Minstrel Banjo

For enthusiasts of early banjo

This is by way of picking up a couple of loose threads (before I forget them) that have been hanging out of my brain since Elaine Masciale's presentation at the AEBG-V last Saturday.

She illustrated several earlyish representations of boatmen, in some of which they were dancing, playing instruments (usually fiddle) or blowing a long horn.  In the Q&A after the paper I mentioned a poem I used to know, about The Boatman's Horn; I found an online citation of it that's so good it's bad.  That is, the version I had seen (from a pre-1850 print source) stopped much sooner, specifically after the lines "... but knows not why / The tear of rapture fills his eye."  This version goes on, mercilessly, to the end:

http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=563

I believe that site has a backward link to a page about boatmen's horns that makes specific reference to a sort of kazoo on overdrive that (they say) was used on the Lewis and Clark expedition.  That's as may be; but it isn't the typical horn of the Ohio Valley in particular and of western keelboatmen more generally.  The engraving that illustrates this poem (and I believe was also one of Elaine's slides) shows the more traditional, longer horn, having a bell at one end and a trumpet-style embouchure mouthpiece at the other end.  I'm reasonably sure that is the kind that could bring tear to the eye of an elderly general recalling it (in about 1821) from his own youthful adventures on the upper Ohio, in the 1760s or shortly thereafter.

Another comment during the Q&A came from George Wunderlich, who cited the batteau (or keelboat) reenactors currently doing their thing (especially) on the Potomac and the James.  I assume that both he and I have been in touch with some of those guys, perhaps in both cases contacted initially through Melinda Day, the NPS interpreter at Harper's Ferry who has coordinated early banjo events there.  The one I've corresponded with is Dan Guzy, and he has a significant web presence, found here:

http://www.whilbr.org/PotomacNavigation/index.aspx

During my misspent youth I have at times been involved with research on this topic, and if anybody is interested, I could go into more depth about how these boats and horns got to be traditional in America via the 17th century colony of Swedes and Finns in the Delaware Valley, and places settled from there.  But that's not much to do with the early banjo, so for the moment, I won't.

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Not a kazoo mouthpiece, but I've seen some old Ontario farm "dinner horns" and Lake Erie fishermen's fog horns that had brass single reeds — like a really nasty New Years Eve party horn. I've actually got a recording of I made of various early horns somewhere. I'll see if I can find it and figure out how to post it.

Here's the Swedish version of the horn, not that the player is much good, but you can get the idea.  He plays the tune on the fast side, compared with ethnographic recordings I've heard.  The boatmen in America almost certainly used metal ones, at least by the time we have any decent pictures or descriptions.  This northern folk instrument is a bit more mellow, and a bit harder to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG7cT2lW5W8

A Russian variant called a Vladimir horn (rozhok) has fingering holes, similar to those on a recorder, and can play the normal diatonic scale intervals for about an octave and a half.  The Russian kind wasn't used on the Ohio, etc. -- I just mention it because I have a couple of them.

That foghorn thing with a metal reed is a noisemaker, not an instrument.

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