[HN Gopher] The Nineteenth-Century Banjo
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The Nineteenth-Century Banjo
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 28 points
Date : 2023-12-01 00:30 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| westurner wrote:
| "Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3: Africa Sessions" (2009)
| [2] is the Soundtrack for The Bela Fleck "Throw Down Your Heart"
| (2009) [1] rockumentary
|
| [1] https://g.co/kgs/zJyVM2
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Acoustic_Planet...
|
| Banjo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo
|
| Bluegrass; traditional and progressive feature the banjo:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music :
|
| > _These divisions center on the longstanding debate about what
| constitutes "Bluegrass Music". A few traditional bluegrass
| musicians do not consider progressive bluegrass to truly be
| "bluegrass", some going so far as to suggest bluegrass must be_
| [...]
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Having enjoyed "electro blues", for some years I had been
| searching on YT for "electro bluegrass" without success but
| today it seems the genre is finally populated. (although from
| what I have found there's still plenty of opportunity to
| discover the proper cross between high lonesome and EDM)
| hyperific wrote:
| Rhiannon Giddens is a world class musician who specializes in
| banjo. If you ever played Red Dead Redemption 2 you'll have heard
| her song Mountain Hymn. She's at the forefront of the movement to
| reclaim the banjo as an African instrument.
|
| https://variety.com/2023/music/news/rhiannon-giddens-banjo-w...
| sys32768 wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of this scene from the fantastic Alan
| Lomax documentary The Land Where the Blues Began:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eMe54XsJUE&t=243s
| nemo44x wrote:
| What does reclaiming the banjo as an African instrument mean? I
| read the interview you linked and it's really weird, bordering
| on neurotic. Like this:
|
| "For bad, you look at how you take something that was rooted in
| Black culture, and that became a collaborative instrument, and
| then the narrative becomes: No, it's actually a white
| instrument. Black people have nothing to do with it."
|
| Huh? What is a "white" instrument? They're inanimate objects.
| The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an
| _American instrument_ and it's well understood that its roots
| were in an instrument Africans brought over. That's American -
| a netting lot of things.
| anamexis wrote:
| > Huh? What is a "white" instrument? They're inanimate
| objects.
|
| And inanimate objects can have common associations with
| racial identities.
|
| > The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an
| American instrument and it's well understood that its roots
| were in an instrument Africans brought over. That's American
| - a netting lot of things.
|
| Giddens says as much immediately after the part you quoted.
| coldpie wrote:
| Those are good questions! FWIW I think your comment comes off
| as quite combative ("the interview is weird, neurotic"; "[
| _my position is_ ] well understood"). That can set up a
| discussion to go down a less useful route. I think if you
| phrased your comments in a more open manner, you may get more
| interesting responses exploring perspectives other than your
| own. Just my two cents.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Vox has a video with more on this topic featuring Jake Blount
| who is mentioned in the Variety piece:
|
| https://www.vox.com/videos/2022/10/21/23416843/banjo-black-a...
| talkingtab wrote:
| Drone strings are significant. The bagpipe has a drone (pipe?),
| andit seems that when many Scots migrated to the US and
| Appalachia, they tried to find another way to play music using
| drones. One of the big ones was the dulcimer which was & perhaps
| is a particularly Appalachian instrument. (Although check out
| Mimi & Richard Farina highly recommended). If you hear Amazing
| Grace on a bagpipe you will get the idea.
| tiahura wrote:
| Nothing about adopting tuning?
| gnat wrote:
| Banjo players of HN, represent! I'm the banjo player for "You,
| Me, Everybody" < https://youmeeverybody.bandcamp.com/album/you-
| me-everybody >. Our song "Stranger" was featured in S02E04 of
| Netflix's "Sweet Tooth", and that's us (in make up!) playing it
| at the start of the episode.
|
| My dubious claim to fame is that I believe I was the first person
| to put banjo tablature on the web, possibly the net as a whole. I
| used EMACS (eight megabytes and continuously swapping, indeed) in
| 92 or 93 to make ASCII art of tab:
| +------0---------- +----------------- +-0
| ----------0-- +-----------------
| +----------0------
|
| We're living in a real golden age of banjo today. There are
| technical virtuosos in all areas, prominent banjo players who
| don't use it for yuks, and it's a sound people recognise but
| don't pull back from.
|
| The article author alludes to the terrible times after
| "Deliverance" was released. For 20 years that movie dominated
| perceptions of banjo and banjo players. Every banjo player today
| still gets asked for Duelling Banjos but, in my experience at
| least, no more "squeal like a pig" comments or associations with
| inbreeding. Mumford and Sons, "O Brother Where Art Thou", and
| Taylor Swift have all done their part to normalise the sound of
| the banjo.
|
| I love it. It's hard to be sad when you're playing the banjo.
| (Insert obligatory comment about how it's easier to be sad when
| someone else is playing the banjo. And yes, I've heard all the
| banjo jokes. And seen the Gary Larson cartoon. And the
| Thunderstruck video. And the one with the band walking down the
| train tracks. Every banjo player gets those sent to them on a
| regular basis, it's part of the job)
| britches11 wrote:
| Fun bit of trivia for you: members of my family claim my great
| grandmother taught Earl Scruggs the finger roll technique he
| made famous. He was boyhood friends with my grandmother's
| brother and they would hang out and pick on the porch.
|
| His wikipedia page suggests the technique was common in the
| area, so while she probably didn't teach it to him, there's
| probably a kernel of truth in there somewhere.
| gnat wrote:
| It was definitely in the air with players like Snuffy
| Jenkins. That particular part of North Carolina was full of
| banjo players and the three finger sound was "in the air" in
| many different ways at the time. It didn't serve the Earl Is
| God hero worship of the time so it didn't get talked about
| much in the 50s and 60s but it's clear he didn't pick up a
| banjo and invent everything he did. He perfected it yes, but
| did not invented it de novo.
|
| That's a great story about your great grandmother! What was
| her name? I'd love to help perpetuate the story.
| Velofellow wrote:
| Reminded me of a fun bit of my own trivia! My Highschool
| guidance counselor, also an acoustic bass player in the folk
| idiom, babysat Bela Fleck as a youngster! She was
| instrumental (ha) in fostering my drive to set my sights on
| Music School, which I did.
|
| She also helped introduced FIRST robotics to our small rural
| highs school. She was an awesome woman.
| redmattred wrote:
| Getting sent songs with a "really good banjo part you have to
| hear" with a guitar player flat picking on a banjo are my
| personal favorite
| gnat wrote:
| Ah, the gitjo. I can appreciate it, but like you it's not the
| sound that quickens my pulse.
|
| I hope it functions as a halfway house, getting people used
| to the sound of the banjo even if it's not THE sound of the
| banjo.
| nickzelei wrote:
| I am a recent banjo player (about 2 months). I've played the
| guitar for years and suddenly got the urge to pick up the
| banjo. Needless to say, I got a few weird looks. Some tech guy
| in SF playing the banjo, what?
|
| Anyways, there are a lot of folks players that live in my
| neighborhood and play at the local bar, maybe that had some
| influence on it. The banjo is a beautiful instrument and it's
| just so fun to play! I've been learning clawhammer and I find
| it a complete joy.
| gnat wrote:
| Clawhammer is a ton of fun! Because you're already a musician
| maybe you know this already but my standard advice to new
| players is to play with tolerant others as soon as you are
| able to keep time through chords. It helps you keep solid
| time, feel the groove, let go of mistakes, and it fuels the
| drive to improve. Maybe you'll be one of the folks playing at
| your neighbourhood bar inspiring the next banjo player!
| fipar wrote:
| > Some tech guy in SF playing the banjo, what?
|
| Hey, Fiddleford McGucket started like that!
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| San Francisco has always had diverse music. Hell Jerry
| Garcia played banjo.
|
| If you ever feel sorrow and your down in San Antone, just
| beg borrow or steal two nickels and dime and call me on the
| phone. I'll meet you at Alamo mission.
| Finnucane wrote:
| In the latter part of the 19th century manufacturers like SS
| Stewart and JB Schall began promoting the banjo as an instrument
| for music hall beyond the minstrel stage. They catered to the
| women's market with smaller instruments like Stewart's "American
| Princess" banjo. (Note that women figured out they could play
| regular-sized banjos and the smaller banjos mostly disappeared
| from the market.)
| queuebert wrote:
| Banjo is a great instrument for relaxing alone or livening up a
| party. My favorite banjo content is Clifton Hicks' YouTube
| channel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@CliftonHicksbanjo
|
| He's trying to preserve old banjo music and teaches how to play
| the old standards in two finger and clawhammer style, often with
| nylon/nylgut strings on vintage instruments, trying to replicate
| the original sounds.
| rotten wrote:
| I'm another long time hackernews reader and banjo player. Back in
| the days when we used to work in data centers, I was pulling a
| long late night for some server maintenance with my banjo and I
| heard the night security guard come in on his routine patrol. I
| played a bit of dueling banjos (from behind a rack). He spun on
| his heels and got out of there. He didn't come back through again
| that night.
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(page generated 2023-12-01 23:01 UTC)