played with a different finger when there do not appear to be any earlier or contemporaneous techniques that prescribe using 2 thumb strokes in a row, or two index strokes in a row, or two middle finger strokes in a row. All fast playing is and was and will always be done with a new finger for each note. For half notes and quarter notes (crotchets) it doesn't matter. Anything quicker must be done with alternating fingers. But where is an earlier technique that disagrees? I am looking through the older tutor books on this website and I can find none that prescribe non-alternating fingering.

In addition since the Excelsior book advocates alternating fingering why does it call this "Double"?  Should it not be called "Single" because a right hand finger is used only once and then another finger plucks the next note.

[Joel Hooks]

My "theory" eluded to above is that it was sabotage.  The competitive nature of banjoists was pretty strong-- one thing to keep in mind is this stuff was still fairly new.

When the 1850s and 1860s books were published those guys (guy?!) did not have years and years of banjo experience.  Not only that, they were working it out as they went.

They naturally got better. The next generation came along and took what had been established and got even better (that is the SSS era stuff that was published).

Then guys like Ossman, Farland, Eno and Gregory came along and took the two previous generations work and added to it and blew them out of the water!  They were not starting from scratch.  They had a solid foundation to build on.  They did not have to invent the concrete and poor it so to say.  They also had better banjos, strings and plenty of music.

By the time FVE, Bacon, etc. hit the scene they had 3 to 4 generations of music and technique to learn from.  They were starting out where Converse got to.  They progressed just like any art or science.  The collective work or previous generations becomes the starting point of the next.

So, Henry Dobson is playing shows, teaching and commanding a high price for fees.  One of his students gets better.  He is younger (and handsomer) and "with the times."  All of the sudden Old Dobson is out of a gig.  Answer-- don't teach him everything.  And don't write it down. Then you keep your high paying job.

Albert Baur wrote that when at casual gatherings banjoists would often play new pieces for other banjoists with their backs turned so that they could not see their fingerings.

Even FVE spoke about the competitive nature of banjoists in his Hobbies interview.

That said, most of the stuff published before the mid 90s can be played with the "single method."  One bit of confusion that previous banjo "historians" have made in their writings is assuming that the music of the "fad" was the same as the 1920s British stuff-- it absolutely is not!  The earlier stuff is pretty easy (and much of it is dull but fun for a social group setting).

This brings me to my next theory--- the death of "classic banjo!"

Skill based hobbies that become fads are usually easy for the average person to do.  Remember yo-yos?  "Walk the dog," "rock the baby" and "around the world" are pretty easy tricks for a kid to learn.  Look at what kids are doing now.  Their yo-yos are machined aluminum with ball bearings that will "sleep" for minutes.

My point is that when a fad begins it is fun and fairly easy.  Soon a few excel at it.  Eventually the few enthusiasts get so good that the bar is set very high.  So high that the average person starting out cannot reach it.  A good example of this is the ABF playlist.  These are thought to be easy pieces that anyone can learn.  I have been practicing them nonstop since I decided I would go to my first rally and I still cannot play them all. That is over a year of practice-- it ain't easy.

The Morley and Grimshaw stuff is insane (for me).  I have been trying to play Chop Suey for over 6 months now and I still get hung up.  I'm a pretty tenacious person.  Someone who is looking to have a little fun would have given up long ago.

Sorry, back to the question.  I think it was done by pros but not given out as general information for free. Then comes a certain point (in this case 1894) when it is the natural next step.

[Jody Stecher]

Wow! This rings true. I can add a bit to round out the picture. Banjo technique was not developed in isolation. All the early banjoists also observed how guitar and mandolin were played. And the USA was not isolated from the old world in the  late 19th century. Immigrants kept coming in. And in the greater late 19th century world-wide string instrument context there was a transformation from a Downstroke Only approach to alternating down and up strokes. This was with a plectrum. It happened in Turkey with Cemil Bey and the tanbur and it happened in various places in the Arab world with the oud. What does this have to do with finger style banjo?  The thumb stroke is the equivalent of a plectrum downstroke. the thumb moves toward the earth. The index is the equivalent of a plectrum upstroke which moves toward the sky.  And the middle finger provides another upstroke possibility, in a position that is conveniently located near the first and second string.

Anyway,  that was a great answer Joel!  Keep em coming!  

[Trapdoor2]

Competitive...us?

Earl Scruggs famously covered up his "D-tuners" for a while. Made a sheet metal cover from an old vacuum cleaner part. I've encountered many, many BG banjoists who refuse to show anyone anything 'up close and personal'...with an attitude like they wanted to punish you for the time they spent figuring it out themselves. I never understood that.

Of course, some of us are on the sheet-music collector's 'hit list' too. ;-)

Carrie, one addendum to working A notation into C notation: fix the lines as instructed...and for the new key, drop three steps. For example, if the original A notation is in A (three sharps), the new key will remove those three and become C (no sharps). If the A notation is in D (two sharps) the new key will be in F (one flat).

[Jody Stecher]

 Change 'drop" to "raise" and change "steps" to 'half steps" and then it'll be right. The new key is raised three half steps or three frets if you prefer. One half step above A is B flat. Another and we got B natural. one more and we got  C natural and we have arrived.

As for secretive bluegrass banjo players they got nothing on Indian sarode players. (it's a banjo of sorts with a vellum and a high drone). Back in the 1960s some players would polish their stainless steel fingerboards to a high gloss and then position themselves so that light would be reflected from the fingerboard into the eyes of other sarode players in the audience so they could not see how certain patterns were played.  Some other Indian singers and instrumentalists in the early 20th century went to even greater lengths. They would deliberately record a flawed version of a musical  composition so that their rivals would learn it wrong.

Trapdoor2 said:

Competitive...us?

Earl Scruggs famously covered up his "D-tuners" for a while. Made a sheet metal cover from an old vacuum cleaner part. I've encountered many, many BG banjoists who refuse to show anyone anything 'up close and personal'...with an attitude like they wanted to punish you for the time they spent figuring it out themselves. I never understood that.

Of course, some of us are on the sheet-music collector's 'hit list' too. ;-)

Carrie, one addendum to working A notation into C notation: fix the lines as instructed...and for the new key, drop three steps. For example, if the original A notation is in A (three sharps), the new key will remove those three and become C (no sharps). If the A notation is in D (two sharps) the new key will be in F (one flat).