Archive for the ‘Choosing A Banjo’ Category
Gibson Musical Instruments – A Very Short History
No brand name looms larger in the bluegrass banjo world than Gibson. The company’s story goes back to the late 1800s when a young man named Orville Gibson, son of an English immigrant, moved from his native New York to the rapidly-growing industrial town of Kalamazoo, Michigan (“Yes”, said the Kalamazoo Chamber of Commerce in a 1980s publicity campaign, “There Really Is a Kalamazoo”). Although Orville worked a variety of odd jobs to support himself, he was a musician and luthier with radical ideas about instrument construction. The mandolin was the most popular fretted instrument of the day, and Orville’s vision was to apply the same principles of carving and top graduation to the mandolin that Stradivarius and his contemporaries had employed in building their legendary violins.
Orville’s creations were a dramatic departure from the round-back “tater bug” mandolin, with its flat top and its back formed out of narrow strips of bent wood. A group of Kalamazoo investors saw money to be made in marketing Orville’s designs to the mandolin-buying public and the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company was formed in 1902. Always an enigmatic figure, Orville appears to have had limited involvement with the Gibson company after its first few years. The Gibson company refined and built on Orville’s ideas and responded to the increasing popularity of the tenor banjo by producing its first banjo in 1918—the same year that Orville died back home in New York.
After some initial stumbling in search of the right design, by the late 1920s Gibson was a dominant force in the 4-string tenor banjo market. The company also made a precious few “old-timey” 5-string banjos, primarily for the rural Southern market; it was one of these banjos that Earl Scruggs would use in the years immediately following World War II to develop a new style of picking for bluegrass music. Despite changes in ownership and a relocation from Kalamazoo to Nashville, Tennessee, Gibson banjo production has continued to the current day. Since the late 1980s, the company’s banjo output has consisted largely of reissues of its classic models of the 1920s and 1930s.
Gibson’s now-legendary Mastertone banjo line was introduced in 1925 and quickly became an industry standard, but by the late 1930s the banjo had fallen in popularity. Anxious to kick-start flagging sales, Gibson announced a new product that fixed an old problem. The new “top-tension” Mastertone design, introduced in 1937, was intended to make life easier for banjoists contending with the fickle calfskin heads. Calfskin heads were the standard before World War II (Remo Belli would later develop mylar heads) and calfskin needed frequent attention. Changes in the climate, especially in levels of humidity, dramatically changed the tension on a calfskin head and changed the banjo sound. Retensioning the calfskin head was common, and by moving the tension hook adjustment to the front (or top) without removing the resonator, Gibson made the tensioning process much easier.
While they were at it, Gibson introduced other changes such as carved solid-wood resonators, radiused fingerboards, and bold Art Deco cosmetics. Most important to modern players, flathead tone rings were also standard on the top-tension models. The three new top-tension Mastertone styles 7, 12, and 18 were, according to company literature, the “alarm clock” that was going to “wake up new possibilities in banjo playing”. The banjo’s time as America’s favorite fretted instrument had passed, however, and the top-tension line faded away when Gibson suspended banjo production during World War II.
The top-tension banjo had no real champions among the first generation of bluegrass banjo players (although Don Reno did occasionally use a style 18), but as the decades passed, Gibson’s prediction of top-tension-fueled banjo innovation seemed accurate, though delayed. A young Bill Keith used a converted TB-12 for his groundbreaking performances and recordings in the new melodic style when he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the 1960s. A Style 18 has been in Bela Fleck’s arsenal since the 1980s, and a Style 7 is the favored banjo of Noam Pikelny of Punch Brothers fame. Although Gibson top-tensions are once again out of production following a revival in the 1990s and early 2000s, the banner has been taken up by other companies including Ome, one of whose top-tension models has found favor with virtuoso Matt Menefee of Cadillac Sky.
Why are bluegrass banjos so heavy? That’s what everyone wants to know when they pick one up. The reason is that higher-end bluegrass banjos are equipped with a metal tone ring-a casting of a brass alloy weighing around three pounds. It rests between the wooden rim and the drum head. A quality tone ring can greatly increase the volume and power of a banjo.
Tone rings are available in two major configurations-an arch-top tone ring provides a somewhat smaller vibrating surface on the head (usually around 9 inches measured side-to-side) for a quicker, brighter sound. A flathead tone ring leaves the entire head (usually 11 inches) free to vibrate, generating more depth and richness of sound. Flathead tone rings are associated with the classic sound of such bluegrass greats as Sonny Osborne, J.D. Crowe, and Earl Scruggs; legendary players who have relied on the brighter sound of an arch-top tone ring include Ralph Stanley, Allen Shelton, Doug Dillard and Steve Martin.
We banjo players have a luxury unknown to players of other stringed instruments-the sounding board of our instrument is a drum head that can be replaced easily and inexpensively. That enables us to experiment with different sounds. Once upon a time, all banjo heads were made of animal hide (usually calfskin). The warm tone of a real calfskin head is hard to beat, but their susceptibility to changes in humidity makes them very high-maintenance.
Plastic or mylar heads have been the standard since their introduction in the early 1960s. They are available with a white frosted coating which gives a traditional appearance and sound for bluegrass banjo, or in a clear, uncoated version for extra brightness and response. Synthetic calfskin heads more closely mimic the look and sound of real animal hide and are especially popular with open-back (clawhammer) banjo players. Recent years have seen more options in banjo heads with eye-catching colors now available, and even heavy mesh heads for quiet practice.
The choice of wood type for your banjo may seem to be solely a cosmetic consideration, but it can have a big impact on the sound of your instrument as well. While it may seem counterintuitive, wood choice can have the biggest effect on tone through the neck. While bluegrass banjo rims are almost always made of maple and the veneers on the resonator have little impact on tone, the neck of your banjo is usually a solid chunk of mahogany, walnut, or maple and represents a significant proportion of the banjo’s vibrating mass.
Conventional wisdom is that mahogany, being a less-dense wood, is the warmest of the three woods and tends to accentuate the bass response of a banjo. Maple, a very dense hardwood, is considered to be at the opposite end of the scale with more “bite” and “edge” and enhanced treble response. Walnut is generally thought to fall somewhere in between mahogany and maple tonally. Keep in mind, however, that variations in setup and in individual instruments can make for a brighter mahogany banjo or a deeper-sounding maple one.