ut of their horns. And the plectrum banjo players, if they were reading at all, wouldn't they be looking at a chord chart, not at staff notation?
Casting the net wider still, through time as well as space, there have been, since ancient times, in various parts of the world, instruments with wire strings that are played without out a plectrum. The setar of Persia for instance is played with the index finger. And there have been instruments with gut strings played *with* a plectrum. The Seni rabab of North India or the oud of the middle east are examples. I don't mean to suggest that these instruments had an effect on the 20th century banjo. What I mean is that people everywhere have done the same things and reached different conclusions.
One more point.... for now....: Steel strings on a five-string or plectrum banjo with the same or similar scale length are not louder than gut or nylon. I have tested this. The timbre of course is different. But in fact, the soft strings are louder if of the proper gauge. The loudest banjo I have ever heard (and I have played and heard many a Stelling) is my little Joseph Daniels banjo string with a combination of nylon and nylgut. The type of tailpiece with which it is fitted indicates that this banjo was not intended to be strung with wire. It was designed to be heard when played by acrobats competing with the sound of shod horses trodding on cobblestones. It works. The higher notes especially are ear-hurting loud. Joel Hooks said:
True, Shawn, the popular music shift was a big part, but it does not explain the weird near extinction of finger played regular banjos.
Other instruments fall from their initial fad. Take the Hawaiian Guitar as an example. Once super popular (even movies were made where the lead played one), it too passed from mass fad. With a resurgence in popularity after WW2 it once again fell from being popular. Yet people still played it, it did not cease to exist. Perhaps featuring it in Bluegrass and blues helped.
I read a great book titled "Squeeze This a Cultural History of the Accordion in America." The amazing thing is that if you change the names of the celebrities who played the piano accordion, and substituted the word banjo, it would be "America's Instrument." Yet the piano accordion never vanished like regular banjo did.
The simple "it stopped being popular" can't be the whole story.
Case in point. England did not have the A/C notation conflict. While music fads changed equal on the other side of the pond, regular banjo did not vanish like in the US.
From the "Mcneil Chord System for Plecturm Banjo"...
"... But it did not attract musicians from other fields because this instrument lacked one thing-- bona fide notation. At this time there existed two different notations-- in America the banjo was tuned in such a manner that when the orchestra or piano played in the key of C, the banjo was in A. In England this handicap was somewhat rectified, they having evolved a notation that was called English Notation.-- the banjo was tuned so that both banjo and piano were played in the same key. The seed planted by the early Minstrel Shows had had taken root and England, too, was keenly interested in the banjo. However, the confusion caused by the two notation printed in banjo music caused the on-coming generation to disregard the instrument and the banjo suffered a lull in popularity. Let it be understood, that up to this time the banjo was strung with gut strings and had been picked with the fingers of the right hand."
While McNeil is WAY off on his early history of the banjo, this was something that he would have lived through.
The absurd debates about A v. C notation continued relentlessly in magazines until no one cared anymore.
If I walked into a music store and was looking to take a course of study in music, saw the regular banjo, and the salesman proceeded to explain that music was written in two ways and I had to choose which to learn in. I would immediately say,... "on, well what about that other banjo without the side peg." Do that for a few months and the store would no longer stock regular banjos or music.
The reason that I question the "popularity" theory is that it is too short of a time (about 20 years) and almost no other popular instruments have suffered the same near vanishing.
…
emain without someone like you pointing them out. I took the time to clean up based on your help. Thank you again! One thing I know absolutely nothing about is the stroke. I tried again, taking my description from S. S. Stewart’s Banjo dissertation. I hope it is right, but it looks close to what I wrote before.
Classic era, 1880s-1910s The term classic banjo is used today to talk about a bare-finger "guitar style" that was widely in use among banjo players of the late 19th to early 20th century.[23] It is still used by banjoists today. The term also differentiates that style of playing from the fingerpicking bluegrass banjo style.[23] The banjo had grown in popularity since the 1840s when Sweeney began his show; it was estimated in 1866 that that there were probably 10,000 banjos in New York City, up from only a handful in 1844.[24] People were exposed to banjos, not only at minstrel shows, but also medicine shows, Wild-West shows, variety shows, and traveling vaudeville shows.[25] The banjo's popularity also was given a boost by the Civil War, as servicemen on both sides in the Army or Navy were exposed to the banjo played in minstrel shows and by other servicemen.[26] A popular movement of aspiring banjoists began as early as 1861.[27] Their enthusiasm for the instrument was labeled a "banjo craze" or "banjo mania."[27] The minstrel style of banjo playing, taught by the Briggs Banjo Method, used the stroke, in which the thumb plucks and index finger strikes downward, later called "frailing" or "clawhammer."[28][29] However, after 1870 the "guitar style" or "finger style" or "classical style" began to dominate.[30] This style had players use their thumb and one, two fingers or three fingers on their right to pick the notes.[28] The technique was taken from applying the classical guitar techniques to the banjo.[30] The first banjo method to introduce the technique was published in 1865, “Frank B. Converse's New and Complete Method for the Banjo with or without a Master.”[31][32]
Jody Stecher said:
Well... since you asked.... it still needs work because of errors of both form and content. It would take me close to an hour to enumerate all the problems. Tell you what: I'll address the first few paragraphs and leave the rest to others.
Paragraph 1
"guitar style" should be in quotes.
"The banjo players" of the period you name did not all use the "guitar style". Some did. It depended on context, on milieu.
A "bluegrass banjo" is an instrument built to play bluegrass music. Classic banjo style can be played on such banjos.
The term does not "separate" classic banjo from bluegrass banjo. It is used in speech and in writing to differentiate the way the banjo is played in two different musical cultures, What separates them is what is played and how.
What you mean (I think) is that the term "classic banjo" is used to differentiate a certain way of playing from the way the banjo is played in bluegrass music..,, and.... and also a repertoire.....and a culture.....and more.
Paragraph 2
*when* was it estimated that there were a certain number of banjos in NYC in a certain year? Then? Later? Recently? This is a confusing clause.
Sweeney is mispelled.
Minstrel is misspelled (as mistrel)
I think you mean that people were exposed to banjos, not to "the banjos" or else that would mean the specific 10,000 alleged banjos. Another viable possibility is "exposed to the banjo". The generic meaning is then understood.
It is not clear how the returning servicemen obtained the banjos they took home with them. One might infer that they were issued to them along with other weapons,
The final sentence is ungrammatical and needs re-doing.
Start of third paragraph:
the stroke technique is not as described.
OK, enough, Someone else take over please.
…
eside which is situated in the North East of England, bearing in mind that there are various definitions of the qualifications needed to be classed as a 'Geordie') some years ago, I was playing Bernard Sheaff's 1912 Vibrante at a banjo concert along with Paul Whyman, at the time, and this Geordie chap approached me after our performance and said, 'No one has ever made a good zither banjo'. This Geordie gentleman was a Bluegrass fan and in a way, he was right in his assertion, in so far as zither banjos are not regarded as being the ideal Bluegrass banjo. He was, of course, unacquainted with the Cammeyer/Sheaff recordings of ZB masterpieces such as 'Danse Bizarre' and 'Marche en Passant' along with the few other recordings made by this supreme banjo duo, who probably produced the most musical zither banjo tone and played the most sublime zither banjo music of all time. Our Geordie friend missed the point that as with Bluegrass music, there is a type of banjo which is regarded as being 'the instrument for the job' and with certain types of (but not all) banjo music, the zither banjo is ' the instrument for the job'. Horses for courses as they say. Jody Stecher said:
All my life since my early teens I have heard zither-banjos maligned. This was in direct conversation. Not in print. There is no researchable record of my anti-ZB experiences. Instrument shop owners in the early 1960s called them "English banjos". All of them I encountered were lowest model Windsors string with steel wire, They all sounded harsh and shrill. That's what people were commenting on. In the 1980s and thereafter I encountered some zither-banjos strung entirely with nylon strings. These sounded inoffensive but also indistinctive. These were also maligned. All together how many occasions of Z-B dismissal did I encounter? Maybe 8 or 9. But it was from different people and each opinion was in reference to a different zither-banjo. And context made it clear that I was not the only one hearing these opinions and I was not the only one to play these bad sounding banjos. This was in the USA, Later still, during visits to the UK I encountered more derisive opinions about the zither-banjo. The most memorable one from a Yorkshireman who asked if I had ever seen, heard or played "A Windsor". He thought that was the generic name of the instrument, not the brand. And he couldn't stop laughing as he described how horrible it sounded.
None of the derisive opinions I heard came from within the Classic banjo community in the USA.
I love zither-banjos. I even have one in poor condition that I keep out on an instrument stand just so I can look it at and enjoy its beauty, It's a Cammeyer Patent model. I have never seen a more lovely banjo. All the zither-banjos I have owned came to me sounding bad. I got each to sound marvelous by finding the right bridge for each and by stringing them lightly according to the gauges given to me by David Wade. The gauges differed according to the scale length just as with regular banjos. The only packaged set of zither-banjo strings I have encountered is the one sold by the revived Clifford Essex. I did not like the tone or the feel of them. At least not on the banjo strung with these. I replaced them with lighter gauges and the banjo changed from a wild beast into a lovely sounding instrument.
One needs to be patient with all banjos. They all need setup and adjustment. Even straight from the factory or workshop they are often not sounding as good as they could. Joel Hooks said:
Have we gone from "many people" to just one? That is big difference. The recent video, and subsequent comments, gives me visions of mobs of townspeople with pitchforks and torches getting ready to storm the zither banjo castle walls.
Where are these many people and their hatred? Should be pretty easy to provide links.
…
a complex motion and it needn't be described in your article. All you need to say is that the digits pick upward in the "guitar style" and the digits pick downward in the stroke style and that the thumb is used in a different way in each of the techniques. You are not writing a manual on how to play here so I think that is all that is required and you will be accurate. Jack said:
Jody,
Thank you. I’m a bit embarrassed by the numerous mistakes, and simply plead being brain dead today. I can get writing mechanics cleaned up, but if my knowledge is off, then factual errors will remain without someone like you pointing them out. I took the time to clean up based on your help. Thank you again! One thing I know absolutely nothing about is the stroke. I tried again, taking my description from S. S. Stewart’s Banjo dissertation. I hope it is right, but it looks close to what I wrote before.
Classic era, 1880s-1910s The term classic banjo is used today to talk about a bare-finger "guitar style" that was widely in use among banjo players of the late 19th to early 20th century.[23] It is still used by banjoists today. The term also differentiates that style of playing from the fingerpicking bluegrass banjo style.[23] The banjo had grown in popularity since the 1840s when Sweeney began his show; it was estimated in 1866 that that there were probably 10,000 banjos in New York City, up from only a handful in 1844.[24] People were exposed to banjos, not only at minstrel shows, but also medicine shows, Wild-West shows, variety shows, and traveling vaudeville shows.[25] The banjo's popularity also was given a boost by the Civil War, as servicemen on both sides in the Army or Navy were exposed to the banjo played in minstrel shows and by other servicemen.[26] A popular movement of aspiring banjoists began as early as 1861.[27] Their enthusiasm for the instrument was labeled a "banjo craze" or "banjo mania."[27] The minstrel style of banjo playing, taught by the Briggs Banjo Method, used the stroke, in which the thumb plucks and index finger strikes downward, later called "frailing" or "clawhammer."[28][29] However, after 1870 the "guitar style" or "finger style" or "classical style" began to dominate.[30] This style had players use their thumb and one, two fingers or three fingers on their right to pick the notes.[28] The technique was taken from applying the classical guitar techniques to the banjo.[30] The first banjo method to introduce the technique was published in 1865, “Frank B. Converse's New and Complete Method for the Banjo with or without a Master.”[31][32]
Jody Stecher said:
Well... since you asked.... it still needs work because of errors of both form and content. It would take me close to an hour to enumerate all the problems. Tell you what: I'll address the first few paragraphs and leave the rest to others.
Paragraph 1
"guitar style" should be in quotes.
"The banjo players" of the period you name did not all use the "guitar style". Some did. It depended on context, on milieu.
A "bluegrass banjo" is an instrument built to play bluegrass music. Classic banjo style can be played on such banjos.
The term does not "separate" classic banjo from bluegrass banjo. It is used in speech and in writing to differentiate the way the banjo is played in two different musical cultures, What separates them is what is played and how.
What you mean (I think) is that the term "classic banjo" is used to differentiate a certain way of playing from the way the banjo is played in bluegrass music..,, and.... and also a repertoire.....and a culture.....and more.
Paragraph 2
*when* was it estimated that there were a certain number of banjos in NYC in a certain year? Then? Later? Recently? This is a confusing clause.
Sweeney is mispelled.
Minstrel is misspelled (as mistrel)
I think you mean that people were exposed to banjos, not to "the banjos" or else that would mean the specific 10,000 alleged banjos. Another viable possibility is "exposed to the banjo". The generic meaning is then understood.
It is not clear how the returning servicemen obtained the banjos they took home with them. One might infer that they were issued to them along with other weapons,
The final sentence is ungrammatical and needs re-doing.
Start of third paragraph:
the stroke technique is not as described.
OK, enough, Someone else take over please.
…
1 the octave string is No 5
The fingers are numbered thus:
Left hand:
Right hand
Fingers not marked are "rarely" used.
A few Notation Chord shapes are shown in these examples: (ignore the TABlature at the lower left of each shape as you are playing from the musical score)
The thing to remember is that any of the shapes, 221, 421, 331 etc etc. can be played at any fret.
BUT MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL is that the LH 1st finger of the chord shape (no matter what string it is on) goes on the fret number indicted by the position
ie:
So you can play a 221 right up the fingerboard and will be shown as eg. 13P 221 on the score.
NOTE the numbers are written DOWNWARDS from the top string (1st).
....so from what we learn above, the 1st finger of the LH is at the 13th fret and the 2nd finger frets the 1st and second strings.
Barre is shown in the same way ( normally barres are 111 chords) eg:
A barre at the 5th
A Barre is often played and then other fingers play a series of notes at that position while the barre is held on. The is notated as Position Barre eg 10PB 411
The most common shapes are available in a download I produced on the LEARN TO PLAY page.
Cursor across the lesson thumbnails until you see "Playing by Numbers" (click this link)
There you can download a PDF file containing the chord shapes and a couple of tutor books.
…
y named "melodic style" has a legato flowing affect. Because each note is on a different string each note continues to ring longer (and not just because of steel strings). When the classic technique is used every note that is played on the same string is cut short as a finger of the left hand moves to a new fret.
For instance, let's say we want to play E natural, then E flat, then E natural again, then E flat again and finally E natural. 5 notes in succession. They are one fret apart on the first string. E natural is at fret 2 and E flat is on fret 1. The typical Classic Banjo approach is to alternate these frets using adjacent fingers of the left hand.
Morley would probably alternate the thumb and index of the right hand to play this phrase. Van Eps might use + . .. + . Others might alternate the index and middle fingers.
But to get this phrase using the "melodic technique" the typical approach would be to get E flat on fret 4 of string 2, which would put this lower pitch 2 frets higher than the higher (in pitch) E natural, still at fret 2 on string 1, exactly the situation Shawn has described. Each of the 5 notes would continue to sound until its string is stuck again. The first string would typically be gotten with the middle finger of the right hand. The second string could be gotten either with the index or the thumb, or both in succession, depending on the desired sound.
I say that "melodic" technique is badly named for several reasons. First of all, the technique developed by Earl Scruggs was developed precisely for the purpose of playing melodies. More precisely it was for playing melody and accompaniment at once. But most of the melodies were *song* melodies as opposed to the melodies of instrumental music which typically spans at least 2 octaves and moves rather quickly from note to note. If a singer were able to reproduce this music (I know several who can) the effect is comic. Song melodies typically have long drawn out notes within the span of an octave or a bit more. The banjo has a short sustain. That is a problem. Tremolo is one solution. Earl Scruggs had a different idea. He developed a technique where a melody note that fell on an open string would be replicated by a fretted note of the same pitch on the string below. These were alternated in rapid succession, with other strings interspersed between them, most often the first and fifth strings. This approach is found in early classic banjo, many years before the birth of bluegrass music. Consider the various CB arrangements of Home Sweet Home. In fact all the 3 finger banjo players of the Carolinas (well east of the mountains) of the generation preceding Earl Scruggs had heard the recordings of Fred Van Eps and they also all played Home Sweet Home, as did Earl, who was born in 1924. Home Sweet Home is a song (something to be sung, with words) that was given an instrumental treatment, with many variations.
Another banjo player from that region, Don Reno (b. 1927) grew up hearing the same group of older banjoists. He came to develop a right hand technique that was similar to Morley's first string technique. He alternated thumb and index on passages played on the same string. It was also similar to plectrum banjo single string technique. The thumb corresponded to the downstroke of the plectrum. The index played upwards and this corresponded the upstroke of the plectrum. And this technique was used for playing melodies.
There were also any number of other ways of playing melody. Some used thumb and index only on all strings. Some used thumb and index and middle but did not use bluegrass roll patterns. Then there were a variety of downstroke techniques. ALL of these were used to play melody.
The technique now called "melodic" was developed by a number of banjo players from *western* North Carolina (well into the mountains) for the purpose of playing hornpipes. It was independently developed by Bobby Thompson who was from the same South Carolina region as the older players who had influenced Scruggs and Reno. Around the same time it was also independently developed by Bill Keith, an excellent player from the Northeast, a "Yankee".
Long before any of this took place Joe Morley composed music in which he explicitly notated right and left hand fingering that correspond to "melodic" technique. Have a look at A Banjo Revel. It's in the library here. On page one check out the first two measures on line 3, the second and third measures of line 5, and the first two measures of line 7. And then there is the entire last line on Page 2. This was an early Morley piece and it's pure "melodic technique". Much of it is forward roll as well. I'm not saying that any of the Carolina players or Bill Keith knew about this. My point is that
1) the "melodic" technique was already part of classic banjo well before its later deployment in the context of bluegrass music or the playing of hornpipes.
2) Joe Morley, who normally prescribed a technique which produce a staccato effect also knew how to get a flowing legato affect and indicated it where appropriate.
3) the use of one technique versus another is at best a choice between short and long sustain, rather than which is easier to achieve. Neither is easy.…
Added by Jody Stecher at 17:47 on October 18, 2015
n of the stroke style is wrong. Look at videos of people playing. You will see they are not doing what you say they are doing. It's a complex motion and it needn't be described in your article. All you need to say is that the digits pick upward in the "guitar style" and the digits pick downward in the stroke style and that the thumb is used in a different way in each of the techniques. You are not writing a manual on how to play here so I think that is all that is required and you will be accurate. Jack said:
Jody,
Thank you. I’m a bit embarrassed by the numerous mistakes, and simply plead being brain dead today. I can get writing mechanics cleaned up, but if my knowledge is off, then factual errors will remain without someone like you pointing them out. I took the time to clean up based on your help. Thank you again! One thing I know absolutely nothing about is the stroke. I tried again, taking my description from S. S. Stewart’s Banjo dissertation. I hope it is right, but it looks close to what I wrote before.
Classic era, 1880s-1910s The term classic banjo is used today to talk about a bare-finger "guitar style" that was widely in use among banjo players of the late 19th to early 20th century.[23] It is still used by banjoists today. The term also differentiates that style of playing from the fingerpicking bluegrass banjo style.[23] The banjo had grown in popularity since the 1840s when Sweeney began his show; it was estimated in 1866 that that there were probably 10,000 banjos in New York City, up from only a handful in 1844.[24] People were exposed to banjos, not only at minstrel shows, but also medicine shows, Wild-West shows, variety shows, and traveling vaudeville shows.[25] The banjo's popularity also was given a boost by the Civil War, as servicemen on both sides in the Army or Navy were exposed to the banjo played in minstrel shows and by other servicemen.[26] A popular movement of aspiring banjoists began as early as 1861.[27] Their enthusiasm for the instrument was labeled a "banjo craze" or "banjo mania."[27] The minstrel style of banjo playing, taught by the Briggs Banjo Method, used the stroke, in which the thumb plucks and index finger strikes downward, later called "frailing" or "clawhammer."[28][29] However, after 1870 the "guitar style" or "finger style" or "classical style" began to dominate.[30] This style had players use their thumb and one, two fingers or three fingers on their right to pick the notes.[28] The technique was taken from applying the classical guitar techniques to the banjo.[30] The first banjo method to introduce the technique was published in 1865, “Frank B. Converse's New and Complete Method for the Banjo with or without a Master.”[31][32]
Jody Stecher said:
Well... since you asked.... it still needs work because of errors of both form and content. It would take me close to an hour to enumerate all the problems. Tell you what: I'll address the first few paragraphs and leave the rest to others.
Paragraph 1
"guitar style" should be in quotes.
"The banjo players" of the period you name did not all use the "guitar style". Some did. It depended on context, on milieu.
A "bluegrass banjo" is an instrument built to play bluegrass music. Classic banjo style can be played on such banjos.
The term does not "separate" classic banjo from bluegrass banjo. It is used in speech and in writing to differentiate the way the banjo is played in two different musical cultures, What separates them is what is played and how.
What you mean (I think) is that the term "classic banjo" is used to differentiate a certain way of playing from the way the banjo is played in bluegrass music..,, and.... and also a repertoire.....and a culture.....and more.
Paragraph 2
*when* was it estimated that there were a certain number of banjos in NYC in a certain year? Then? Later? Recently? This is a confusing clause.
Sweeney is mispelled.
Minstrel is misspelled (as mistrel)
I think you mean that people were exposed to banjos, not to "the banjos" or else that would mean the specific 10,000 alleged banjos. Another viable possibility is "exposed to the banjo". The generic meaning is then understood.
It is not clear how the returning servicemen obtained the banjos they took home with them. One might infer that they were issued to them along with other weapons,
The final sentence is ungrammatical and needs re-doing.
Start of third paragraph:
the stroke technique is not as described.
OK, enough, Someone else take over please.
…
ew tunes for the banjo and a couple of instruction books, so why is he so important? Jody Stecher said:
I'm also a year older than you and therefore entitled to be even more confused. The first reply I made to your post about Hunter (one of my favorite banjo composers) was so confusing that when I read it I couldn't understand what I meant. So I deleted the post and tried again.
What I meant about bracing—as I think you worked out — is that Grimshaw recommends bracing on the side of the strings towards the sky, which is the opposite of the side towards the earth, which is where Hunter prescribes bracing.
In addition to confusing things I may really type, sometimes my computer "corrects" what I wrote, often a full minute later and makes nonsense out of what I meant to say. When I used to write magazine articles I would sometimes get a human editor who performed this function. Now we can all get nincompoopified with no human intervention. Richard William Ineson said:
You win, I got confused (not uncommon these days) with the various references, but having re read your comment a few times I see that you say that Grimshaw said to brace with the thumb 'so the brace is on the opposite side of the 5 strings as with Hunter'. In his 'Banjo Studies, Hunter says to brace with the tourth finger when playing a melody on the 1st string or when playing in the duo style. Exercises 61 -70. However he goes on to advise using the thumb to brace, in combination with the second finger when playing sostenuto on the inner strings. Hunter is the only banjo player, as far as I am aware, to give instruction in playing tremolo on the 3rd,4th and 5th strings, something which I have never seen or heard done by anybody, since I started playing the banjo in the early 1960s, perhaps he was the first and last person to do it. Hunter seems to have covered most aspects of this particular technique except perhaps incorporating artificial harmonics whilst playing a tremolo melody duo style. I think that Grimshaw tells you all you really need to know about Tremelo. One good thing as a result of this discussion i got my banjo out and played through 'Massa's in the Cold Cold Ground', and 'I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Ale' something which I haven't done for some years, it went surprisingly well for a 75 year old pensioner but not something I would risk playing in public. David Milner was famous for playing in the Tremelo style but Ii doubt whether 'Alice Where Art Thou' etc. would be well received by modern audiences. Sid Tuner was also famous for his duo style/tremelo rendition of his arrangement of 'Home Sweet Home' , he used to charge 5/- (25p), which was lot of money in the early 20th century) for a hand written copy of his arrangement of this well known tune, I may have a copy in the archives somewhere, if I could only remember where it is. Jody Stecher said:
Hunter and B&M do not say to use the thumb as a brace. I didn't say they did. It is Grimshaw who advises thumb use. I did say that. I mention several other types of tremolo in an earlier message. Here they are again. They are not the only ones.
Index starting with up
Middle staring with up.
Middle starting with down
Alternating thumb and index
Alternating index and middle, both up.
Richard William Ineson said:
Hunter and Barnes and Mullins both give examples of Sostenuto/Tremelo playing in the duo style in which the thumb is used to play the accompaniment whilst the melody is played on the 1st string so I cannot agree that Hunter and B&M advised only to use the thumb as the 'brace' as this would have made it impossible to play in the duo style. I'm not really sure what you mean when you write, "Parke Hunter's coverage is thorough in demonstrating various applications of one particular tremolo technique. It is not a survey or exploration of the many ways tremolo may be played". What are the 'many ways that tremolo may be played' which are not covered by Hunter and B&M?
…
s from happening. Most ZB's are at least 80 years old, many well over 100. A high bridge (above 5/8 inch), finger picks and high gauge steel strings is asking for trouble. I've often wondered if the ZB's I've seen which end up with a split back (or ultimately no back at all), are the result of someone playing Bluegrass on them (having been set up accordingly).
By the way, is that Banjo Lager for real, or is that the banjo fraternity having one of their little jokes? Where can I find a bottle? Richard William Ineson said:
It's not just Yorkshiremen, (or should it be 'Yorkshirepersons'?) who malign the poor old zither banjo, I remember meeting a 'Geordie' (a Geordie is a person who was fortunate enough to be born on Tyneside which is situated in the North East of England, bearing in mind that there are various definitions of the qualifications needed to be classed as a 'Geordie') some years ago, I was playing Bernard Sheaff's 1912 Vibrante at a banjo concert along with Paul Whyman, at the time, and this Geordie chap approached me after our performance and said, 'No one has ever made a good zither banjo'. This Geordie gentleman was a Bluegrass fan and in a way, he was right in his assertion, in so far as zither banjos are not regarded as being the ideal Bluegrass banjo. He was, of course, unacquainted with the Cammeyer/Sheaff recordings of ZB masterpieces such as 'Danse Bizarre' and 'Marche en Passant' along with the few other recordings made by this supreme banjo duo, who probably produced the most musical zither banjo tone and played the most sublime zither banjo music of all time. Our Geordie friend missed the point that as with Bluegrass music, there is a type of banjo which is regarded as being 'the instrument for the job' and with certain types of (but not all) banjo music, the zither banjo is ' the instrument for the job'. Horses for courses as they say. Jody Stecher said:
All my life since my early teens I have heard zither-banjos maligned. This was in direct conversation. Not in print. There is no researchable record of my anti-ZB experiences. Instrument shop owners in the early 1960s called them "English banjos". All of them I encountered were lowest model Windsors string with steel wire, They all sounded harsh and shrill. That's what people were commenting on. In the 1980s and thereafter I encountered some zither-banjos strung entirely with nylon strings. These sounded inoffensive but also indistinctive. These were also maligned. All together how many occasions of Z-B dismissal did I encounter? Maybe 8 or 9. But it was from different people and each opinion was in reference to a different zither-banjo. And context made it clear that I was not the only one hearing these opinions and I was not the only one to play these bad sounding banjos. This was in the USA, Later still, during visits to the UK I encountered more derisive opinions about the zither-banjo. The most memorable one from a Yorkshireman who asked if I had ever seen, heard or played "A Windsor". He thought that was the generic name of the instrument, not the brand. And he couldn't stop laughing as he described how horrible it sounded.
None of the derisive opinions I heard came from within the Classic banjo community in the USA.
I love zither-banjos. I even have one in poor condition that I keep out on an instrument stand just so I can look it at and enjoy its beauty, It's a Cammeyer Patent model. I have never seen a more lovely banjo. All the zither-banjos I have owned came to me sounding bad. I got each to sound marvelous by finding the right bridge for each and by stringing them lightly according to the gauges given to me by David Wade. The gauges differed according to the scale length just as with regular banjos. The only packaged set of zither-banjo strings I have encountered is the one sold by the revived Clifford Essex. I did not like the tone or the feel of them. At least not on the banjo strung with these. I replaced them with lighter gauges and the banjo changed from a wild beast into a lovely sounding instrument.
One needs to be patient with all banjos. They all need setup and adjustment. Even straight from the factory or workshop they are often not sounding as good as they could. Joel Hooks said:
Have we gone from "many people" to just one? That is big difference. The recent video, and subsequent comments, gives me visions of mobs of townspeople with pitchforks and torches getting ready to storm the zither banjo castle walls.
Where are these many people and their hatred? Should be pretty easy to provide links.
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I am interested while in Seattle in finding others to play non-amplified old time instruments (fiddle,banjo, mandolin, guitar, auto-harp, mountain dulcimer, harmonica, maybe button accordian). I am thinking about using a web site called "Meet up." with these would have to, somehow, exclude Bluegrass, singers, drums, trombones and whistles) Yes, musicians have showed up at old time jams wanting to join in and "help" us!
So, even in old time music, we have our issues of definition and exclusion or inclusion (whatever). I didn't understand all of the differences 7 years ago when I first learned to play the mountain dulcimer for $2 a week from a wonderful woman in West Virginia.
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Sorry for coming to this discussion so late... I've only been on the site for about a month, and it's taken some time to wander around and take in a bit of the great amount of material here.
Having spent time in a fairly wide variety of musical circles, and played professionally in many of them, I'm always interested in corss-over issues like this, and finding the balance between peaceful co-existence among genres -- on the one hand -- and making space for those who often have to fight for it, on the other.
Where I live there is an annual "folk" festival that's been going on for more than 40 years. For 15 years I never missed attending, but issues exactly like those being discussed here finally caused me to wander away. Originally (long before my day) the festival was specifically for musicians in a particular region who played what was loosely defined as "folk" music. From conversations with old-timers I've gathered that this was primarily what in my early youth was called "coffee house" music -- mostly guitar-based modern adaptations of old folk tunes, mixed in with a little then-current political stuff by the likes of Pete Seager and Bob Dylan. There was also some "old time mountain music", in which banjos, dulcimers, fiddles and the like made their appearance. There were a lot of little stages and workshops throughout the event.
By the time I came along, 20 years later, things had been boiled down to a single stage, with professionally provided amplification and lighting, but the music was still primarily acoustical instruments. The scope had broadeded to include musicians from -- basically -- anywhere, and not just the local region, and to include the folk-rock genre, occasionally including a drum set. There was a move on at that time to try to work the folk music of other cultures into the festival -- "world music" as it was called then. By my 10th year of attendance the festival included African marimba bands, Zimbabwean mbira ensembles, Jamaican steel drum groups, and a Mexican mariachi band.
As far as musical diversity, this was great. But it also introduced a commercial element into the festival that hadn't really been there before. Up to that point most of the performers had been amateur musicians and groups, or semi-pro, weekend bands at most. But there were no local African or Jamaican bands, so in order to bring that music to the stage it was necessary to hire touring professional ensembles. This turned out to be a bad precedent. Also, there is only so much stage time in any event, and with the inclusion of world music, a lot of the mountain music and old-time music got excluded.
Then someone reasoned that if Jamaican steel drum music was OK for the festival, reggae music should be included as well. This occasioned some bitter debate: while a case can be made of the origins of reggae in folk music, it is still primarily an electric music, a lot closer to rock music than to, say, old time fiddling. The champions of reggae won out, and that year we saw electric guitars, basses, and amplifiers on the "folk" fesstival stage, and for the first time ever, the performances could be heard 5 miles away.
Not to be outdone, the acoustical contingent of the festival management saw to it the next year that all their performers were a) professional acts which b) brought their own state-of-the-art equipment with them. For the first time, instead of people saying "if you like what you hear, drop by and jam with us Monday nights, at the library", we had people saying "buy my new CD from Columbia". Local musicians were relegated to a tiny portion of the festival, and the all-acoustic amateur bands disappeared completely.
Then some local musicians hit on a strategy to get back into the festival. If reggae qualified as "folk music", they reasoned, then so should the blues. Which again is arguably true, if you're talking about the old Robert Johnson, Blind Blake acoustic sort of delta blues. Except what they meant was the B.B./Albert/Freddy King electric Chicago-style bar blues. No matter: they convinced the powers that be, and got into the festival.
I stuck it out for two more years, but by that point what had been a festival featuring mostly local, mostly acoustic, mostly amateur, mostly traditional music, had become a combination of non-local commercial pop music and local electric bar bands. Nothing wrong with bar bands, except that I didn't need a festival to hear them: I could hear them any night of the week -- in a local bar.
What started out as a festival of vaguely-defined folk music, ended up getting progressively redefined to the point where its only connection with folk music was in the name of the festival. (And eventually they even changed that: it's now sumply called a "music" festival.)
The point of this rambling, boring narrative is that, while I love ecclectic and hybrid musical styles, I also think it is very important to be careful when defining specific styles -- like "folk music," or "old time", or "classic banjo", lest someone else define them out of existence on you when you're not paying attention. If everything becomes hybrid, then we lose our roots, and with them a whole host of possibilities.
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