KENT GUSTAVSON :: THE BANJO
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A Historical and Practical Introduction to the Banjo!
Just read below about the history of the banjo, then find your own way to play the thing -- hammer, pick, or fingers -- enjoy it!
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The banjo has its nearest relative in the percussion instruments that the slaves brought with them from Africa on the slave ships, called 'banjar'. These percussion instruments had animal skins pulled tight over wooden or gourd frames. Their instrument had as its ancestor the Arabic 'tar', which is a distant ancestor of the lute, which traveled to Europe and eventually morphed into the 'guitar'.
The first truly 'melodic' sounding banjos were probably instruments to be hammered with the fingers for dances... By the time of the earliest accounts, however, the banjo was already used alongside fiddle or bones, and had 4 or 5 strings. Slave musicians often played for their masters, and were 'worth' more money because of their musical talent. Minstrel shows began to use the banjo as the blackface minstrel's parody instrument of choice, and eventually it caught on in the upper classes of musicians, becoming a parlor instrument for fine ladies in the late 1800s. The banjo also was dispersed into Europe during this time (with traveling minstrel shows?), and became a favorite among the 'gypsies' -- Django Reinhardt, for one, was first an expert banjoist before turning to guitar.
Around the turn of the century, the banjo went two directions... one direction was down to New Orleans, and the other, into the Appalachian hills. The reason that the banjo went otherwise into seclusion is probably that the African-Americans wanted to lose their image of happy slave banjoist, and picked up instead other instruments more representative of freedom. In the Appalachian hills, the 'songcatchers' from Ireland and Scotland discovered this instrument and brought it back to Ireland. In New Orleans, the instrument was strummed and played on the first jazz records, and probably on every street corner... the banjo was necessary in every band as a rhythm instrument, because there was no amplification, and the banjo was pretty loud. In the mountains of Appalachia, folks built these instruments on their own -- white mountain folk met the black folks in the mines, or other places, and built their own versions of the fretless wooden banjos with animal skin heads on them.
The story continues, and the banjo continues to develop. Players such as Bela Fleck play the instrument as if it is a piano or an electric guitar, playing bebop jazz and rock and roll on it. Others dig back into their roots, and learn the clawhammer style, or frailing, the style played by many Appalachian women and men when they sang ballads, and further back, played by the slaves as they played dances hundreds of years ago...
This service is meant to be played in the way you are able to play... Everyone loves to see and hear a banjo, because, despite the Brother Where Art Thou craze, very few folks play the banjo -- everyone plays the guitar. If you want to, sit down with a learner's manual about how to play bluegrass or how to play clawhammer... but don't be worried about it -- learn to play a few chords, and then dive in! Play with whoever will have you -- this service is a great opportunity to have fun playing this kind of music in a worship setting with others who are of different skill levels.
Most importantly, banjo is not a sad instrument. Don't pick it up if you want to play laments! And that is the beauty of it, and of the mountain music it now represents... Many of the songs in this genre have very sad themes, and sad words, and are about death... But the music is uplifting... We all know "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"... Most folks don't pay attention to the extremely dark words because the music is so happy and up -- the words are about your mother dying and the undertaker taking her away...
The point is, enjoy this instrument -- it has been evolving for hundreds of years, and it will evolve even further in your hands!
For more information on the banjo, google it!
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