BanjoSampler - Posted - 01/15/2010:  18:07:35

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Hey - Does anyone know what was the style of banjo playing prior to Joel Sweeney's addition of the 5th string? Were there any books or music published? Much obliged.

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 01/15/2010:  18:52:48

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quote:

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Originally posted by BanjoSampler

Hey - Does anyone know what was the style of banjo playing prior to Joel Sweeney's addition of the 5th string? Were there any books or music published? Much obliged.

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As far as I know (and I am certainly not an expert) the first banjo instructional books appeared in the 1850s, after the banjo had entered "mainstream" American culture via the minstrel shows. The minstrel-era stroke style is thought to be a method - or to be fairly closely based on a method - employed by African-Americans prior to that period, and is basically our only window into how the banjo might have been played in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The fifth string that Joel Sweeney added (or perhaps just popularized) is now widely thought to have been a long bass string - what we would now call the fourth string. There is a good bit of evidence for the existence of the short drone string (our "fifth string") on the banjo well before Sweeney's time. Indeed, it is likely the short string came over from Africa on the banjo's predecessors. It is difficult to generalize from the relatively few examples we have, but the best guess is that in the decades just prior to the minstrel era, the most common form of the banjo had four strings - three long and one short.

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Edited by - EggerRidgeBoy on 01/15/2010 19:11:33

Bill Rogers - Posted - 01/15/2010:  19:00:31

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Sweeney did not add the string we call the 5th. If he added anything, it was the bass string--the 4th. There has been much discussion of the African influence on minstrel (stroke) style and clawhammer banjo. If you search the archives you'll find plenty. There were no books or music for the banjo per se prior to the minstrel period.

Dan Gellert - Posted - 01/15/2010:  19:04:26

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Certainly ONE style (and probably the most prevalent) of that era was some kind of "stroke"/"frailing"/"clawhammer". The earliest real banjo music published was Briggs' Tutor (1850), for the 5-string banjo, but the majority of the tunes in that book don't use the bass string at all, pointing to a continuity with the pre-5-string tradition.

It is now generally accepted that the pre-Sweeney 4-stringer had a short thumb string, and that the fifth string which was added (maybe by Sweeney, but likely not) is the bass, or FOURTH string. IOW, a fifth string was added, but it wasn't THE fifth string of the instrument.

BanjoSampler - Posted - 01/15/2010:  19:17:04

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Thanks for the clarification on the 5th string issue. I can understand why there is such a dedicated following of people into the Minstrel style - didn't even know it existed until I started watching YouTube and came across some videos. I had known about the Classic style and have listened to Ossman and Van Eps for years. Thanks for all the great information.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 01/16/2010:  12:55:54

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Around 1980 or 1981, my wife and I made a trip through parts of West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Upper Volta - now, Burkina Fasso - and Ivory Coast). I carried around (and played) a very small fret-less banjo, asking everyone if they had ever seen similar instruments. The universal answer was that such instruments could only be found "in the bush".
We eventually found ourselves visiting the Dogon people, who live on the Falaise of Bandiagara (a great cliff) in villages built right into the cliff-side. The Dogon are the only people in West Africa to have never been conquered by the many empires that have held sway in the region - largely due to their extremely inaccessible and inhospitable cliff-side manner of dwelling.
I was introduced to the village chief, and asked to play my instrument...which I did, and all of the village children gathered around and danced to my playing.
I was then joined by a local musician, playing an instrument similar to mine, made from a skin-covered gourd, impaled by a stick, with fishing line tied on as strings. He wiggled the knots on his strings and got himself in tune with me, amd together we played an intercontinental version of 'Reuben'.
Jaw-droppingly, his playing was pretty much pure claw-hammer style (with the occasional up-picked note)!
Ken Perlaman wrote an article about this in a 1980's edition if the 'Banjo Newsletter'.
Interestingly, fellow Canadian banjo player Jayme Stone came back with pretty much the same story after his own visit to the Dogon people a couple of years ago! (Jayme has recorded some really great African - North American banjo crossover music on an album called "Africa to Appalachia", along with Mansa Sissoku on Kora, that I highly recommend!)
So, to answer your question: that which came before Joel Sweeney is the same thing that came after him: claw-hammer style; or more likely stroke-style, which is almost the same as claw-hammer but with the occasional up-picked note.

rottenwood - Posted - 01/16/2010:  13:08:46

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wow! what a beautiful story. we are truly all one people.

Marc Nerenberg - Posted - 01/16/2010:  13:20:34

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Here's the Ken Perlman article referred to above:

The Origin and Development of Clawhammer (March #8219;84)

A CLAWHAMMER PLAYER from Montreal, Quebec, named Marc Nerenberg seems to have shed some light on the question of how- and where the banjo and clawhammer style originated. About three years ago, Marc ami his wife Rosemary spent several weeks vacationing in a West African country called Mali He brought along a small fretless banjo- an 8" pot with maybe a 20" scale -and he would sometimes play the instrument in In the central squares of some of the villages they visited-

On one such occasion a crowd gathered to I watch and he had the inspiration to ask if I anyone had ever seen a similar instrument. A number of onlookers indicated that they had, out that the instruments they had seen were still played only in relatively primitive communities located far in the interior of the country.

Several villages and questioning sessions , later, Marc and Rosemary found themselves in I : the territory of an animist tribe known as the ! "Dogon People." The Dogon ILve in a village set into the face of an escarpment near the ~Suthern edge of the Sahara. When Marc started playing his banjo in the central square I of the village, he was suddenly confronted by I the local "griyote" (official bard and story- I teller). The griyote was carrying a small instrument composed of a round, skin-covered gourd, about six inches in diameter with an attached smoothed stick about ten inches long. Suspended between the gourd : and the stick were two strings -one long string and one short string. Marc had found at least one of the banjo's ancestors.

After some hurried pitch adjustments accomplished by pushing the knotted ends of each string up or down the stick - the griyote , began to play his instrument ( called a "kona") along with Marc. To Marc's astonishment the griyote used a down-picking style instantly identifiable as a variant of clawhammer. He played the melody on the long string with a down-picking fingernail (using his fretting hand fingers to stop different melody notes), while his thumb played a high drone on the open short string. In fact, once both musicians : got over their initial shock, they were able to swap songs and tunes, and even try out each other's instruments. One well-known old-timey tune that was immediately recognizable to the griyote as an African melody was Reuben's Train.

The arrangement of this tune appearing here is my recollection of Marc's recollection of how the tune was played by the griyore. This arrangement - where the entire melody is played along a single string - probably representative of the original clawhammer playing brought by Africans to this country in the 1600's. To adapt this style [a fretted instrument with four long strings, I used the tuning g CCCC, which is made up of just two pitches at two octave levels. We can assume that the original tuning for the kona and other banjo-Iike instruments was two notes a perfect fifth apart (some examples: g C; e A; a D). Which two notes were chosen probably varied with the key in which the musicians wished to sing.

It is likely that the very first banjo-ancestors brought to America were two-stringed (or perhaps three-stringed) kona-like instruments If we assume that some of these original instruments had three strings (that is, two long strings and one short string) it almost certainly follows that drop-thumbing made the trip, from Africa along with rudimentary claw- hammer picking The idea that the thumb can be used on long strings as well as on a drone string is so obvious to just about any banjo player that it is reasonable to assume that Africans would have conceived of the technique as well.

-The first true banjos with real fretless necks (as opposed to;smoothed sticks) and wooden- hoop pots appeared on the scene in the early 1700 s. According to most accounts they had four strings -almost certainly three long strings and one short string. I'd bet that at first most of the melody was played African style - on a,single string, while the added long strings served as open low drones in the manner of the present day Appalachian dulcimer.

Very early in the game, the banjo was borrowed by European-descended Americans and even by Europeans -first as a novelty and toy; later as a relatively serious instrument. Right from the start these non-African players sought out ways to make the banjo resemble instruments they were familiar with. From examining a number of highly crafted 18th Century banjos, it's pretty clear that these I efforts were moving along in two directions at that time.

Some banjos, particularly those built in England and Western Europe, were designed to resemble an instrument called a "Baroque lute" In addition to the short drone strings, these fretless "lute Banjos" had numerous long strings -sometimes as many as ten. These long strings were probably tuned quite close together, in the manner of the Baroque lute. In other words, the first two or I three strings were tuned a third or fourth apart, while the other strings were tuned stepwise to the notes of a given scale. (One possible tuning for an eight-stringed instrument. e A B C# D E G# B I. These instruments were obviously designed so that tunes could be played with minimal left hand participation Runs of notes were obtained largely by stopping same-Ievel points on neighboring strings -in the manner of the modern fretless banjo

IMost banjos built in this country during the 18th Century kept the fretless three-long- and-one-short-string format. My guess , is that American players modelled their instruments on familiar fretless instruments like violins and cellos, tuning their long strings a fifth apart (an educated guess. e A E A'). This tuning would maintain the primitive "modal" feel of the original African instrument, while providing familiar fingerings. Playing melodies on these instruments probably required a great deal of vertical fretting-hand movement, in a manner similar to the present day tenor banjo.

For the banjo to offer real possibilities as an accompaniment tool, acceptable to the Western ear, it needed to evolve into a true chording instrument The violin-tuned banjos had too few strings tuned too far apart to allow for full sounding chords. The lute- Banjos had too many strings tuned too close together to be manageable for chording When a five-stringed instrument (four long strings and one short string) appeared on the scene in the 1820's (the two lowest long strings were tuned in fifths like violin-tuned banjos, and the two highest long strings were tuned in thirds like lute-Banjos) it caught on quickly. This instrument, generally attributed to a player named Joel Sweeney, was tuned eAEG#B

At any rate, since much of the foregoing is speculation, I'd enjoy hearing from others who have knowledge or their own theories on the subject.

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 01/16/2010:  13:39:19

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quote:

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Originally posted by Marc Nerenberg

Around 1980 or 1981, my wife and I made a trip through parts of West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Upper Volta - now, Burkina Fasso - and Ivory Coast). I carried around (and played) a very small fret-less banjo, asking everyone if they had ever seen similar instruments. The universal answer was that such instruments could only be found "in the bush".
We eventually found ourselves visiting the Dogon people, who live on the Falaise of Bandiagara (a great cliff) in villages built right into the cliff-side. The Dogon are the only people in West Africa to have never been conquered by the many empires that have held sway in the region - largely due to their extremely inaccessible and inhospitable cliff-side manner of dwelling.
I was introduced to the village chief, and asked to play my instrument...which I did, and all of the village children gathered around and danced to my playing.
I was then joined by a local musician, playing an instrument similar to mine, made from a skin-covered gourd, impaled by a stick, with fishing line tied on as strings. He wiggled the knots on his strings and got himself in tune with me, amd together we played an intercontinental version of 'Reuben'.
Jaw-droppingly, his playing was pretty much pure claw-hammer style (with the occasional up-picked note)!
Ken Perlaman wrote an article about this in a 1980's edition if the 'Banjo Newsletter'.
Interestingly, fellow Canadian banjo player Jayme Stone came back with pretty much the same story after his own visit to the Dogon people a couple of years ago! (Jayme has recorded some really great African - North American banjo crossover music on an album called "Africa to Appalachia", along with Mansa Sissoku on Kora, that I highly recommend!)
So, to answer your question: that which came before Joel Sweeney is the same thing that came after him: claw-hammer style; or more likely stroke-style, which is almost the same as claw-hammer but with the occasional up-picked note.

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Great story. Over the past few years, there has been an increasing amount of interest in and research into the banjo's African roots. In virtually every account I read of a banjo player's or researcher's travels in West Africa, a similar tale is told - there is an encounter with African musicians playing folk music on traditional, banjo-like instruments, employing what is recognizably a very clawhammer-like style. It is fascinating to realize that there is a connection, however distant, between my playing "Cluck Old Hen" on my Gold Tone in 2010 and an African musician playing a tune on his hide-covered gourd instrument centuries ago.

BanjoSampler - Posted - 01/16/2010:  21:04:33

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Wow. Thanks for all the great information and wonderful stories.

mralston - Posted - 01/17/2010:  02:12:32

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YouTube has lots of interesting clips that might interest you..... here's one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSDx...7E1C4440FE96

I made up a playlist of some choice ones that I found concerning the origin of the banjo in Africa & contemporary players in the old style(s):

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists...7E1C4440FE96

I strayed away from OT music before the advent of the internet...... since I came back a few years ago I'm still finding more wonderful stuff on-line that would have been incredible to find in the 1970's.

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 01/17/2010:  13:49:51

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For a lot of great information on the banjo's origins in Africa and its development in the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries - including some attempts to figure out what such early banjo playing sounded like - check out

http://www.myspace.com/banjoroots .

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Edited by - EggerRidgeBoy on 01/17/2010 13:57:53

BrittDLD1 - Posted - 01/28/2010:  19:23:46

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quote:

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Originally posted by EggerRidgeBoy

... It is fascinating to realize that there is a connection, however distant, between my playing "Cluck Old Hen" on my Gold Tone in 2010 and an African musician playing a tune on his hide-covered gourd instrument centuries ago.

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Perhaps you never noticed some similarities between Cluck Old Hen, and parts
of "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix... (Seriously...)

Best-
Ed Britt

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Edited by - BrittDLD1 on 01/28/2010 19:26:03

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 01/29/2010:  00:40:42

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There is a film out there called "Throw Down Your Heart" that is basically a Bela Fleck travelogue as he visits and plays with musicians from Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali.

In Gambia he meets the Jatta family who are akonting players.

Actually a pretty good film if you like World Music.
I was really impressed by Bela's musicianship and ability
to jam with the African musicians. I really doubt few others
could have done what he did.

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Edited by - R.D. Lunceford on 01/29/2010 00:41:43

Cottonmouth - Posted - 01/29/2010:  07:37:04

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"Drop-thumb", so easy a caveman can do it?

Cottonmouth - Posted - 01/29/2010:  07:39:13

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"Drop-thumb", so easy a caveman can do it?

cbcarlisle - Posted - 01/29/2010:  08:00:44

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"...so easy a caveman can do it?"

We must always resist the temptation to believe that we are the smartest people that have ever lived. "Old" is not a pejorative term. Humans were no less intelligent a hundred years ago, or 1000, or 5000. Roman roads, the Nazca lines, the pyramids, the invention of Damascus steel, pottery, animal husbandry, or the prediction of eclipses were not the work of inferior minds. I know it's become a catchphrase but the "caveman" idea, from Alley Oop to TV commercials is corrosive and prevents us from truly appreciating the accomplishments of all our ancestors.

[Sorry, my archeologist blood boils when I see those pointless and anti-historical ads. And, no, I don't take them personally. Though, sometimes I am tempted to find a nice quiet cave with no TV. Curt Bouterse.]

tfaux - Posted - 01/29/2010:  08:37:03

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quote:

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Originally posted by cbcarlisle

Humans were no less intelligent a hundred years ago, or 1000, or 5000.

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Thanks for the rant Curt.

Jonnycake White - Posted - 01/29/2010:  09:00:06

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Great playing and the most familiar-sounding African music I've ever heard.

Rob MacKillop - Posted - 01/29/2010:  09:58:36

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If you are looking for notated repertoire without the 4th string, look at Briggs' book. It is the first real tutor for the banjo, and it is claimed he learned his style 'at the South' on plantations. Many of the pieces do not require the 4th string.

We should also not jump to the conclusion that stroke style was the only way - I'm not accusing anyone here of doing that, but it is a general assumption. The great Frank Converse first heard a banjo played by a negro minstrel, and according to Frank the guy played upstrokes with the index finger, not stroke style. Just something to think about. Not all Africans or minstrels played stroke style.

minstrelmike - Posted - 01/29/2010:  10:38:19

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There is a book Mande Music about the music of that area. I bought it awhile ago but there was supposed to be a companion cd coming out with it.

Doesn't mention a cd at amazon, tho.
http://www.amazon.com/Mande-Music-T...p/0226101622

Tackhead - Posted - 01/29/2010:  11:03:36

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quote:

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Originally posted by minstrelmike

There is a book Mande Music about the music of that area. I bought it awhile ago but there was supposed to be a companion cd coming out with it.

Doesn't mention a cd at amazon, tho.
http://www.amazon.com/Mande-Music-T...p/0226101622

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And Toumani Diabate's great cd, Mande Variations http://tinyurl.com/yb9g6hl

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 01/29/2010:  12:47:51

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quote:

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Originally posted by tfaux

quote:

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Originally posted by cbcarlisle

Humans were no less intelligent a hundred years ago, or 1000, or 5000.

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Thanks for the rant Curt.