drive.google.com/file/d/1fhJcV...=drivesdk

quote:From all descriptions,  Cannon had to raise the bridge considerably which he already kept very high to make the slide work.  As I mentioned before in 2005 at the Black banjo gathering Mike Seeger wanted to demonstrate some slide banjo.   There were a bunch of fine banjos, but someone had just given me a 19th century Fairbanks with serious neck problems making the action too high to play properly.  In fact it took a couple years to get that banjo into playing shape, but he was able to do wonderful slide on it.   Slide banjo sounds nice, but it really isnt a practical thing if you intend to use the banjo for anything else.  

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Originally posted by EulalieBlue

Thanks for sharing your work, Tony.  I love the clarity of Gus Cannon"s playing in general but wondered how he managed such good tone on his slide recording of Poor Boy.  I always got fret rattle, and a raised bridge explains it. 

I think Cannon's playing in general is a perfect combination of the popular parlor styles from the 19th century and the more punctuated rhythm in his blusier numbers.  I probably wouldn't be playing banjo at all if not for his influence.

RA

 

quote:

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Originally posted by writerrad

As I point out below,  I have done years and years of research on Cannon.   While this was something he learned to do from a guitarist when he lived in Clarksdale and gets magnificent sounds from retuning his banjo for the Paramount recording,  he found it was not a practical thing for him to do in his work as a banjoist because to get the sound he got to play what he called Hawaiian, he had to untune the banjo, and place coins under his bridge to raise the action,  tighten the strings so they effectively held down the bridge, and retune in a different tuning from the drop C he normally tuned. 

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quote:

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Originally posted by cevant

I like the way this fellow keeps the bum ditty going with slide...
youtu.be/3jSR5z9yjxQ

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Just wondering if the fretless neck means that he didn't have to raise the action to play slide?  What do you think?

With best regards,
Jack

quote:

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Originally posted by chuckv97

Some nice slide banjo on this one,, a very fine tune too.
youtu.be/U4yYOATYgdM

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I always liked this one. It was my first exposure to slide banjer. Must be over 40 years ago.
The Hamilton Art Gallery used to own the "Horse And Train" Alex Colville painting. Maybe they still do.

Thank you Tony for all your information, you are always a great source!

I must say that I triestini to play slide on banjo but wasn’t satisfied: I play slide on resophonic instruments (I penso a Dobro and a National style tenor guitar) and I slide so better on such instruments, playing the banjo fretted

With a banjo, I've found that I need to use a much lighter slide than a guitar, probably because I have lighter strings and a lower action.
I have a small pill bottle that covers all of the banjo strings and is light glass. It works much better than the deep socket that I use for guitar.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jim Yates

quote:

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Originally posted by chuckv97

Some nice slide banjo on this one,, a very fine tune too.
youtu.be/U4yYOATYgdM

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I always liked this one. It was my first exposure to slide banjer. Must be over 40 years ago.
The Hamilton Art Gallery used to own the "Horse And Train" Alex Colville painting. Maybe they still do.

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Alex Coleville's 1954 painting was inspired by the poem by  South African writer Roy Campbell (1901–1957):

I scorn the goose-step of their massed attack
And fight with my guitar slung on my back,
Against a regiment I oppose a brain
And a dark horse against an armoured train.

Put a mike's banjo mute on mine and than use a slide.I've tried it a few times before and it worked pretty well

youtu.be/b_j4adrCGmY

Love this.

quote:

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Originally posted by banjopaolo

Thank you Tony for all your information, you are always a great source!

I must say that I triestini to play slide on banjo but wasn’t satisfied: I play slide on resophonic instruments (I penso a Dobro and a National style tenor guitar) and I slide so better on such instruments, playing the banjo fretted

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I couldn't agree more.  I think your example is so good because it uses a similarly, layered structure, not entirely unlike Bluegrass and that's probably the reason I do appreciate this so much more than the usual 'piling it all on top of each other' old time styles.

quote:

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Originally posted by RB-1

quote:

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Originally posted by banjopaolo

Thank you Tony for all your information, you are always a great source!

I must say that I triestini to play slide on banjo but wasn’t satisfied: I play slide on resophonic instruments (I penso a Dobro and a National style tenor guitar) and I slide so better on such instruments, playing the banjo fretted

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I couldn't agree more.  I think your example is so good because it uses a similarly, layered structure, not entirely unlike Bluegrass and that's probably the reason I do appreciate this so much more than the usual 'piling it all on top of each other' old time styles.

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Thank you Bruno! :-)

I think of Bruce Cockburn's Night Vision LP when I think of slide banjo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dUL-3MaFEE&list=PLnMNiJL3mO8wFpXWZ-zlVoT9bNegoHcFG
 

the needle nose are good and light -also with low action the small tip lets one see the contact point without having to press hard and listen for it--

I'm glad there was a video above of what a slide banjo is, as I had visions of something like a slide trombone, and the neck would slide in and out.... lol... sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet. :)

quote:

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Originally posted by STUD figmo Al

drive.google.com/file/d/1qqfYq...=drivesdk

Did this load?

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Not for me.

quote:

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Originally posted by Paulf

quote:

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Originally posted by STUD figmo Al

drive.google.com/file/d/1qqfYq...=drivesdk

Did this load?

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Not for me.

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Yeah i guess i have ..ogg..systum..on me computer..

N..i am not a wiz at computer stuff..

But thank you for tryin to listen..

I play lap and pedal steel as well as banjo so yes - slide banjo was always going to be tried in this house. I went as far as building a resonator banjo for slide - found the usual aftermarket spun reso cones and steel pan covers fit right into an 11 inch rim. The 'bridge' is in the wrong place for intonated fretting - but you don't need that with slide, so it intonates just fine providing you adjust for that incorrect bridge placement.
The biggest issue i found was the banjos usual decay - with a skin head its far too short to sustain a slid note - and with the reso set up it rang too much with shed loads of overtones - guess i could have used heavier strings to try and combat that but in the end i moved on.

I saw a pedal steel banjo recently on one of the pedal steel forums - that was a wild tool! I'll try and find the link.

quote:

This is wrong

We are mixing apples and horses,

Parlour banjo was an type of music or play associated with the Parlor music custom and commercial movement  of the 19th century. People who played this of music predominatly played the guitar banjo style, but many also played various forms of stroke style or down picking.

Cannon, many ragtime players, and  many parlor players played what is properly called the "guitar banjo style" which applied techniques used in popular music guitar in the 19th century to the banjo.  For a bunch of reasons, some people in the US who belong to the American Banjo Fraternity call this technique "classic banjo" although no one on Earth used this term to describe this banjo style before the 1960s or perhaps 70s.

 It is similar to classical guitar and is in fact derived from popular music guitar playing that was around in the 19th century when the banjo became widely used.

You assign the  5th and 4 to the thumb,  3rd to the index, the 2nd  to the middle,  and the 4th finger to the first string in the purest form of this with variations.  This is how Cannon played the banjo in finger style.  Go get an SS Stewart book on how to play and this what you would learn.  Cannon also used his pinkie for tremelos.

I got to know people who knew Cannon and who had taken lessons from him in the 50s.  This is pretty much the banjo style he taught you.  He could also play 2 finger and terrific frailing either with or without brushing, but he preferred this banjo style which he considered the "scientific" style of banjo playing.

Unfortunately by the late 1960s his alcoholism and problems with his hands meant that he could no longer play this style so at times he might lead off a tune finger picking and then just start strumming or stroking he banjo, but I have been lucky enough to find at least one recording when a Memphis folk music enthusiast visited in at his house and found Cannon "uncharacteristically sober" and there are very clear guitar style renditions of "Bicycle Built for Two," "Beale Street Blues" and other tunes.

Originally posted by writerrad

The banjo style that Cannon played was not Parlor banjo. What has passed as Parlor banjo since the late 19th century and has been continued most nobly by the American Banjo Fraternity represents "parlor banjo" as it was developed by banjo marketeers like the Dobsons and most notably SS Stewart and later the guild, is not simply a banjo technique, but a cultural or musical movement that used one of the several banjo techniques that emerged in the mid 19th century, the guitar banjo style which involves plucking upwards on the banjo with two or more fingers, generally striking downward with the thumb in combinations of single note playing, pinches, and rolls. When this method of playing the banjo was introduced in the 1850s, it was called "guitar banjo." Often banjo instruction books were divided between those that used the stroke or banjo method roughly equivalent to what we call frailing, and the guitar method this method. That is the proper name for this technique. This includes a range of playing styles and cultural locations including Parlor banjo enthusiasts who continue a cultural and musical movement invented by American and British banjo entrepeneurs and entertainers that was successful in forms of music, most nobly represented by the American Banjo fraternity. However, the guitar banjo technique was also used by players of ragtime--more ragtime recordings were made of banjoists than pianistsm-what became old time music with people like Charlie Poole and Black music of all kinds. In the second decade of the 20th century, most of the forms of music that the guitar banjo style was used for declined in the face of new instruments like various plectrum banjos, the rise of the guitar, and the rise of people not playing music but listening to media. Parlor banjo enthusiasts gatthered in the glorious American Banjo Fraternity appeared to be the primary exponents of this technique, and for many people guitar banjo became identified with parlor banjo. In relatity, the guitar style had its final victory, at first lurking in players like Uncle Dave and Poole and Cannon, but much of the banjo was saved by a young mill hand from the border of North and South Carolina region where banjoists adapted the guitar banjo style to old time music, his name was Earl Scruggs. Bluegrass banjo playing like what is called Parlor banjo, and several other style such as the way ragtime was played on the banjo, are but different forms not of Parlor banjo but of the guitar banjo style.

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youtu.be/OSGoJPqnlzc?si=Q6wTrvBzYTiBpetz

The other link from years ago must have changed..
Love this..

From Bruce Cockburn's Night Vision LP
You Don't Have To Play The Horses

Hi,
I just posted these pics on another thread, but this might be a good place to post
them again.

Had the parts, never really liked playing as a banjatar, and recently started steel.

Just an experiment, but turned out to sound good enough and be fun enough
to play that i am considering assembling another one,

Have called it a lap-jo or a jobro. Jobro has a better ring to it as a name.

Yes, this is tuned to high base G
GBDGBD

kentr