derangedbanjofiend - Posted - 11/23/2009:  19:44:11

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I really love the sound. And there are a few scales i play on guitar which sound good, such as the double harmonic scale, or even something as basic as the pentatonic minor, if played the right way. However, i just watched this video and i want to be able to do something like that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pj-0EZCEC8 that style doesn't look too difficult - anyone have any ideas? ANy tabs here on BANJO HANGOUT that are in that style?

This guy is really cool too ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rPVfKydGvg) and apparently he gets on here at banjohangout? HOw can i learn that?!! How should i tune my banjo? I can't clawhammer yet, but i'm trying...could i just play scruggs style and learn something like this? And are there any books out there, or other schools of thought about this? I've heard bela fleck delve into that kind of middle eastern sound, and i really like it. Are there aNy other players i should check out/?

Don Borchelt - Posted - 11/23/2009:  19:50:49

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Deranged, the second guy is Paul Roberts, and he is playing a Gold Tone five string cello banjo. Paul has really mastered the cello banjo, and gets sounds out of it that no one else does. Paul is out to change that, he probably sells more of them than all the other dealers combined.

Brian T - Posted - 11/23/2009:  20:41:10

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A long time ago, I was given a very well-made (double-gourd) sitar to fool with for 6 months. To my delight, the thing could be tuned in G like a banjo.
I suggest you start searchinf for a sitar. There's no other way to match that long sustain. If anyone thinks they can fake it? No. Get a sitar.

Grinnin&Pickin - Posted - 11/23/2009:  21:27:24

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Good Luck with That....

Richard Dress - Posted - 11/23/2009:  21:29:17

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Try a fiddle mute on your bridge.

jpiperson2002 - Posted - 11/24/2009:  03:52:53

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quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Dress

Try a fiddle mute on your bridge.

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A mute on the bridge gives a banjo more sustain, I really like the way my Mike's mute gives a slightly harp like quality to the mutes notes. The sitar has a different quality though, it's hollow central column leads to a resonator gourd that causes the sound to set up resonant waves within the body of the instrument after the string is struck. There's a local shop called Andys music here in Chicago near Belmont & Western that has about a dozen Sitars of different sizes and styles on open shelves where they can be gently handled, along with an exceptionally broad selection of ethnic instruments from around the world http://www.andysmusic.com/instruments.html Roughly the same price ranges as banjos if I recall.

A bridge mute combined with a pickup or microphone to amplify the sound and increase the sustain could get you closer to the sitar sound but it wouldn't sound as natural as an unamplified acoustic instrument.

mbirdmusic@aol.com - Posted - 11/24/2009:  03:54:51

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Afiddle Mute or Banjo Mute will add sustain, lots of it! I made a sitar banjo bridge by adding 3/4" of bone to the front of the bridge, radiused. Worked well but was very picky about positioning. Easier solution, install a bridge like that of a sitar, made of bone, will add requisite mass and sustain, plus cool sitar tone. Try modes of harmonic minor, sounds great. Hope this helps! Glenn

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving to All!

NYCJazz - Posted - 11/24/2009:  10:21:20

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I think Glenn is on the right track.

There is something called a "buzz bridge" made for electric guitars.

You might be able to adapt one to your banjo with a base. The added mass would also act like a mute & add sustain.

PBGuardsman - Posted - 11/24/2009:  11:12:45

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I got this sound on accident when my 5 string nut was too loose. If you don't want to modify the bridge, (which is probably a better idea), you could very gently sand the nut to make it wider. That will get you the buzzing sound and a little longer sustain. (Or at least that what it did for me)

Paul

5stringpicker2 - Posted - 11/24/2009:  15:16:52

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I want my Sitar to sound like a Banjo :)

(I )===='---<::)

goldtopia - Posted - 11/25/2009:  03:30:11

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Why not buy a sitar ?

Bill.O

www.bluegrassminstrels.co.uk

NYCJazz - Posted - 11/25/2009:  11:21:00

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quote:

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Originally posted by goldtopia

Why not buy a sitar ?

Bill.O

www.bluegrassminstrels.co.uk

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SAS?

Sitar Aquisition Syndrome?

Paul Roberts - Posted - 12/04/2009:  21:01:05

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The Indian sarod (much more so than is the sitar) is akin to the banjo. Listen to anything by Ali Akbar Khan, like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hobK_8bIDvk
The sarod is like a fretless banjo with a million strings. You can have a lot of fun fooling around on a banjo, in faux Indian style, by incorporating some exotic scales from Indian classical music.

The first principle of Indian music, taught to me by my teachers beginning in the '60s, is that "if it's not perfectly in tune, it's not music." Like becoming a good banjoist, learning an Indian instrument takes a lot of dedication. The second video you referenced (mine) is actually a Middle Eastern tune, in which I'm trying to approach more of the sound that would roughly be associated with an oud - although using a banjo allows you to go to unique places, technically.

For me, the cello banjo really opens things up, because it doesn't have a stereotypic banjo sound - it can really cross over into international territories.

Have you checked out Cathy Moore's international clawhammer offerings?
http://banjomeetsworld.wordpress.com/

Here is my YouTube channel where you can find some of my other cross-cultural wanderings:
http://www.youtube.com/user/strumstering

I hope you enjoy your explorations and share with us some of your results.

PauL
http://www.banjocrazy.com/

PS, thanks for the kind words, Don.

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Edited by - Paul Roberts on 12/04/2009 21:03:02

Dr.Ken - Posted - 12/05/2009:  01:07:01

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I am with you on that, I like that sound also.

When I lived in India I sent a bunch of Mizrabs to "The Boog" - who used to post quite a lot on this site. It is an Indian fingerpick.

I am not quite sure how important a mizrab is to getting that sitar sound -- but it is rounded over at the end so you get a less abrupt strike on the string. So my guess is it might actually help towards what Paul says "open things up . . . stereotypical banjo sound" by giving you plenty of volume but not that banjo "snap."

Here is an interesting site that might help you connect: http://www.bopjo.com/.

Good luck!

Ken

boyratchet - Posted - 12/05/2009:  01:32:36

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I have always found it interesting when instruments are taken from one tradition and used in another. It presents a whole host of problems that the musician needs to resolve in order for it to "work" in the new context (modify the instrument, new tunings, new techniques, etc.). If you are so inclined, I imagine that the process can be quite rewarding. It's a bit like being an explorer in an undiscovered land. Nevertheless, as exotic as it might seem to us, this process has probably been going on for ages.

Take the violin for example. It has only been very recently that the violin has developed into one of the most preeminent instruments in the world. Listen to a lot of European folk music played on the violin, and you clearly hear a repertoire adapted from the bagpipes (or something similar). Look beyond Europe, and you see the western violin played in North African, middle eastern, and Indian musics. And the translation worked.

A more obvious example is the guitar. It is used everywhere for all types of music.

So why not banjo? When I was living in Morocco I saw more than one street musician playing a banjo, and the music was clearly Moroccan.

Some of my favorite cross-cultural applications of the guitar come from Warren Cuccurullo, former Zappa, Missing Persons, Duran Duran guitarist. While not "authentic" he clearly displays an understanding of and sensitivity to the music he is drawing on and incorporates his ideas into a more familiar western context. The video below is him of acoustic, but he does it also on electric.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9HMp3nBEEU

My advice would be to listen to lots of "authentic" Indian (or whatever) music, getting a sense of the underlying logic, i.e. what makes it sound Indian to Indians and not necessarily what makes it sound "Indian" to westerners. And then listen to folks who have taken guitar, mandolin, banjo, etc. and applied it to Indian music. Try to figure out how they translated the instrument. Figure out why some translations work and others don't, and then avoid the "don't".

Sounds like a cool project.

boyratchet - Posted - 12/05/2009:  01:37:03

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Paul, thanks for turning me on to Cathy Moore. Too cool!

Helix - Posted - 12/05/2009:  05:40:10

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Spatting is using different things to hang from the strings while playing, like a little bell on a Christmas ornament hanger. Or some washers on wires.

Try using pennies under your bridge.

I have a customer who wants me to build a banjo sarod, he wants it more than I do, but the drone string idea is not far off.

I would love to see a double neck banjo where the little neck crossed under the big one to give drone strings.

doc fossey - Posted - 12/05/2009:  08:06:43

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Put very light guage strings (009, 010 1st, etc.) on a Doc Fossey guitar (www.docfossey.com) and you get a somewhat twangy sound that resembles a sitar. You play it like a banjo. Just a thought.

Paul Roberts - Posted - 12/05/2009:  09:22:35

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boyrachet said, "I have always found it interesting when instruments are taken from one tradition and used in another. It presents a whole host of problems that the musician needs to resolve in order for it to "work" in the new context (modify the instrument, new tunings, new techniques, etc.). If you are so inclined, I imagine that the process can be quite rewarding. It's a bit like being an explorer in an undiscovered land. Nevertheless, as exotic as it might seem to us, this process has probably been going on for ages."

Beautifully articulated.

In 1964, I went off the Brandeis University with a beautiful old gold-plated tubaphone that Bob Givens had me a neck 5-string neck for (I had played a bow-tie inlay Mastertone for a couple years prior, but had grown quite weary of the sound).

One evening, the campus dining hall was having an Indian theme dinner. During the meal I became totally captivated by unbelievably exotic sounds, of strange stringed instruments, wafting into the room from someone's record player. I went over to see what was being played and gazed astonishingly at several album covers showing men sitting on the floor playing instruments with tons of strings on them, that looked like they might have been from another planet.

The sound of the sarod particularly grabbed me. Later, I had an interesting experience - walking around the beautiful campus - where the trees seemed to be swaying in a unified dance pattern, and I was still hearing the mesmerizing sounds of the sarod.

I bought the record by Ali Akbar Khan, and listened to the whole album at least once a day. Soon I discovered some of his phrases coming out of my old Vega. I had begun improvising, Indian style. I wanted to find a sarod and learn to play.

About that time, a friend returned from Europe with a sitar (this was before there were any sitars were available in this country and before the George Harrison sitar phenomenon). My friend had taken some lessons, and I was most impressed by what he was doing. I told him I really wanted to play the sarod. He had a couple sitar records and he said, "When you hear this, you're going to want to play sitar."

The records were of an Indian master sitarist named Ustad Vilayat Khan, who it turned out was one of the world's greatest musicians. The lyrical exquisiteness of this man's playing completely blew me away.

It took me a year to get my hands on an instrument, because I had to make arrangements to have it sent from India. It just so happened that there was an Indian man - Dr. Shyam Yodh, a neurosurgeon - who was living in Boston, who was is expert in the Vilayat Khan style. After studying with him for 3 years, he went back to India and invited me to come and study with his teacher, Ustad Rais Khan, the nephew of Vilayat Khan.

I spent 6 months in India, hanging out with Rais Khan, learning from him and staying in a chronic state of dropped-jaw-awe at his every note and phrase (it's completely overwhelming, the depth to which some of these guys have gone with their music). What I was really asking myself was, "Is the sitar and Indian music my total path and destination?" The more I missed my banjo, the more I realized my own musical journey would be eclectic.

For me, Indian music opened the door to modal exploration and improvisation, which has found its way into various aspects of what I enjoy on a lot of plucked string instruments. It's very fulfilling to allow the mood of a scale to entrance ones state of mind and to allow things to happen almost on their own.

PauL
http://www.banjocrazy.com/

Helix - Posted - 12/05/2009:  12:52:59

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Good writing, Paul, well done.

Janna - Posted - 12/05/2009:  20:21:11

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I think it is very interesting sound, but it's only looks like banjo... banjo sound is western, but this sound's just like the eastern banjo :)))) And I think to play this banjo we need to learn more different music that we play usually on traditional bluegrass banjos)) Very nice experiments))) And I think Paul Roberts is expert about it, he knows how to play it.

Paul Roberts - Posted - 12/05/2009:  22:23:32

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Thanks, Janna. I'm assuming you're referring to my cello banjo.

Here's a great musician we'll be hearing a lot more from.

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Edited by - Paul Roberts on 12/05/2009 22:27:19

Paul Roberts - Posted - 12/09/2009:  20:03:31

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Tuneager,
Thanks for pointing out the Indian tuning for banjo, which puts you in synch with sitar and sarod. I'm looking forward to trying it. I'm sure I'll need a lighter gauge than I'm using to get the first string up to an F. Your friend is doing some cool things on the Gold Tone dojo in that tuning. I'll have to check out his home page.
Cheers,
PauL
http://www.banjocrazy.com/ Gold Tone dealer, articles and interviews