Archive for the ‘Instruments’ Category
The five-string banjo presents a unique problem when using a capo. Since the fifth string doesn’t start until the fifth fret, capoing the four long strings at the most common frets (two, three, or four) leaves the fifth string unaltered. A number of solutions have been devised over the years. Simply re-tuning the fifth string is always an option, but tightening and stretching the string beyond its intended range repeatedly can cause it to break. Plus, the fifth string won’t note correctly when fretted. Fifth-string capos are available; some attach permanently to the side of the neck and some clip temporarily onto the string.
Earl Scruggs solved this problem by hammering a couple of his wife’s bobby pins into the fingerboard at the desired frets, leaving a small length of pin sticking out of the fingerboard and bent over so that the fifth string could be slipped under it. Pete Seeger illustrated the same idea in his pioneering book “How to Play the 5-String Banjo”, using a screw placed in the fingerboard. In more recent years, players have turned to less-obtrusive HO-gauge model railroad spikes to provide a simple and reliable way to capo the fifth string.
Banjos have a long history dating back to ancient Egypt, and they’ve evolved today into four basic genres. Folk or Traditional music features a clawhammer (also called a frailing) open-back five-string banjo. It’s usually played with the index finger and the thumb, and produces a melodious sound. It grew in popularity during the American Civil War as soldiers strummed and plucked it around the evening campfires. The standard strings of the day were made from purified cattle entrails, and the banjo head was made from calfskin, giving the instrument a mellow and relaxing tone. Though most clawhammer banjos use steel strings today, many nostalgic players prefer a modern synthetic string set that emulates the old sound. Notable clawhammer banjo artists include Grandpa Jones and Pete Seeger, and Dave Guard (The Kingston Trio).
Dixieland Jazz music came of age in southern Louisiana in the early 1900s and found its home in New Orleans. Four-string banjos became prominent in Dixieland bands due to their volume and percussive rhythm sound. They were strummed with a single flat-pick, and accomplished players such as Eddie Peabody and Perry Bechtel would also pick out the melody notes. The two standard four-string Dixieland banjos are the 19-fret tenor model and the 22-fret plectrum model. Their popularity exploded during the early jazz age; some call it the electric guitar of its day. By the late 1920s, Gibson, Vega and other instrument makers had added a resonator on the back that projected the banjo sound toward the audience, and a bell-bronze tone ring that gave the banjo more depth and clarity of sound.
Irish Folk music has been around for centuries; today the 4-string, 17-fret banjo is the standard for the genre. It’s tuned the same as a fiddle and mandolin, making it easier for musicians to play multiple instruments. Artists who helped popularize Irish Folk music include Gerry O’Connor and Seamus Egan. Listen closely to the style of music, and you’ll discover where bluegrass music got its roots.
The most popular banjo music today is bluegrass, which got its name from Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. Monroe hailed from the bluegrass state of Kentucky. Though he was billed as a country artist during most of his career, his unique style of music developed into a category all its own. Banjo legend Earl Scruggs joined Monroe’s band in 1945 and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry stage for the first time. His unique style of picking electrified audiences. He played a five-string resonator banjo with a thumbpick and two fingerpicks, often at breakneck speed, with a clarity and precision that constituted an entirely new and exciting sound. By 1948 Scruggs left Monroe to form his own band with singer Lester Flatt. Foggy Mountain Breakdown and The Ballad of Jed Clampett became two of their most popular songs. Scruggs, who turned 86 in January 2010, is still touring with his banjo.
There are lots of banjo-player jokes. One goes “You can drop a shoe on the banjo and make music,” due to the “open G” tuning that is standard among bluegrass banjoists. Unlike a guitar or mandolin, which must be fretted to make a proper chord, merely strumming the open strings of a banjo (or dropping a shoe on it) will produce a G major chord. This tuning of D-B-G-D-g (from first to fifth string) provides two G notes an octave apart, two D notes an octave apart, and one B note, thus filling in the three notes of a G major triad. While the vast majority of bluegrass banjo work is performed with this tuning, alternate tunings are sometimes employed. The “drop C” tuning of D-B-G-C-g was considered the standard tuning in the classical banjo era around 1900 and is sometimes used by bluegrass players to provide a low root note when playing in the C position. Bluegrass banjo standards traditionally performed in C tuning include Home Sweet Home and Farewell Blues as recorded by Earl Scruggs.
The next most-common tuning for bluegrass banjo is open D, either D-A-F#-D-F# or D-A-F#-D-a (the fifth string can either be tuned down one fret from G to provide the third note of the D major triad, or tuned up two frets to provide the fifth note). Reuben and John Henry are traditionally played in this tuning, and Ron Block has used it to great advantage in his work with Alison Krauss and Union Station. Rare alternate tunings include G minor (D-Bb-G-D-g) as used by Ben Eldridge in his original instrumental Appalachian Rain recorded with The Seldom Scene, and D minor (aDFAD) as featured by Earl Scruggs in Nashville Blues.
The world of old-time clawhammer banjo makes use of a much greater variety of tunings including “double C” (D-C-D-Cg) and open C (E-C-D-C-g), to name just two. . . but that’s a subject for another post!