writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  09:08:31

Yes, that is a wise post from a wise and experienced person. I encountered old time music first in the early 60s in high school in Hartford by buying NLCR recordings which were hard to get sold only at Fox's not at Korvette's. I did not drive but an older ace Banjo player and singer the late Don Sineti ((many kn=ew as Moose) was just out of high school and had a car and lived in my direction from most places where music was played. I played guitar and aspired to the banjo but never got one until I was 52 living in Miami. Very much of old time music get togethers, or what old time music fanciers played when we got together were SONGS with words as at least we came out of folk music. When I went away to College in DC and got a j-45, and would come home for the summer more of a circle of OTM players opened to me, including people up in Massachusetts a great distance of 30 miles North, like the great fiddler and general lariken George Dennis Clifford.

Old time music had much more singing back then. There were fewer fiddlers. It was NOT as separate from Bluegrass which was much bigger even there in New England and was Gigantic when I went to school in DC and often people who wanted to play old time went to Bluegrass events to meet up as we still did here in South Florida 20 years ago.

There was much less information about banjo history, and much f what was available was dead wrong.

My own journey as a musician reflects on the intellectual limitations of many in the banjo, bluegrass, and old time music worlds I encounter though not much different from my own before I was enjoined to do serious banjo history research about 25 years ago. We all had fairly primitive and stereotypical ideas that the holy grail was some true and pure folk tradition being corrupted by sinful modernistic capitalism that had gotten the music ejected from the Garden of Eden, Playing old time music or"true" blues was some kind of way back to less damaged times to purer culture untouched by modernism.

This contrasted with what I should have listened to from my elders. I grew up in a house (a New England "double decker) with 8 inhabitants. Four of them were children of people who had been enslaved in Virginia. My mother had grown up in Gary WVa when it was the largest coal mining operation on Earth, a company town controlled by US Coal and Coke, the captive mines of United States Steel. None of these people looked whistfully back at the past of the 20s, 30s or 40s either in the Jim Crow Virginia, or in de Jim Crowing Connecticut as something to get back to.

The banjo world (or rather the 5-string banjo world as we do not much include the huge proprition of US and world banjoists who play the banjos with picks and play banjos with even numbered strings) has spent now very much of its life when there has been no real folk component of banjo playing by people who play banjo from any kind of folk tradition or role of banjo playing for living community functions. Bluegrass of course is the most dynamic and crucial part of the banjo world today precisely because it is an always innovating, modern, progressive music that demands an increasingly level of musical virtuosity and thought, and is powered by musicians who actually have to make a living with their music.

I do not think I would have encountered any of this if I had not heard a Mercury reissue of the original Flatt and Scruggs recordings, a reject from a nearby radio station that did not play bluegrass, in a little record store in my neighborhood in Hartford,

SophiaD - Posted - 02/21/2026:  09:46:27

quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

The banjo world (or rather the 5-string banjo world as we do not much include the huge proprition of US and world banjoists who play the banjos with picks and play banjos with even numbered strings) has spent now very much of its life when there has been no real folk component of banjo playing by people who play banjo from any kind of folk tradition or role of banjo playing for living community functions. Bluegrass of course is the most dynamic and crucial part of the banjo world today precisely because it is an always innovating, modern, progressive music that demands an increasingly level of musical virtuosity and thought, and is powered by musicians who actually have to make a living with their music.

 

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I wonder about that.  I am finding hereabouts an active community devoted to performance of old time music, including clawhammer banjo, with professional artists who definitely draw from American and international folk traditions.  Maybe it varies by locale?

Edited by - SophiaD on 02/21/2026 09:48:30

Tractor1 - Posted - 02/21/2026:  09:49:27

I don't play clawhammer but have always listened in my decades of 3 finger

Seems there are almost 2 different mindsets in the style---Older by a couple of decades is a fast more chordal style at a faster tempo and now -a much more scale oriented (melodic) style a bit slower ,but really gets in there ,with the fiddle--I tend to think a resonator/tone ring type would fit the earlier style --but might not be as good for the later styling--

just a guess ,,of course the same player could own both--I'll have to run-down the spark-gap wonder boys --for some hard-punching example

another note was their  individual breaks instead of everyone plays at he same time

Edited by - Tractor1 on 02/21/2026 10:03:41

Tractor1 - Posted - 02/21/2026:  09:56:05

This is not the album I have but run this up to the 3 minute mark, if you want to hear a good intro

Edited by - Tractor1 on 02/21/2026 10:07:02

writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  10:05:43

Of folk banjoists or old time banjoists,  we do not meant people like myself who profess to wish to play in a variety of ways that we think are associated with folk traditions that we have learned from books, and recordings and teachers.  By folk banjoists,  I mean people who have learning banjo as part of an actual community folk tradition in which the music made was part of the living life of the community, not a decision by people who enjoy and wish to revive or celebrate the music who did not learn it in their communities.   

There are certainly a large number of folk and old time revivalist players in Baltimore.  It was also once one of the thriving center of Bluegrass especially in the 1950s and 1960.  The great Del McCoury played Bluegrass Banjo when he lived in  Baltimore.  There is a very good book and some nice CDs of 50s and early 1960s bluegrass from Charm City.

   I have had deep friends in Charm City most of my 78 years.  I have been asked to present on Banjo History a number of times in the past four decades, but I have yet to hear of someone who lives in Baltimore today who learned the banjo their as part of a folk tradition in their community in Baltimore as opposed to a folk revivalist.  I do not mean from folk music enthusiasts, or old time music revivalists,  but people who emerged out of living  old time banjo tradition.  Fifty or 60 or 70 years ago there were certainly such players there who people like Mike Seeger met and thrived upon in Baltimore, but that is all over. 

There is a difference between people who make an intellectual decision to play old time music and people who are part of organic communities in which the music evolved.

Edited by - writerrad on 02/21/2026 10:18:56

cjwit - Posted - 02/21/2026:  10:46:07

Thank you, Don Borchelt and writerrad, for these personal histories. They're a gift, thanks for sharing. There's so much in there that connects pieces that are missing from other forms of history.

I'm on my way out the door, but Tony, does someone like Ola Belle Reed fit? Not from Baltimore, but moved to Rising Sun, MD about an hour away. And her music is particularly relevant to the thread as someone who played clawhammer on a resonator and wrote and sang songs, yet is fully celebrated within the old time tradition. Now, do her songs show up at jams? Depends on the jam, right?

And on that, I'm always struck with how much a person or a few people can influence, create, and grow a community. The locality isn't always about where it is, but who is there. There's a ton to unpack here and the topic scratches a whole bunch of my interest itches.

SophiaD - Posted - 02/21/2026:  12:26:53

quote:

---

Originally posted by writerrad

By folk banjoists,  I mean people who have learning banjo as part of an actual community folk tradition in which the music made was part of the living life of the community, not a decision by people who enjoy and wish to revive or celebrate the music who did not learn it in their communities. 

There is a difference between people who make an intellectual decision to play old time music and people who are part of organic communities in which the music evolved.

 

---

Thank you for such a thoughtful explanation.  There's a lot to think about there!  

Edited by - SophiaD on 02/21/2026 12:34:39

Paul T R - Posted - 02/21/2026:  14:07:40

quote:

---

Originally posted by xnos2xnos2

I get the historical reason; clawhammer predates bluegrass, and open-backs came first. But practically speaking, wouldn’t a resonator help with projection and volume, especially in jams? Are there downsides?



Why does modern clawhammer still lean so heavily open-back? Is it just tone preference, or is there something about the technique that really pairs better with open-backs?



I’ve never seen a banjo that has both a claw hammer scoop, and also a closed-back resonator



I know this gets asked a lot, but I’m just curious what the reasoning is.

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I really appreciate the historical discussion. Just as an aside, I play clawhammer on an open back and on a resonator with an arch top tone ring. I really like Don Borchelt's photo montage - it brings things into perspective.

But let's take a different approach. Suppose you heard banjo music for the first time and were hooked? Would you seek out jams or find an expert? Probably not, since you probably wouldn't know where to look. So, maybe you'd mosey down to your local music store. I think we have a good idea how literate they are about banjos. So, now you're in the hands of someone who knows a lot about guitars (maybe mainly electric ones), but very little about banjos - maybe (just) about the resonator/open back stereotype. You'll probably be steered in one direction, maybe even influenced by the stock on hand.

I started playing clawhammer thinking it was the "only" old time style  (despite starting with "Seeger style" picking), and only later learned that a variety of picking styles existed (just as Scruggs was not the first to do up-picking with metal finger picks) . People have their influences, plus, there's marketing factors at play. They like to categorize. First we had "folk", then "roots", then "Americana". Some of us love to go down the various rabbit holes and continue learning, others are quite content to sit back (clearly lots of rabbit hole divers here). I guess the line of least resistance is to accept the open back/resonator dichotomy, and fall for the streotype.

writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  15:17:53

One of the problems of all of this is that a small core of serious banjo historians and researchers are very good at making fine distinctions about all sorts of issues of banjo history, but by and large are too excited by fiine distinctions known to the dedicated and the faithful, but are pretty poor at explaining such things to people who walk the Earth in a normal way.

writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  15:28:57

This whole line of thought grows out of an idea among old time music revivalists that   open back banjos were what people played for Clawhammer, which is a strong notion of old time revivalists,  I know I was a victim of that and now wish when I was younger (limiting what banjos I am getting  since I own 7 at thje age of 78 ) that I had bought a good  resonator banjo when I was younger say when I was a kid in his 60s.   I have bought two fairly inexpensive RBs just to get at the music that a number of the musicians I study play who played such RBs..   There is simply no way to get at the music of a lot of the Black ad white old time banjoists I study by restricting yourself to an open back.

 I do play a lot of 2 finger and I think two finger banjoists even more tend to go with RBs.  Two finger playing is just as African derived and traditional as down picking, although there is a prejudice that down picking is older or the exclusive way banjo was played in the early days, but that is just a prejudice and not supported by the history.  

Edited by - writerrad on 02/21/2026 15:31:56

writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  15:36:30

Ola Belle was a massive influence earlier in the Old Time Revival.  One person you might contact about her is Kathy Fink who was largely inspired by her and who is a totally serious and dedicated person.  Glassie has this book out about her which is now only available at a price over 400 bucks, but you might be able to get it through your institution.  Her music and singing is so good that you don't want to listen to much else for while after her.     There are probably enough people around who actually knew her or know much about her.   From what I get is she just kept entertaining, singing and hosting and kept her band going doing the music she liked in part because it enabled her to pay her bills.  .  

Edited by - writerrad on 02/21/2026 15:44:40

writerrad - Posted - 02/21/2026:  15:43:17

Paul your question reads like you are a person of my age who was young and unschooled before the Internet.   Yes,  back in the 1960s I got interested in old time banjo because in part I had the luck that a magnificent old time banjo player who was an old guy of 19 or 20, regularly gave me rides home from folk venues because I lived in his direction.  Who knows had that not been I might have become some kind of fiddler.'

Today, or even in previous years, a person who does not know often goes on the Internet.  She or he leaps over the road blocks of nobody around in their town and gets right to the right information.  The person can go on BanjoHangout or any number of web sites.  

cjwit - Posted - 02/21/2026:  19:43:18

quote:

---

Originally posted by writerrad

Ola Belle was a massive influence earlier in the Old Time Revival.  One person you might contact about her is Kathy Fink who was largely inspired by her and who is a totally serious and dedicated person.  Glassie has this book out about her which is now only available at a price over 400 bucks, but you might be able to get it through your institution.  Her music and singing is so good that you don't want to listen to much else for while after her.     There are probably enough people around who actually knew her or know much about her.   From what I get is she just kept entertaining, singing and hosting and kept her band going doing the music she liked in part because it enabled her to pay her bills.  .  

---

writerrad - Posted - 02/22/2026:  08:14:46

Even though Earl's dad, who died when Earl was 8, apparemtly frailled,  Earl Scruggs never learned how to competently (to his idea of competence probably higher than mine) frail or claw hammer. 

Earl grew up on an area that was the hotbed of 2 and 3 finger finger picking with neighbors who were recording musicians and friends of his dad who played 3 finger.  In the cotton mill areas,  the mill villages often hired music teachers as part of the community building approach.  It was easy for Mill workers like Earl and Charlie Poole and others along the SC/NC piedmont to learn the guitar style of banjo.

Earl apparently did not learn frailing first but 2 finger and three finger banjo playing first.  Later when he was on the Grand Ole Opry Mr. Scruggs tried to get String Bean and others to teach him frailing, but people I know who knew him and discussed this with him said Mr. Scruggs could never get frailing to his satisfaction and never did so before the public.  

People who were raised right and have a proper life have learned to search YouTube for the videos of the Flatt and Scruggs Martha White TV show.  Of course senior like myself were wise enough to acquired these videos when they were being sold as VHS's or DVDs before there was YouTube.

If you have not availed yourself of that duty, you have an obligation to search YouTube for tje, or find a friend who has copies of these shows.  They will improve your life.   

You will note that when it is time for frailing  an old time tune on the show and there is not a guest frailer like Stringbean,, Earl Scruggs would put down his Gibson, and Paul Warren puts  down his fiddle. and Paul would pick up Earl's RB and frail up a storm!

This is slightly off topic. but this is such a crucial issue of education of contemporary banjoheads, that this is an urgent instruction.   Watching these shows is also a vision of how TV shows in the 50s were done live with people holding up products.   The Martha White commercials are just as edifying to the young as is the picking.

Edited by - writerrad on 02/22/2026 08:30:24

reubenstump - Posted - 02/22/2026:  08:42:37

quote:

---

Originally posted by writerrad

People who were raised right and have a proper life have learned to search YouTube for the videos of the Flatt and Scruggs Martha White TV show.  Of course senior like myself were wise enough to acquired these videos when they were being sold as VHS's or DVDs before there was YouTube.

---

I was raised right, have had a proper life, and never learned to search for them.  Please don't imply otherwise toward either myself or the millions (billions?) of people who have never heard of that show.

Tractor1 - Posted - 02/22/2026:  09:28:33

I feel sure -that was ''tongue in cheek ''humor at the over done rhetoric Lorenzo--

cjwit - Posted - 02/22/2026:  12:20:42

writerrad It looks like my last post didn't work correctly from my phone.

My note was a quick one, that Glassie's book is $400 for the print copy, but anyone interested can get it as a PDF download with a purchase of the digital album from Dust to Digital's Bandcamp page. It was a good read.

> Of course senior like myself were wise enough to acquired these videos when they were being sold as VHS's or DVDs before there was YouTube.

You've mentioned a few things like this now. I think the first was Monroe's Grand Ole Opry sound checks. This one is the Martha White show. I know that lots of these kinds of things are scattered around YouTube, but do you know of the publication info for the DVDs or VHSs that you're talking about? I'd love to see what I can find in a way that gives a bit more certainty than hoping for the correct recordings on YT.

I've been thinking about how researchers used to publish bibliographies. That's not particularly common now, but search doesn't do the same thing: a bibliography is complete (or at least complete within curated bounds). A collective bibliography of banjo content that includes historical work AND archival sources would be invaluable, though obviously a gargantuan task.

writerrad - Posted - 02/22/2026:  15:44:39

Since childhood. my family, preachers, nuns priests, teachers, and miscreants of all kind have told me to light a candle in the darkness,. so that those who have not seen the light can find their way.

I stumbled along in the darkness for many years,  so I feel gratitude to those who have show me the way

there used to be a thing on TV that said if everyone lit just one little candle what a bright world thist would be

Thank you

Edited by - writerrad on 02/22/2026 15:46:09

writerrad - Posted - 02/22/2026:  15:51:45

quote:Thanks.   There is a lot of Ola Belle on YouTube and a lot of ola belle on various recordings.  She is one musician that I find because she is so compelling and everything is so good, that you feel might not want to listen to something else.

As far as I know almost every one of the TV Martha White Programs that was for sale years ago on DVD is on YouTube somewhere.  If you look on the Net there are all kinds of air check recordings of the radio broadcasts of those shows.. 

I will now go over to Band camp, although I might have gotten it when I downloaded her shows.     She is just sooooo good!

---

Originally posted by cjwit

writerrad It looks like my last post didn't work correctly from my phone.



My note was a quick one, that Glassie's book is $400 for the print copy, but anyone interested can get it as a PDF download with a purchase of the digital album from Dust to Digital's Bandcamp page. It was a good read.



> Of course senior like myself were wise enough to acquired these videos when they were being sold as VHS's or DVDs before there was YouTube.



You've mentioned a few things like this now. I think the first was Monroe's Grand Ole Opry sound checks. This one is the Martha White show. I know that lots of these kinds of things are scattered around YouTube, but do you know of the publication info for the DVDs or VHSs that you're talking about? I'd love to see what I can find in a way that gives a bit more certainty than hoping for the correct recordings on YT.



I've been thinking about how researchers used to publish bibliographies. That's not particularly common now, but search doesn't do the same thing: a bibliography is complete (or at least complete within curated bounds). A collective bibliography of banjo content that includes historical work AND archival sources would be invaluable, though obviously a gargantuan task.

---

writerrad - Posted - 02/22/2026:  15:58:18

". I think the first was Monroe's Grand Ole Opry sound checks. This one is the Martha White show. I know that lots of these kinds of things are scattered around YouTube, but do you know of the publication info for the DVDs or VHSs that you're talking about? I'd love to see what I can find in a way that gives a bit more certainty than hoping for the correct recordings on YT."

You must not hang around with Bluegrass people. Since the 1940s, people who made wire recordings of the Bluegrass Boys on the post-war Grand Ole Opry have been circulating them, and first in little tinny record type things, then in the big tapes, but now they are on YouTube. They have been widely and almost publicly circulated by hand and are on several different bluegrass oriented web sites and YouTube pages.    No person should go through life without these recordings.  Earl and Monroe were on the same stage together inspiring or rivaling each other in the ecstatic and wonderful music that they were making.   Earl must have been 24 or 25 years old and Monroe had ot be just in his 30s and the audience at the Ryman was going crazy.     

The Martha White show was a television and radio program that  Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Montain Boys  had on syndicated radio stations mostly in the South in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It was sponsored by the Martha White Flour company.    I think it was on every week day the band was in Nashville across a period of years. At first you could buy VHS tapes of them, then you could get DVDs.  About 12 of them are available in their entirety on YouTube.  I think elsewhere on the Internet there are sound recordings of more shows that are on YouTube.

Although we have met and I have enjoyed your wonderful scholarship and fellowship and I witnessed that you are a great player, that you have never heard of the F & S Martha White indicades deficiencies in our entire educational system.   

If someone does not post where this can be obtained here,  I will help you out.  

One thing is that bluegrass people have tended to be among the most advanced in electronics and recording and preserving and exchanging music of  this kind and making it available to others.

Edited by - writerrad on 02/22/2026 16:10:28

writerrad - Posted - 02/22/2026:  18:14:24

i WOULD HAVE TO Look.  I can send you links to where most of this is on the Internet or YouTube.  The Bluegrass world has had widespread and long last exchange of recordings that were not officially issued.  Really right up to around 1960 and sometimes afterwards, someone people trusted like Mike Seeger, and a number of other folks that I lesser known  to "civilians" make just take a reel to reel tape recorder with themselves to a bluegrass festival or band performance and instead of being run out by lawyers,  especially they were a known person would probably get assistance from a band or people running a show.   

There is so much stuff like this up various places it is amazing,    If you dont find stuff,  email me and I will put some of what I speak up on a cloud for you.   

banjoboyd - Posted - 02/23/2026:  05:32:06

quote:

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Originally posted by cjwit

I've been thinking about how researchers used to publish bibliographies. That's not particularly common now, but search doesn't do the same thing: a bibliography is complete (or at least complete within curated bounds). A collective bibliography of banjo content that includes historical work AND archival sources would be invaluable, though obviously a gargantuan task.

---

Do you know De Smaele's A Five-String Banjo Sourcebook? It might be worth checking out. 

cjwit - Posted - 02/23/2026:  07:14:42

banjoboyd No, I don't. Thanks for the recommendation. I just requested a copy through my library. And his Banjo Attitudes, which I had known about and forgotten! It'll be good French practice, too. Birds and stones.



writerrad To be clear, I know of the show and I know of the performances, but I was excited about the possibility of a set of recordings (rather than the scattered YouTube clips I've seen). Some quick looking surfaced what you're talking about. I appreciate the suggestions, as it's simply not always easy to know what you should be looking for. The unknown unknown that comes early on. I also see that the Country Music Hall of Fame has many of these sources, but I get a sense from your description—and from others that came up when searching—that many folks out there have the kinds of tapes that don't show up in the main archival resources. I just worry that so much knowledge and so many sources are on the cusp of disappearing. Maybe that's not fair, though. If they're widely shared, they'll continue to exist, but they certainly risk remaining outside of the knowledge of folks entering these musical paths from outside.



This is all a different conversation, though. I apologize for my part in any forum drift.

Edited by - cjwit on 02/23/2026 07:17:49

Don Borchelt - Posted - 02/23/2026:  08:29:56

quote:

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writerrad To be clear, I know of the show and I know of the performances, but I was excited about the possibility of a set of recordings (rather than the scattered YouTube clips I've seen). Some quick looking surfaced what you're talking about. I appreciate the suggestions, as it's simply not always easy to know what you should be looking for...

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If you open up YouTube and search for "Flat and Scruggs Television Show," about a dozen videos will pop up.  Here is the first one:



 

writerrad - Posted - 02/23/2026:  14:41:45

:What can  I say, I am a fossil who sits in a room with 2k books in it doesn't even get that the stuff you came from already came  when I ordered the Dust to digital set.  Some of us are stuck in low technology.

writerrad - Posted - 02/23/2026:  15:01:00

There are several sets of things. #1 the key the whole Grail, air checks (wire recordings of radio broadcasts) of Earl Scruggs performing with  Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys on the Grand Ole Oprey in 46 or early 47.  These are notable not only for Earl's performances but some of the greatest performances of any kind I have ever heard by Bill Monroe both as a vocalist and a mandolin player in response to Earl's performances, and the much neglected overall performance of that bands' combination.  I am sure wiser people than I realize the greatness of the rhythm work by the bassist and Lest Flatt on guitar.  None of that has ever been officially issued on a record by an official label, but unauthorized recordings of this stuff have been available since some point int he 1960s.   Google for and and you should find it, though most bluegrass people have that

A completely different thing is the audio and video recordings of the Television and Radio show sponsored by Martha White Flour that Flatt and Scruggs had in the 1950 and 1960s.  The best way to find this is on YouTube where multiple copies of a number of these shows are on YouTube.  There are both videos if the TV show and sound recordings of the radio broadcasts.  

Despite negative stereotypes about Bluegrassers, from the 40s on,  Bluegrass fans have been among the most technically and electronically adept people on Earth when it comes to finding and making this music available.  I dont have time to fo find links to this stuff, but you can usually find it with an easy Google search. 

Edited by - writerrad on 02/23/2026 15:03:38

KCJones - Posted - 02/24/2026:  08:22:48

quote:

---

Originally posted by SophiaD

quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

By folk banjoists,  I mean people who have learning banjo as part of an actual community folk tradition in which the music made was part of the living life of the community, not a decision by people who enjoy and wish to revive or celebrate the music who did not learn it in their communities. 

There is a difference between people who make an intellectual decision to play old time music and people who are part of organic communities in which the music evolved.

 

---

Thank you for such a thoughtful explanation.  There's a lot to think about there!  

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Thoughtful, yes. Truthful, perhaps not so much. It is a closed mind that thinks you can only be part of the American musical tradition if you check specific boxes (as defined by self-proclamed authorities on the subject). It's 2026, 1926 was 100 years ago. There have been traditional fiddle competitions throughout the country for over 75 years. It's frankly offensive to suggest that because someone is young, or 'not from around here', that they are not part of the tradition. It's also insulting to the players that are from those areas, to suggest that they put no thought into their playing or that they also didn't make a concious decision to continue the tradition.

The fact is, the vast majority of people from all areas do not play traditional music. This is a statistical fact. Anyone that does play traditional music, has made a conscious decision to participate and celebrate the tradition. 

There is a fixation among both players and scholars that the "tradition" only happened during a specific period, in a fixed place, and everything after that is simply a recreation or revival of that time and place. It's a false paradigm. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of time and culture. The tradition is alive and well, it is organic and growing to this day. Music made this year is just as much as a tradition as music made in 1930. A banjo player that plays the old songs in Utah is just as much part of the tradition as one from South Carolina. When the music was made back then, it was new. Someone playing The Cuckoo or Cold Frosty Morning in 2026 is just as much part of the tradition as someone that played it in 1926. It's not emulation, and it's not 'inauthentic' just because they're not from a specific demographic. 

Again, the overall point here is that 'tradition' is an ever changing and organic cultural phenomenon. It is not fixed, in any way. All traditions were, at one point, new styles. They change over time. Tradition does not mean "old". By it's very nature, despite many attempts to do so by educated individuals trying to sell books and lectures, tradition can not be canned and labeled and sold on a shelf. 

All that is to say, back to the subject. If you take the 1920 to the 1970, that is 50 years. 1970 to 2026, is 56 years. This means that open backs have been the 'default' banjo design for clawhammer for a longer period than resonator banjos were the standard. Time marches on. 

Edited by - KCJones on 02/24/2026 08:30:46

KCJones - Posted - 02/24/2026:  08:36:07

And that's not even getting into the issues with the term 'clawhammer' banjo, itself. Is 'clawhammer' banjo even a traditional term? It's pretty modern itself. One could easily argue that, all other traditions aside, the open-back banjo has strong ties to so-called "clawhammer" and "old-time" music.

One could make the argument that those who cling to the resonator as the traditional banjo are revivalists, because they're attempting to recreate the styles of the 1910s-1940s. And that the people playing open back banjos are the "true traditionalists", because they're playing the style of banjo that represents the current zeitgeist of vernacular American music.  If one person plays a resonator "because that's how they did it 75 years ago", and one person plays an open-back "because that's what everyone else is doing right now", which one is the revivalist and which one is the traditionalist? Food for thought.

Edited by - KCJones on 02/24/2026 08:47:37

SophiaD - Posted - 02/24/2026:  09:09:17

quote:

---

Originally posted by KCJones

The tradition is alive and well, it is organic and growing to this day. Music made this year is just as much as a tradition as music made in 1930. A banjo player that plays the old songs in Utah is just as much part of the tradition as one from South Carolina. When the music was made back then, it was new. Someone playing The Cuckoo or Cold Frosty Morning in 2026 is just as much part of the tradition as someone that played it in 1926.

 

---

I was looking this morning at an announcement for a local musical event, and I noticed the new-to-me term "tradition bearer", I suppose denoting a performer who places themselves within a musical history.  There's something formal and ponderous about such a designation.  It seems to me that just about all music harkens back to some traditions and history.  Maybe the difference is some folks make a deliberate effort to stay within with a real or imagined traditional style, while others just want to do something fresh with what they're inherited.   So Dylan goes electric, back in the day.

Edited by - SophiaD on 02/24/2026 09:28:11

Lew H - Posted - 02/24/2026:  10:00:37

KCJones "Again, the overall point here is that 'tradition' is an ever changing and organic cultural phenomenon. It is not fixed, in any way. All traditions were, at one point, new styles. They change over time. Tradition does not mean "old". By its very nature, despite many attempts to do so by educated individuals trying to sell books and lectures, tradition can not be canned and labeled and sold on a shelf."

I think you are in part right. However I think what writerrad is saying is that there are people who grow up in a community that has a musical tradition, passed on within families and among kin and neighbors. This "passing on, or learning, is done in face-to face situations. Or there have been these situations for centuries. He is not disparaging such singers or musicians. I think he is pointing to a very different way in which tradition is transmitted. Folklorists use the term "oral transmission," but that doesn't readily apply to instrumental music. Learning by ear might be more accurate. But even so, folklorists note that some singers from such communities keep "ballet books"--books with song lyrics written down. Surely some folk learning involves passing on the printed word in these close relationships, despite how folklorists have framed it.

This doesn't mean that everyone in the community is a singer or musician, but that individuals and families are immersed in the tradition. Other's might appreciate the music or they might ignore it or even dislike it. It's still a tradition for the community as a whole. Nor does this mean that a community member that sings its traditional songs can't also sing songs learned from commercial recordings.

It also means that there is no innovation or creativity. The eastern mountains have people who play or sing songs from their traditions, but also make up new ones. These new pieces might become part of the community's tradition. One marxist folklorist (whose name escapes me at this moment) spoke of "creative bearers of the folk tradition."

That mode of transmission differs markedly from learning from books, tablature, recordings, and videos. It is based partly at a corporate level. It's still the same songs and tunes, but the community is not there. I think it is the people involved in this new mode of transmission who think of "tradition" as something that happened early last century or over 50 years ago. They want to play a tune with just the same notes and fingering that Tommy Jerrell used on May 16 at 2 PM, 1952. This would be a static, perhaps a dead, tradition were it not for the fact that recordings of newly minted tunes are allowed in by the publishes and purchasers of digital, CD, or tab versions of a tune.

pinenut - Posted - 02/24/2026:  10:05:28

quote:

---

Originally posted by KCJones

And that's not even getting into the issues with the term 'clawhammer' banjo, itself. Is 'clawhammer' banjo even a traditional term? It's pretty modern itself. One could easily argue that, all other traditions aside, the open-back banjo has strong ties to so-called "clawhammer" and "old-time" music.

---

This is why we should always refer to clawhammer as 'stroke style' and proudly proclaim how we really play our banjos...   

Edited by - pinenut on 02/24/2026 10:11:20

Joel Hooks - Posted - 02/24/2026:  10:13:12

quote:

---

Originally posted by pinenut

quote:

---

Originally posted by KCJones

And that's not even getting into the issues with the term 'clawhammer' banjo, itself. Is 'clawhammer' banjo even a traditional term? It's pretty modern itself. One could easily argue that, all other traditions aside, the open-back banjo has strong ties to so-called "clawhammer" and "old-time" music.

---

This is why we should always refer to clawhammer as 'stroke style' and proudly proclaim how we really play our banjos...   

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"Banjo style" is also acceptable. 

pinenut - Posted - 02/24/2026:  10:23:48

quote:

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Originally posted by Joel Hooks

quote:

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Originally posted by pinenut

quote:

---

Originally posted by KCJones

And that's not even getting into the issues with the term 'clawhammer' banjo, itself. Is 'clawhammer' banjo even a traditional term? It's pretty modern itself. One could easily argue that, all other traditions aside, the open-back banjo has strong ties to so-called "clawhammer" and "old-time" music.

---

This is why we should always refer to clawhammer as 'stroke style' and proudly proclaim how we really play our banjos...   

---

"Banjo style" is also acceptable.  Sweet.  That makes banjo a noun and a verb like, "smurfing the smurf".  

---

Edited by - pinenut on 02/24/2026 10:24:39

writerrad - Posted - 02/24/2026:  11:52:03

Clawhammer as a term really has only come into use by many people since the 1950s.  I have not found any reference to it before WWII by anyone in discussing the banjo.  It certainly does not appear in any 19th century discussion of the banjo or banjoists.

When I first got interested in old time music by in the 60s as a guitarist. I saw people say they were playing "clawhammer" who were 2 finger pickers.  I do think today the term is chiefly understood as down picking, often with the drop thumb, and other innovations.  It is all right insofar as folks now understand it to be the old time down picking but down picking or frailing seem more descriptive.  I wont get into the fact that the term  frailing is not really found anywhere before the 1950s or 60s even, either.

As a person who study of English composition and writing itself is my primary academic certification,  when I started to write papers and edit others papers and book chapters etc about 20 years ago,  I found the term to not one that was useful because of that lack of precision.  The identification in clawhammer comes from the idea that professional minstrel banjo entertainers wore coats with the tails in the back much like the claw on a claw hammer. 

I use down stroking and up stroking, or down picking or up picking.  Finger picking is also an adequate term for what it describes.  Calling something "the stroke style" to me  suggests the definite forms of down picking and down stroking used popular in the 19th century,'' such as in banjo primers and such from the 19th century that were often divided between the "guitar style" and the "stroke style."  I also think stroking can indirectly imply a mistaken idea of down picking or down stroking, that the player making a stroke across several strings or all the strings, when at times the player is aiming at individual strings.

To me science in the matter, especially for writers seeking academic precision began to be provided in ROBERT B. WINANS and ELIAS J. KAUFMAN's  "Minstrel and Classic Banjo: American and English Connections  American Music, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Spring, 1994), pp. 1-30."   I know the two authors sought to provide scientific and definite precision for a number of different aspects of banjo playing for future academic writers in this decisive article because each has told me that. 

 It is available online on a number of sites today and it is still illuminating to me after 20 years of reading and rereading it.    Here, the authors refer to the delineation of "the stroke style"  and the "guitar style" describing the different forms of banjo playing that emerged in the 1830s and 1840s among banjo entertainers.  No one seriously interested in the banjo and its history should be without this essay.

My friend Greg Adams and the great banjo research hero the late Shlomo Pestcoe sought to codify these things especially for researchers  in "Banjo Roots Research": Changing Perspectives on the Banjo's African American Origins and West Africa Heritage"  Chapter 1 in Duke University Press's 2018 publication Banjo Roots and Branches,  which was edited by Robert Winans, and published as part of the University of Illinois Press's music in American Life series in 2018.   I know this initial chapter was not the simple idea of the its two authors and the editor, but the product of a lot of collective discussion of the inner core of banjo roots researchers because they share this chapter with several of us. 

There the final decision in introducing this was to advance the term "down picking (also called down-stroking)" (pg 10) adding on the next page that later in the 19th century the term "Negro Style" and  "Stroke Style " were used by some to describe this.  Adams and Petscoe add: "Traditions of banjo down-picking are also found throughout the rural South, where they have been commonly referred to by various names,  such as frailing, clawhammer, rapping or thumping."  On the same page they advance the term "up picking" to describe both 2 and 3 (and actually some 4 or even some like Gus Cannon 5)  finger picking.

The stroke style seems descriptive and useful when discussing 19th century and early 20th century banjo playing especially as delineated by the minstrel entertainers and parlor banjoists, but it seem awkward if you are referring to 20th and 21st century old time Black and white banjo players that I study. It can suggest a misunderstanding of what most down picking banjoists do.  If I am down picking I am not mostly brushing across the strings in a stroking manner, but aiming at particular strings when I am not brushing and in some styles players rarely brush, but get much of the work done by strikes on individual strings, pull offs, and sounding the fifth string,  

Down picking and Up picking seem to be more objective.  Fingerpicking and Frailing are useful terms that people also understand.

Edited by - writerrad on 02/24/2026 12:15:01

Joel Hooks - Posted - 02/24/2026:  12:59:44

Hey Tony, where are you getting this "brushing" thing with stroke style?



The ultimate method for stroke style (or "banjo style") is found in Frank B. Converse's Analytical Banjo Method. Here he provides a series of movements and combinations that covers pretty much any pattern possible. All extremely precise and deliberate. He does teach a "nail glide" which is not "brushing" but an arpeggio with distinct note separation.



This is the first time I have ever read a connection to "clawhammer" and tailcoats. This does not make any logical sense. EVERYONE wore tails for evening dress. This was not anything specific to minstrelsy.



Also, while the jokes were ad nauseam repeats, the music featured in minstrelsy kept current with times. By the late 1880s it was fully out (for the most part).

Here is what Pete Seeger has to say on the matter.

Joel Hooks - Posted - 02/24/2026:  13:03:47

I am still unclear about the definitions of:

1) Traditional

2) Old Time Music

As used in the context of this discussion.

I do not believe the OP question is answerable without agreed upon definitions of the two above terms.

PHJim - Posted - 02/24/2026:  13:23:32

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joel Hooks

I am still unclear about the definitions of:



1) Traditional



2) Old Time Music



As used in the context of this discussion.



I do not believe the OP question is answerable without agreed upon definitions of the two above terms.

---

I doubt if we'll be able to find a definition that everyone will agree on for either of these terms.

- My idea of traditional music includes everything from acapella whaling ballads to Inuit throat singing to Appalachian banjo tunes to Cajun fiddle tunes to. . .

- When I hear the term Old Time Music, I think of Charlie Poole, Samantha Bumgarner, Jean Ritchie, The Carter Family, The New Lost City Ramblers, Tommy Jarrell, Eck Robertson, Fiddlin' John Carson. . .

writerrad - Posted - 02/24/2026:  13:43:34

Tradition has an exact meaning for those of us who do serious work in the study of music and history.  It is exaggerated by those who do not.  Traditional music means music that evolves out of the social fabric of traditional communities and their day to day lives,  not out of the commercial activities of entertainers, or commercial pressure  and extension of the music, and not by  the popularization of the music by media, or for that matter not by people who claim their music is superior to other music because it is tradition.

As such traditional music has been pretty much on the decline in its original form in North America across the 20th century.  I got to know Joe Thompson the fiddler and talked to him about himself learning music in North Carolina starting as a kid of 4 or 5 in a family where his father and his uncle led a family band that provided a significant part of the family income and more of their social life up to the time Joe went away to WWII.  Joe had ideas about  what was right, famously telling you "get it right" of you were doing something he had not been taught by his father and uncle or the way it had been.   He had been taught by his father and his uncle and his brother who played banjo too.

His brother who played banjo was first handed a banjo at a young age.  The frailing strokes were demonstrated to him. and then he was enjoined to learn them, not by chording the banjo in any way or tuning it all the way up, something he was not allowed to do until the pure rhythm of the strokes met the satisfaction of father and uncle which took time.   Only then was he permitted to tune up the banjo.

People who learn music by various media  rather wrongly confuse folk traditions with commercial entertainers who claim to be so, or even people  who after the social and cultural situations that evolved real folk traditions have changed so that the influences of commercial. formal. art and all kinds of other music are dominant, and dessimination of  music is by radio. records, shows, etc, etc. is not traditional music, but the outgrowth of music as either a business or as cultural ideal.   Nothing wrong with that, but just the way these things are.

The history of the banjo is not one of tradition but of bursting tradition.  The early gourd banjo that were created by by followers of specific religious/spiritual cults in the Caribbean and North America were powered by the specific spiritual beliefs these people had.  They caused them to design the first banjos in ways that represented their beliefs about cosmology, not how to create an effective musical instrument.  We know from a banjo of this type we have found that dates from the 1860s and 1870s, they continued to do so after not only more effective gourd banjos had been designed, after the frame headed or hoop headed, not gourd banjo had been adopted by both folk and commercial entertaining banjoists.   That is the difference between tradition and non tradition.

Tradition is a real thing, but it has a narrow life in the real history of the banjo where constant innovation often comming outside of folk or traditional approach has been in the driver's seat for much of the banjo's history.  Someone who plays a a banjo that is not an early gourd banjo of the truly traditional type, is playing a banjo that is the product of commercial innovation of the banjo by banjo entertainers and luthiers applying techniques borrowed from commercial manufacture of drums, guitars, and other instruments, not tradition.   The physical banjos we all play and that have advanced the music are modeled after instruments designed by commercial instrument builders  to designs that not folk traditions, but commercial entertainers,  commercial sale to parlor and popular music players.

People I know who have spoken at length with Earl do not think of him speaking much about tradition but of wanting to match in his playing innovations in music he heard around him including names like Blind Boy Fuller and Charlie Christian and of the degree to which he grew up in a banjo community where the guitar style of banjo which Joel would call "classic" was being played and taught all around him.  

Edited by - writerrad on 02/24/2026 14:03:01

KCJones - Posted - 02/24/2026:  14:36:27

A few questions. Help me understand. It all sounds like a lot of dogma and formality to me, but I'm not very smart. Is there a specific way that is "playing it right", as Joe Thompson says? It sounds like his father and uncle are the authorities on traditional music, but they also made their income by playing as commercial entertainers? How are they traditional if their income came from entertaining? Or is there a nuance I'm not understanding. Again, I am not a smart person and easily confused, so please explain so I can understand this. 

It almost sounds like there's a blood right to tradition, as you define it. It's only traditional if you learn from your family, and even then you must be in a specific family for it to be traditional. And if you're not part of the select few families, then it's not tradition. Is there an official list of traditional music families? How far removed are you allowed to be from the paternal line of succession before you're no longer traditional? 



I'm curious also, what is a "traditional community"? Are there specific criteria for this? Are there aspects of a community that preclude it from being traditional? Is there a geographic requirement, and if so is there a list of specific zip codes where traditional music is from? Or is it more of a regional thing. If so, is it possible to play traditional music from areas outside of these communities, or do most places simply not have any traditions at all and are just emulating commercial entertainers. 

I'm still not clear on the time frame. Is there a specific age something must be to be traditional, is it a specific fixed time in the past? Or is it an age? 

Was Ralph Stanley a traditional musician? What about Pete Seeger? Earl Scruggs? I think we probably all agree that they weren't traditional, they were commercial entertainers. 

Question for the authorities: If a young person learns banjo from their father in 2015, and their father learned from their grandfather in the 1985, and the grandfather learned from their great-grandfather in 1955, and the great-grandfather learned from recorded artists in the 20s, and all of those people have played around campfires and on porches and at community barn dances and harvest gatherings and maypole celebrations through the years... is that young person today a traditional player?  Or are they not traditional because the original great-grandfather learned from a commercial recording? I'm not smart or educated, please help me understand. 

Edited by - KCJones on 02/24/2026 14:51:44

Joel Hooks - Posted - 02/24/2026:  16:54:30

I would argue that if commercial/noncommercial are the defining factors in “traditional” then including the popular form of the banjo as we know it cannot possibly be “traditional” period.

Then there is the timeline, which also presents problems. The timeline for the banjo as we know it really starts at around 1840. But historical record pushes that forward by a decade or more to the mid 1850s and really post ACW.

This only gives us three generations from development to the generation born around 1900 (which was the generation of the 20s recordings).

So, one generation to invent the music, one to learn it, then one to commercialize it. The strange part is that the first two generations were able to totally avoid detection and evade anyone writing the music down. They also had zero influence on banjo design.

EEB - Posted - 02/25/2026:  01:50:31

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joel Hooks

So, one generation to invent the music, one to learn it, then one to commercialize it. The strange part is that the first two generations were able to totally avoid detection and evade anyone writing the music down. They also had zero influence on banjo design.

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Differentiation by generation is a methodology we are currently using in relation to the assimilation and adaption of the banjo within19th century British contexts. But this is really only because that serves as a relevant and useful differentiation in THOSE specific contexts in relation to patterns that our research happen to identify.

It would be a misunderstanding to assume this as a 'formula' or framework approach that is necessarily helpful in any study. Certainly any interpretation of that methodology that assumes any particular generation embue one  'function' in linear isolation is quite wrong.

Neither do communities, even those in flux and subject to immense social and physical change, 'invent' music. Innovation interacts with and within pre-existing cultural norms while simultaneously being ONE factor among many influencing the way those norms change over time.

The factors that drive change may alter, but the dynamic of interactive factors of change remain more or less continual only the pace of change really showing any marked difference. No vernacular context is static or 'fixed'. That's the human dimension that history seeks to understand.

I could illustrate this with examples specific to our research context but this would subvert the U.S. focus of this interesting thread. One common - virtually universal - factor is that no historical or cultural activity can be fully understood without regard to ALL the external factors of varying scale that exert influence on that activity.

Edited by - EEB on 02/25/2026 02:08:29

EEB - Posted - 02/25/2026:  04:23:53

There’s always change. However if I hazard a guess at the degree of change within British communities across 60 years 1725-1785 it would not be as profound, extensive or as fast as that in 19th century Britain. Individuals born in 1825, 1865 and 1885 grew to adulthood in distinctly different social and cultural environments which radically affected behaviours and opportunities.

This period of radical societal reorganisation and transformation extends to the immediate post-WW1 years c.1919-1924 but we just happen to be looking in detail at a date range within that tumultous period of change.

Different geographical locations may undergo periods of significant social change that don't conform to the same date range

Edited by - EEB on 02/25/2026 04:37:20

cjwit - Posted - 02/25/2026:  05:30:01

This is fun! If you don't mind, I have some strong opinions about things like "tradition" and the related concept of "authenticity." I've thought more about the authenticity part, because that's been explicitly in other work I've done. The tradition opinions are still growing and conversations like this make certain things more clear. I'm really enjoying it. What's surprising (but shouldn't be) is how consistent these kinds of questions come up in so many musical practices and communities...

First, I find it really helpful to pull apart "tradition" and "traditional." As it's generally used, something is "traditional" if it fits someone's expectation of being a part of a tradition. That seems obvious, but centering the expectation and not the tradition is important. Why?

Because I find it vastly more useful to think of "tradition" as a term that is plural: there is no singular capital-T Tradition. There are lots of traditions that overlap and build importance for people and for communities over time. They get circulated just like any other ideas, through things like family connection, oral transmission, community gatherings, mass media, radio, fads and trends, etc.

To oversimplify: folklorists had a sense of what they thought tradition was and they set out to find it. Then the things they found were held up as traditional (in the singular noun "this is it!" sense). But as this conversation has demonstrated, the music and the folks who made it were rarely operating in some vacuum. Maybe some were. But many were not. All of these things had long histories of change. All this grows out of interaction with commercial practice, at least so far as we can go back. It turns artificial, but an idea of holding up a (singular) tradition or many (singular) traditions can be so helpful for things like community identity, nation building, and so on. During a time of recent colonialism and a WWII to Cold War political context, creating an "us" can matter.

I'd argue that things like contemporary clawhammer playing on an open back are absolutely part of a tradition, but it's not a stagnant one that goes back. As we've seen here, it goes through so many stages and the interesting part to me is how we end up where we are, where the association is so dominant that it's taken as normative, it's singular. This all also suggests that the flip of the original question is where the fun lies: it's not why clawhammer uses open backs, it's why these two things are so tightly wound, when the historical record suggests much more promiscuity in playing style and instrument. Why not just use what you got to do what you want? Marketing? Where do the assumptions come from? (We have a lot of good answers to this here!)

When reading on religion and politics in Morocco during graduate school, I came across a quote that stuck with me: "Tradition defended is never entirely traditional." I think it was political scientist Henry Munson. Once you take some common practice (a tradition) and call it traditional, you change the way folks interact with it and the meaning that it holds. The practice itself will change as a result, often rather quickly.

I'm currently trying to break the habit of defaulting to words like "tradition" or "traditional" because I think they cause more problems than they solve. I wonder what this thread would have looked like if the word "traditionally" had not been in the question. A lot of the same discussion would have happened, but it might have played out differently, as a simpler question with a simpler answer.

EEB - Posted - 02/25/2026:  05:59:28

quote:

---

Originally posted by cjwit

 practice (a tradition) and call it traditional, you change the way folks interact with it and the meaning that it holds. The practice itself will change as a result, often rather quickly.

---

An example that springs to mind is cinema. For our parents and grandparents cinema-going was a part of their way of life. An arguably culturally central experience for those generations c.1910-1950. Yet we never hear that behaviour referred to as 'traditional'. It was popular, or a social convention in it's time.

Edited by - EEB on 02/25/2026 06:00:58

Joel Hooks - Posted - 02/25/2026:  06:03:45

The banjo as we know it has always been wrapped in nostalgia. Minstrelsy=nostalgia. The classic era was filled with nostalgia, including newly composed works based on nostalgia.

During the rise of the "fiddle contest", nostalgia was king. Articles ran in music trade magazines encouraging ridiculous "rules" and so forth.

At the time it was all in good fun.

Then the recordings and Ralph Peer produced radio shows solidified a growing fad for "the good old days".

But with the rise of the "folklorist" the fun was lost and the joke was not received.

I left something out in that above timeline. An important point.

The generation born after the American Civil War included the first generation of Black Americans born (at least on paper) free. This was scary for a large portion of the population. So nostalgia for the "good old days" was strong.

Bluegrass sold nostalgia, Shakey's Pizza sold nostalgia.

It was all fictional depictions of times that never were.

banjoboyd - Posted - 02/25/2026:  06:29:07

Tony: "Tradition has an exact meaning for those of us who do serious work in the study of music and history. It is exaggerated by those who do not. Traditional music means music that evolves out of the social fabric of traditional communities and their day to day lives, not out of the commercial activities of entertainers, or commercial pressure and extension of the music"



With respect, this may be an exact meaning, but it's also one that seems arbtrarily exclusive. Is Western classical music "traditional"? Are we really going to argue that someone in 2026 playing Bach or Beethoven is not participating in a tradition?



My view is that something is a tradition when it functions as a tradition. It simply means a socially agreed-upon and relatively stable way of doing something. How old that "something" is, where it comes from, how it is transmitted, and so on are secondary. 

writerrad - Posted - 02/25/2026:  07:00:23

"Ralph Peer produced radio shows solidified a growing fad for "the good old days".  I have several biographies of Peer, the best being Barry Mazor's.  I am not aware of Peer having produced any radio programs.   That would be interesting.  When did he do this?

Lew H - Posted - 02/25/2026:  07:33:44

Maybe we are mixing up related but somewhat different concepts here. The word "tradition" has several definitions and lacks clear boundaries. Not that people have shown much reaction yet, but I tried to clarify a mistaken impression of of what writerrad Tony was saying by using folklorist language. For them, the FOLK tradition is defined by how songs, tunes, and ideas about proper instrument types, are TRANSMITTED within groups and across generations. We are all aware that you can play "Doing my time" on a Gibson Mastertone banjo, a Deering Clawgrass open back banjo, or a gourd banjo. Any of that is possible. A quarter century ago at Suwannee Banjo Camp, I got to see Mike Seeger play "Doing my time," a bluegrass song, on a gourd banjo clawhammer (or down stroke) style but emulating bluegrass banjo sounds. It was a jarring, but wonderful and humorous experience for me, full of cognitive dissonance. All because there is a tradition of some sort of playing that song is appropriate only on resonator banjos.

Seeger, I think, meant to create that very response. He was pushing boundaries of what we think of tradition. He showed that there are traditions of whatever type and however recently established, within the bluegrass world and the oldtime world. I don't know that there was anything traditionally FOlK about these. We have taking these ideas to heart from seeing what Earl Scruggs and Pete Seeger played, from advertisements of banjos, and from other performers we encounter.

People ask how long must an idea or practice be around to become "traditional." For folklorists that's the wrong question. The right question is "How long must it be transmitted in face-to-face situations within communities. They speak of commercial songs passing "into the oral tradition" and accept them as "folk songs." This happened in the Ozarks and other areas for some pop songs of the 1800s and some recordings of the early 1900s. I don't know that folklorists (or I) have an exact idea as to how much "oral transmission" is needed for a song to become a part of "tradition folklore."

I'll add a monkey wrench into the discussion here. There has been talk of external influences, and maybe modern v. traditional communities as issues. Symphonic music, we might all agree, is not folk music. People pay money to institutions to learn instruments, read music written by people they never met face-to-face, etc. But however modern and incorporated a classical orchestra might be, there is a part of that culture that is transmitted in the folk mode. Think about inside humor, jokes about orchestra performances, about the classic composers, etc. Folklorists don't like to think about this, but it is a kind of folklore in their definition.

EEB - Posted - 02/25/2026:  07:34:03

quote:

---

Originally posted by banjoboyd

Tony: "Tradition has an exact meaning for those of us who do serious work in the study of music and history. It is exaggerated by those who do not. Traditional music means music that evolves out of the social fabric of traditional communities and their day to day lives, not out of the commercial activities of entertainers, or commercial pressure and extension of the music"



With respect, this may be an exact meaning, but it's also one that seems arbtrarily exclusive. Is Western classical music "traditional"? Are we really going to argue that someone in 2026 playing Bach or Beethoven is not participating in a tradition?



My view is that something is a tradition when it functions as a tradition. It simply means a socially agreed-upon and relatively stable way of doing something. How old that "something" is, where it comes from, how it is transmitted, and so on are secondary. 

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Did you read Chris's post? He makes a  key point about perception i.e. how referring to something as 'traditional' has an effect on how people relate to that activity. 

Consensus - 'social agreement' - even if tacit, is pretty much how culture is defined. But not everything that carries cultural identity is 'traditional'.

Is the term useful? We can only really examine that by holding examples up to scrutiny. We could say that before the commercialisation of mass entertainment it was traditional for ordinary people to actively entertain themselves and their local community. But is that a helpful or accurate statement? The practical reality holds water; but did those engaged in local performance consider themselves as part of a tradition? That's much more open to question.

Does Clifftop in WV every August fit the criteria of 'traditional' activity? A time-travelling fiddle player from the 1880's, once they have their Walmart pop-up tent up and wander around the site may well recognise some of the repertoire they hear. But the scale, setting and geographic separation of those attending would be quite alien. Where and what constitute 'traditional'? I don't know.

Edited by - EEB on 02/25/2026 07:44:31