Originally posted by Bill Rogers

The meaning of “traditional” changed significantly and permanently with the advent of 1) records and 2) radio.

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As classically considers it ends..  When real folk, or even artisan musician tradition exists, then you have a variety of drift such as from generation to generation, or from region to region.  When people are trying to be "traditional" outside of that and they have the previous accepted traditional variant exactly recorded either by recording or sufficient sheet music or other notation then they are doing something different than "traditional" players.   

The real problem for the banjo is that despite folklore models about "tradition" being imposed on banjo playing,  Banjo playing's development has never been traditional, at least from what we know about the banjo since say around 1700 and certainly once frame headed banjo emerged in jhe late 1840s or 50s.  

It has also to be realized that the early gourd banjos created by spiritual/religious groups among the enslaved in the Caribbean and North America were soon rejected even before European Americans or people outside the faiths  accepted them because their designs, especially the angling of the necks followed beliefs about the shape and nature of the cosmos that what a physics dictate make a loud or clear sounding instrument or one easier to play.  Especially insofar as their makers faced persecution on all fronts  the early banjos not sounding so loud  was not muh of a problem, and people with these beliefs continued to make such banjos at least into the 1860s when they may have just died out.   

Sometimes I wonder if the contemporary "Old-Time" music really is traditional?

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Originally posted by janolov

Sometimes I wonder if the contemporary "Old-Time" music really is traditional?

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It's certainly giving exposure and continuity to elements of a historical repertoire. But it's a simplified, hybrid structure as you would expect in a society so different from the complex societal contexts it is referencing.

Does it matter? Not really. The core motivation remains the same: enjoyment, creative expression and social connection.

Documented historical sources are available for study by those interested in factual detail and the complex diversity of past social  landscapes. There's no natural 'requirement' to conduct one to enjoy the other.

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Originally posted by EEB

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Originally posted by janolov

Sometimes I wonder if the contemporary "Old-Time" music really is traditional?

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...Does it matter? Not really. The core motivation remains the same: enjoyment, creative expression and social connection...

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That's it, in a nutshell, as we used to say.

As someone, and I forget who, used to say on here, it's your d**n banjo, play it any way you want.

At the risk of derailing the thread a bit, I always bristle a bit when I hear that this stuff doesn't really matter. It really does matter and in powerful, but subtle ways. Many of the arguments Tony is making here and elsewhere are about power over narratives of identity. There are folks in positions with that power: granting agencies, record labels, contest judges, festival organizers, workshop teachers, and yes, scholars, folklorists, etc. What they think tradition is matters because it can put boundaries around how you want to play the banjo. This is the part that can be scary, and that history tells us matters.

I think of language use in Orwell's 1984. If you remove words, you're also removing thoughts. It's also why I personally find it helpful to think about tradition as a plural (there are lots of interwoven traditions) that are not static (ideas about them change over time). If you leave one out, people might not even think of them as a possibility.

Joel's comments about classic era banjo are a good example. If you leave that out, then banjo is for hillbillies. Tony's comments about sophistication in bluegrass in another thread also matter: leave that out, and you're just talking about rubes and Deliverance or Spongebob Squarepants. The Black banjo renaissance is a thing specifically because ideas about tradition left Black banjo players out of the history. I absolutely play my banjo differently because of what I learned from the folks leading the way in that movement. I wouldn't have a gourd banjo or a fretless, nor would I have ever built one.

Does everyone have to study history and these circulations of ideas? No, absolutely not. But they do define the experiences we have, how we come to the instrument, and what we do with it. This bit about resonators and open backs also defines, in many (but not all) ways, how we spend our money. That matters, too, especially to folks like banjo builders.

PS: This has been a really fascinating and fun conversation. Thanks to everyone for letting it continue, probably long after it should have died out. It's too hard to find a way to hang for too long with a bunch of banjo players who aren't folks you already know too well.

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Originally posted by cjwit

Does everyone have to study history and these circulations of ideas? No, absolutely not. But they do define the experiences we have, how we come to the instrument, and what we do with it.

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I wish we could all truthfully say that were the case. Current incomplete narratives, selectivity and unconscious neglect - the characteristic aspects that contribute to the largely unconscious process of dominant narrative - make this in practice at best a partial and unreliable knowledge base from which to form a full and balanced understanding.

This appropriation is glimpsed in the relatively recent commercial unilateral projection of the banjo as 'America's Instrument'. Not untrue; but incomplete, selective and unconsciously misleadingly neglectful.

EEB Your posts intrigue me a bit, but I don't understand what you are saying. I know meanings of every word in your posts, but I don't know what you actually mean to say.  For example, you say regarding the newly popular oldtime:

"It's certainly giving exposure and continuity to elements of a historical repertoire. But it's a simplified, hybrid structure as you would expect in a society so different from the complex societal contexts it is referencing."

This sounds to me like the abstract to lengthy essay that might be interesting.  Please give me a couple of concrete examples of what you are abstractly talking about.

quote:You are neglecting the massive influence along the same lines of printed music in standard notation which used to be very widely circulated as it was the only way to share music.   The amount of musical illiteracy we all suffer from---I am a recovering musical illiterate who could read music when he was 10 20 and barely at 30==can blind one to the very high level of musical literacy of anyone who wanted to play music basically before recorded music became widespread and available to plebeians.   Joel Hooks who graces our conversations has uploaded to Archives dot com--the heroic work of a saint of the banjo--hundreds of banjo tutors, banjo instructors, pieces of sheet music for the banjo created beginning in the 19th century. 

I once had a long conversation about this with Joel Shimburg who attested through his life long interest in education, that North of the Ohio people were taught to read music.  Across the South below,  all kinds of other methods like the shape notes were encouraged.  Pleasant Carter was able to make some kind of living traveling the Mountain areas of Va, NC, Kentucky holding summer singing schools in churches.

We should not project our own standard notation illiteracy upon people who lived before the great explosion of recored electrcal and then electronically reproduced music on people who lived before radio, records,  etc made  music easier to get at.

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

The meaning of “traditional” changed significantly and permanently with the advent of 1) records and 2) radio.

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Originally posted by EEB

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Originally posted by cjwit

Does everyone have to study history and these circulations of ideas? No, absolutely not. But they do define the experiences we have, how we come to the instrument, and what we do with it.

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I wish we could all truthfully say that were the case. Current incomplete narratives, selectivity and unconscious neglect - the characteristic aspects that contribute to the largely unconscious process of dominant narrative - make this in practice at best a partial and unreliable knowledge base from which to form a full and balanced understanding.

This appropriation is glimpsed in the relatively recent commercial unilateral projection of the banjo as 'America's Instrument'. Not untrue; but incomplete, selective and unconsciously misleadingly neglectful.

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EEB:

Your writing is the epitome of needless complexity and obfuscation!

However, one fact is most assuredly indisputable.....

The banjo is America's instrument!

And no amount of academic gobbledygook can ever take that away!

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Originally posted by Lew H

This sounds to me like the abstract to lengthy essay that might be interesting.  Please give me a couple of concrete examples of what you are abstractly talking about.

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This is a fascinating discussion and I have no wish to divert the focus so I'll try and reply as neutrally as I can. What jumped off the page when I read the OP was that the iniitial question regarding the association of banjo type to what is predominantly a modern genre, inadvertantly lands squarely on one awkward 'gap' between what is current convention - our neat modern interpretation of 'tradition' - and the historical  record that has no function toward 'neatness' or modern 'folk' agenda.

What 19th century sources reveal is the diversity of a world that pre-dates the neat classification of genre that is largely a product of commerce. To some extent also the early development of our genre-classified culture.

In the 19th century contexts that are the focus of our research, 'concrete' is commonly banjo in association with song, both popular and that composed for the banjo, pianoforte, cornet, harp, piccolo, flute etc. and in a huge diversity of social settings. None of which inform or feature in our modern interpretation of 'tradition'. Hence the use of terms 'simplified' and selective'.

Modern players of traditional repertoire are not 're-enactors'. Similarly historians and researchers, bound by a fundamental awareness of confirmation bias, are not agents of selectivity. 
 

Again, does it matter? Not the enjoyment of modern open-back back banjo players who love to play a wonderfullly rich legacy that is traditional fiddle repertoire. Not to historians who will continue to examine the detail, diversity and actuality of past activity.

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Originally posted by Mark Douglas

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Originally posted by EEB

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Originally posted by cjwit

Does everyone have to study history and these circulations of ideas? No, absolutely not. But they do define the experiences we have, how we come to the instrument, and what we do with it.

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I wish we could all truthfully say that were the case. Current incomplete narratives, selectivity and unconscious neglect - the characteristic aspects that contribute to the largely unconscious process of dominant narrative - make this in practice at best a partial and unreliable knowledge base from which to form a full and balanced understanding.

This appropriation is glimpsed in the relatively recent commercial unilateral projection of the banjo as 'America's Instrument'. Not untrue; but incomplete, selective and unconsciously misleadingly neglectful.

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EEB:

Your writing is the epitome of needless complexity and obfuscation!

However, one fact is most assuredly indisputable.....

The banjo is America's instrument!

And no amount of academic gobbledygook can ever take that away!

 

 

 

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I'm sorry you find my posts 'needlessly complex'. I don't post to offend or argue. One consequence of dominant narratives is that those of the dominant group generally do not like to acknowledge narratives that appear to challenge the dominant narrative. The nature of dominant narrative is that it is consumed as objective fact.

Maybe you'd respond better to circumstance presented in a way that you yourself are at liberty to consider?

We're probably all in broad agreement (courtesy of academic research) that what we refer to as the banjo originates within the African diaspora?  White contact, uptake and adaptation of this instrument occurred in a relatively narrow, early 19th century time frame in the Caribbean and eastern U.S. For sake of argument if we take the near simultaneous introduction of this banjo adaptation and its cadences to Britain by Rice, Sweeney et al in the 1830's and early 1840's we have, in cultural terms, a 'genie out of the bottle' moment.

Britain then was the seat of the worlds largest empire and economy. A dynamic, innovative society. Immediately - in c.1842 - the stage banjo was copied on request of British musicians and crucially, adapted by British makers. White usage and development of this instrument actually had simultaneous  and independent 'life' on both sides of the Atlantic from its earliest possession by people of European descent and Europeans. Popular influence? Yes. Cross fertilisation? Yes. But here's the elephant in the room...

...independent cultural assimilation and adaptation. Yes.

The banjo was hugely popular in Britain. Cross-fertilisation worked both ways. Cultural and compositional influence travelled to the U.S. both physically and intellectually.

Today knowledge of this duality is minimal and selective at best outside of research communities. We see the 'safeness' of Morley reflected back at us, but not the influence of early migrant British musicians arriving in the U.S. Nor the preference in Britain for the adaptation to 6 and 7- strings.

EEB:

Your argument and line of reasoning would fit quite well in an academic and scholarly environment. Unfortunately, your writing here is considered very pedantic and perhaps even philosophical. As such your ideas on this forum (for the most part) by and large fall upon deaf ears.

Obviously, you have an extraordinary command of the English language. Perhaps you also have some awareness of American cliches and some commonplace remarks?

Among those are….

“Know your audience!”

Perhaps you have some interesting points to convey….
Even so, most folks here will not see your post as meaningful. Rather, it will be viewed as an exercise in futility!

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Originally posted by Mark Douglas

As such your ideas on this forum (for the most part) by and large fall upon deaf ears

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a) they're not ideas.

b) I've acknowledged the dynamic of dominant narrative. I have literally no way to circumvent that except to be truthful and polite. 

I might suppose that EEB is using the perspectives of critical theory or of post modernism to respond to the the OP’s seemingly simple “why” question and the ensuing discussion. Or perhaps not. He mentions the popularity of banjos in Britain and the cross-fertilization and that is useful. Otherwise, the discussion has focused on the US historically and today. We could look at other nations to follow up on EEB’s ideas. I think, based on my Australian friend’s music and activities, that there is less separation between bluegrass and oldtime there but much influence from this country. I have to wonder, does this openback-resonator distinction vary much across nations. But I think the OP meant to talk about the US.

We have diverged from the original question: “Why is clawhammer (still) traditionally played on an open-back banjo?” We have got bogged down or diverted in questions about what is tradition, whether openback-clawing was the original tradition, what is a tradition, what is folk, etc. But notice the bracketed “still” in the question, indicating the OP's doubt that this is a long term practice. Maybe the word, “traditionally,” perhaps unintended in the way we took it, threw us off. Maybe it only meant "commonly." What if the question were: “In the US today, why is clawhammer played on openback banjos while bluegrass is played on Mastertone style resonator banjos?”

With this question, we might have covered the earlier resonator banjo clawers, and ask what made for some cultural stickiness linking claw and openback in recent times. I think we have recognized that the claw-openback link is a recently originated fashion—not a long term tradition in the US.

There are some interesting empirical questions once we make that recognition. Which people began making this distinction and when? Were people and groups, like Pete Seeger, the Almanac Singers, or the Kingston Trio, the NLCR, role models Which companies (banjo manufacturers, recording companies, publishers) picked up on this distinction and spread it more broadly into the culture? How did the transition from pseudo-folk groups to, let’s say, Round Peak, come about in banjo culture? Was this partly a reaction to Scrugg’s use of the Gibson Mastertone in the development of bluegrass?

Unfortunately, we have worked ourselves into a batch of conceptual matters more than dealing with the question by talking about evidence of the shift. I have found this hugely frustrating. To no (or little) avail, I offered some concepts from folklore studies and sociology that I thought were useful. Now I suggest we, and others who are curious about this divergence of fashionin bluegrass and oldtime, try to be empirical historians.

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Originally posted by janolov

Sometimes I wonder if the contemporary "Old-Time" music really is traditional?

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This is the reason these discussions are always so circular.

Is contemporary old-time music a musical tradition? Yes, unequivocally so. The only arguments to the contrary are rooted in cultural essentialism.

Okay. Is there such a thing as a un-traditional tradition? How about a traditional non-tradition? Linguistically speaking, no. The two terms, nominal and adjectival, refer back to the same thing. Yet we continue to see implied distinctions between the two.

For example, learning from and referring back to source recordings is a long-established part of the practice of contemporary old-time music, and therefore part of a musical tradition. If we are looking at it more objectively, then learning from source recordings can only be a traditional activity, and the people who do it can only be traditional musicians. To suggest otherwise is to privilege certain modes of musical learning/performing/interacting as "more" traditional than others, which of course ties back to folkloric notions of authenticity, purity, and so on. 

@banjoboyd No privilege. If you look back at what Tony and I have said, we emphasized differences in how traditions are transmitted. "Folk" refers to learning songs in face-to-face situations within communities, usually geographic communities. This is not better than music learned from recordings or print. It is just transmitted differently. Recorded music sometimes becomes passed person to person and a folk version exists for those people, even if the versions are identical. One person can be a part of a folk tradition and also sing commercial songs. So sure there is a new tradition, since music has been recorded of people learning songs from these sources.

If there is a privilege asserted by others, it is likely that the centuries old tunes and songs still being sung or played, such as those in Sir Francis Child's anthology of British and Scottish ballads, have appealed to people in many generations and thus are of much wider appeal. There may be an antiquarian bias in this privilege that was apparent in the early folklorists. Of course culture changes so what appeals also changes.

Lew, I am certainly not suggesting there is no practical distinction to be made between folk* and other modes of transmission. What I take issue with is the label "traditional" (whether we put it in quotation marks or not) being applied as a synonym for the former, which implies it is not relevant to the latter. The anthropological "oral-aural"** label is, in my opinion, more accurate and more useful for describing transmission. And perhaps (I am certainly not the first to suggest this) we need a separate category for "disembodied" oral transmission, where the primary medium is recorded audio/video from a third party.

Preoccupation with tradition and traditionality is all over old-time music. Always has been. The whole notion of source recordings attests to this. Source for what? For the qualitatively/aesthetically "best" version of a tune? No, it's for the authentic, definitive version of a tune, assumed to be geographically/historically bounded. What makes it so? The people on record are understood to be bearers — perhaps the final bearers — of a folk tradition, and their music the product of folk transmission. That is 100% privileging a particular mode of transmission. You also see it when players feel the need to preface a performance by explaining where they got a tune from, whether it was transmitted directly or via source recording. 

*1. We may be in agreement on what the term means, but that doesn't make it any less abused in the wider world; 2. The purported isolation and purity of "folk" communities — by which they function as reservoirs of the "real" culture of a people/place/nation — has been exaggerated for as long as folkloric studies have existed (I am thinking in a European context as well). 

**It has become fashionable to contest "oral" when applied to music, as music is about sound/listening, not speaking per se. This is largely pedantic; "oral" exists in opposition to "literate/literary," transmission by writing. 

banjoboyd I think I agree with you. I was just saying that Tony and I do not intend to say that folksong is necessarily better or worse. I still wish we could focus on how the processes in which the openback banjo became the standard for oldtime music, while the Mastertone became the standard for bluegrass. I think the latter is better known.

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Originally posted by Lew H

I still wish we could focus on how the processes in which the openback banjo became the standard for oldtime music, while the Mastertone became the standard for bluegrass. I think the latter is better known.

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If the processes of choice are what you are looking to examine. Then it is closer study of the social aspect of the activity that will yield that understanding.

Empirical study that you refer to, vital for obtaining data and context, will likely highlight time lines for specific preferences and behaviours and the extent to which those preferences and behaviours conform or diverge according to sertting. But the mechanism or 'process' is an aspect of social behaviour not musical pragmatism. The helpful and productive approach would likely be to view these preferences and behaviours through the lens of social identity and genre.

The 'talking around the subject', mentioned by several posters here, is a product of being ideally placed to access data and context but not having found the relevant theoretical basis to analyse that resource. I hope this is helpful.

EEB Not helpful at all. That's not really a response to what I said. Goodbye.

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Originally posted by Lew H

EEB Not helpful at all. That's not really a response to what I said. Goodbye.

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Hey Lew:

After you engaged with EEB....you then say "Goodbye." Not really a fair response! He did make a sincere effort to answer you. Simply because we don't fully understand a response doesn't mean we need to disengage!

C'mon Lew, we can do better than that. 
 

EEB has demonstrated a willingness to share his knowledge and politely respond to anyone. I think we need to respect that!

This may be the very first forum topic that needs to be locked by the moderators for medical reasons.

^^^^ I like people with a sense of humor!

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Originally posted by Don Borchelt

This may be the very first forum topic that needs to be locked by the moderators for medical reasons.

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When I see a post like this I am reminded why we should all be thankful that individuals like you do NOT make those decision on this forum  (and even more thankful that folks with that kind of arrogance don't make those decisions in society at large!).

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Originally posted by Mark Douglas

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Originally posted by Don Borchelt

This may be the very first forum topic that needs to be locked by the moderators for medical reasons.

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When I see a post like this I am reminded why we should all be thankful that individuals like you do NOT make those decision on this forum  (and even more thankful that folks with that kind of arrogance don't make those decisions in society at large!).

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You can have the last word, Mark.  I'll move on.