Banjo 4-8-82

Comment by Joel Hooks on July 24, 2013 at 6:12am

Last time I checked, Egypt was on the African continent.

Comment by Rob Morrison on July 24, 2013 at 8:23am

Determining the origins of the modern American banjo is very much like determining the origins of modern humans.  The process does not evolve in a linear fashion.  The banjo has, rather, many branches and closely related instruments in its family tree, scattered all across the globe.  Some lines continue and some are extinct.  There may be one or more common ancestors to any particular surviving branch of the tree.  You'll find banjo-like instruments in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and almost anywhere else you look.  The idea that there is something so special about the American banjo is arbitrary at best.  The important thing is the idea of the banjo and not the artifact itself.  Once someone has the idea, one constructs the resulting instrument of whatever is at hand.  What is a modern banjo?  Is it a 5-string, a tenor, a plectrum, a piccolo, a banjo uke, a banjo guitar, a banjo mandolin, an electric banjo, a Whyte Laydie, or a Gibson Grenada?  Our experience with this type of instrument in North America over the past couple centuries, while of great cultural and artistic  influence to our society,  is just part of something thats been going on for a lot longer on a global scale in many diverse cultures.--Rob

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