Maybe someone can explain or define this for me. I was watching Pete on the Johnny Cash show. then I watched him with Arlo. I think one of the reasons Pete was so great at getting the audience to sing was the life he had in his banjo. It gave life. It had a happy get you engaged, get you moving timing to it. I think in bluegrass we might call it bounce? Can anyone comment on Pete's timing?
5 Comments |
 | phdm says:
2/12/2017 7:55:31 PM
Ken - I think you are right. In studying Pete's banjo playing for 40 years, I have come to realize that his slogan on his banjo, "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender" reflects many things about Pete, his music and his world view. One thing it reveals is that his banjo was his "machine" - his tool which he skillfully used to achieve his goals - both political and musical. In concert, his primary, often-stated goal was to get people singing along. This really was his life-long quest. If you listen to a live concert of his playing, you will find that he skillfully changes up his strums, often starting with his basic strum, then changing to a more intricate/rhythmic strum, then a louder strum - all working to build enthusiasm and musically encourage more people to join in singing on the song as he leads it. His hand gestures, body gestures and even banjo movements were also very intentionally used to gather greater participation in each song he would sing. He was a true master of this. Pete was not greatly interested in instrumental virtuosity, though in many styles he was up there with the best.
Bluegrass stresses instrumental virtuosity; it is not an audience participatory genre (at least not during a performance). I don't think most of the performance techniques Pete used would directly cross-over to bluegrass performances.
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 | Banjo Lefty says:
2/12/2017 8:01:18 PM
I had the great good fortune of hearing him play at small kitchen concerts in the fifties (I was a small boy then), during the McCarthy era, and then later in concert on the big stage with Arlo. It seemed to me that, whenever he played solo, it was with a variety of tempi and lots of rubato. When he sang with other people, he was dead on, almost metronomic. When he led the audience, however, he would jump in and out of sync, as the song moved him. Listen to "We Shall Overcome" on the Carnegie Hall recording.
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| phdm says:
2/13/2017 6:01:50 PM
And I believe I once read that when Pete performed with Arlo and his band, there was some effort needed to get Pete to regulate himself a bit to be part of a group, rather than a solo song leader, who could change tempo at his will. Likely it was Arlo telling Pete just to let them know what he was going to be doing so they could keep up with him.
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 | From Greylock to Bean Blossom says:
2/13/2017 6:14:30 PM
Peter,
It is funny, but the only bluegrass guy I can think of that could get a crowd going and interacting -maybe not in a singing way- was Jimmy Martin. And it is funny how he and Pete Seeger were two very opposite type of guys!
:~)
& I would imagine that Arlo was very deferential to Pete - as it should be.
Banjo Lefty,
Thanks for the definition of what was going on with the tempi. AND thanks for making me go to a dictionary. I had never heard the word tempi before. Goes to prove, you only get smarter on the hangout.
Ken
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| From Greylock to Bean Blossom says:
2/13/2017 7:56:46 PM
You think about it, all the great singers of the history of the world. how many of them could or did come out with one instrument and captivate and move an audience for over an hour with just them and one instrument. I can't think of anyone that did this like Pete did. Not Elvis, Sinatra, Brian Wilson. I think it comes back to the different rhythms he could pull out of that banjo.
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