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stevebo - Posted - 11/15/2009: 16:58:40
Hey guys, I have a question: since the banjo is based on traditional african instruments, what tuning did they origionally use, and are there any clawhammer songs out there that are based on traditional African music?
meatmissle - Posted - 11/15/2009: 17:32:53
Did you see "throw down your heart" yet? Bela Fleck seems to think that an instrument called the akonting is the original banjo (likely correct). There is some info on wikipeidia about it; including tunings.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akonting
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If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
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jazz-phil - Posted - 11/16/2009: 01:31:30
There's more than one tuning for an Ekonting (apparently according to the experts it's Ekonting rather than Akonting) but there is one tuning shown here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dwUhHnQYmE
It's effectively C E D with the C being the high short string. The only string fretted is the D string which is stopped at the G and A positions. These are only western interpretations of what they are doing and may even have been implemented after being influenced by western music. What was used 300 years ago nobody can be sure.
I suspect that you would need to look at early Minstrel music to find anything that even vaguely relates to African music. There is a tune called Juba in the Frank Converse book that always strikes me as having some of the elements of the Ekonting style but that's only my idea there's no historical provenance.
meatmissle - Posted - 11/16/2009: 02:44:42
ekonting is the french version transliteration. I've hear "experts" use both. Not sure that it matters though.
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If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
janolov - Posted - 11/16/2009: 04:22:40
On this page there are a lot of links to Akonting sites: http://web.comhem.se/abzu/akonting/origin.html
According to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akonting the most common Akonting is dGF and cFE:
quote:
the most common tuning pattern for the akonting's three open strings (from the 3rd short "thumb" string to the 1st long melody string): kan (the 5th note of the scale, tuned an octave higher), jan (root note), ka (flatted 7th note). Like in the traditional old-time/folk styles of playing the 5-string banjo, the akonting is tuned in different tunings. Using the kanjanka tuning pattern of 5/1/-7, a common tuning in Casamance is dGF. In Gambia, for another variant the 1st long melody is raised a semitone (half-step) higher to make a natural 7th note, as in cFE.
. Jan-Olov
Edited by - janolov on 11/16/2009 04:28:19
jazz-phil - Posted - 11/16/2009: 05:40:53
I was given a dressing down for using Akonting and not Ekonting by Nick Bamber (one of the experts listed on Wikipedia), someone who has been over studying with players in Africa.
Apparently, as I remember what he told me, Akonting was a misunderstanding of the name by the person who set up the 'Akonting Centre', a relative of one of the players, and all the players insist it should be Ekonting.
I'm not trying to start a fight and it doesn't really matter but having been told off for using Akonting I merely pass on the information. I'm not intending to put anybody down. I suppose it may be as Senegal is officially French speaking the French transliteration might be favoured by the locals.
I can't argue with Wikipedia over tunings, I did say that there was more than one, however, the tuning set up I have given is as used on the Youtube clip I suggested and I've used succesfully to work out Ekonting music on other clips including 3 tracks on here http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/gokhbisys
meatmissle - Posted - 11/16/2009: 10:32:12
I'm sure he knows more about it than we do . I suspect it is similar to the aluminium and aluminum debate though. Worrying about conflicting spellings is not too high on my list of things to worry about. (usually  )
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If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
abousall - Posted - 11/17/2009: 12:03:01
I don't believe we need to worry about the two spellings: Ekonting and Akonting. When one considers Colonial history of the area and the arbitrary nature of the British/French boundarys one finds that words in Jola (or Wolof or Fula or Mandinka etc) were transcribed one way by English speakers and another by Francophones.
Prior to the Colonial period the only written traditions in the area used Arabic script, although this is more common in Gambia and Northern areas of Senegal and less so in Casamance where Islam was not as deeply entrenched.
However it is spelled, it is a wonderful instrument and I really enjoy that Ulf and others have collected and posted to Youtube.
Here is a particularly nice tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc9Y...ture=related
RedZinger - Posted - 11/17/2009: 14:57:04
quote:
Originally posted by jazz-phil
I was given a dressing down for using Akonting and not Ekonting by Nick Bamber (one of the experts listed on Wikipedia), someone who has been over studying with players in Africa.
Apparently, as I remember what he told me, Akonting was a misunderstanding of the name by the person who set up the 'Akonting Centre', a relative of one of the players, and all the players insist it should be Ekonting.
I'm not trying to start a fight and it doesn't really matter but having been told off for using Akonting I merely pass on the information. I'm not intending to put anybody down. I suppose it may be as Senegal is officially French speaking the French transliteration might be favoured by the locals.
I can't argue with Wikipedia over tunings, I did say that there was more than one, however, the tuning set up I have given is as used on the Youtube clip I suggested and I've used succesfully to work out Ekonting music on other clips including 3 tracks on here http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/gokhbisys
Cool topic, but, jeez, that's a bummer being told off for something like that. Obviously in English E and A can be used interchangeably for a lot of sounds, especially for non-English words. Quick linguistics lesson for the dude who would dress people down: Vowel sounds determine most regional variation within a language. A word for an instrument like the A(E)konting, which is played over a large linguistically diverse region, is likely to have several names with a lot of variation in pronounciation. Consider banjo, banja, banjar, banjur etc. It really would be stupid to dress someone down for such slight variations in pronounciation. I guess one might gently correct someone a radically bad pronounciation of an exotic word, but.... oh well, thanks for the info about the word...and the dude. Rob
stringbeaner - Posted - 11/18/2009: 00:32:32
Sic 'em Zinger! My Grandaddy called it a banjer. My Dad called an upright bass a bullfiddle or a grunt-box. Whatever, it still plays the MUSIC!
Stringbeaner
jazz-phil - Posted - 11/18/2009: 00:42:45
I don't want to paint Nick Bamber in a bad light. He was just firm that Ekonting was the right pronunciation (which obviously doesn't matter to most people) He was extremely helpful in my search for information, generously spending an hour on Skype giving me the benefit of his enormous knowledge and subsequently sending me a CD of his personal recordings.
I only intended the mention about Ekonting as a passing comment, not to spark some indepth discussion on linguistics.
Maybe we could get back to the proper discussion of this fascinating instrument.
Edited by - jazz-phil on 11/18/2009 00:59:22
srselby - Posted - 11/18/2009: 01:02:21
I'll stick with the Ekonting. I never want to be accused of having anything to do with music derived from accounting.
Stephen
majikgator - Posted - 11/18/2009: 16:54:00
a friend visited Africa to study the origins of the banjo, the Ekonting seems to be pretty close and some players came to the Suwannee Banjo Camp last year to demonstrate perform and talk about them, unfortunately there was so much to do so little time but very interesting what little i did learn and rode up to the camp with a guy who made them as well so i picked up a little about them, there seems to be a lot of banjo like instruments all over the world but i guess they had to bring it to America to get it right (that's my story and i'm sticking to it)
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