The Nineteenth-Century Banjo
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
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:
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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)
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.
That’s a great story about your great grandmother! What was her name? I’d love to help perpetuate the story.
She also helped introduced FIRST robotics to our small rural highs school. She was an awesome woman.
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.
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.
Would be great to find a fiddle to jam along with once I improve a little more.
Hey, Fiddleford McGucket started like that!
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.
[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 [...]
There may or may not be banjo on the Thomas Wesley album feat. music videos, for example
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/rhiannon-giddens-banjo-w...
“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.
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.
The contemporary objection from some circles to “cultural appropriation” isn’t generally that group X is taking some aspect of culture from group Y. Rather, it is that group X is doing so while enjoying social and economic privilege unavailable, or historically unavailable, to group Y. It is, like so much of what drives human behavior, ultimately a struggle over resources. So, “reclaiming the banjo” might mean ensuring that more attention and money in banjo playing flows to African-Americans.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2022/10/21/23416843/banjo-black-a...
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.