Minstrel Banjo

For enthusiasts of early banjo

I guess this is aimed mainly at Greg and George, but I'd be delighted if others joined in.

 

The wonderful Banjo Sightings Database http://www.banjodatabase.org/ has - almost - all the info I could wish for, but I feel we could do with an academic appreciation of the placement of flush frets, as I get the feeling there may be a few surprises there.

 

One of the instruments I have played and recorded in the past is the mid-17th century 'diatonic' cittern, which was characterised by having partial fretting. Some of the frets were 'missing', some only covered two or three strings, some extended over the width of the fretboard. Clearly there were favoured keys, like the 'natural' keys of the banjo, and folks' appreciation of micro intervals was developed enough to feel the need to remove those notes which would have offended their ears.

 

Here is an acdemic essay by a leading fretted-instrument academic, which should outline the importance fret placement is, and by extension how it should or might be of interest to banjo players and, especially, makers:

 

citternfretpatterns[1].pdf

 

We are well aware of the split fret found on some banjos when raised frets were introduced - which gives some indication of the subtleties involved in fret placement. I have a hunch that an analysis of flush-fret positions would yield interesting results. I'm sure there was more sublety involved than the 'Rule of the 18'.

 

BTW, Greg, I am interested in the Stichter banjo, for which you have supplied the following info:

 

The banjo was built circa November 26th 1848. The head was installed August 13th, 1852.

 

Very accurate dates! Please expound :-)

 

And, should you be interested, here is an mp3 file of a piece called The Isle of Rea from my CD, 'The Flowers Of The Forest', played on a reconstruction of a diatonic cittern from circa 1650. The manuscript is from my home town of Dundee. rea.mp3

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Fascinating, Jim, and just the sort of response I was hoping for. Unfortunately I can't see some of the images, just the last. Could you try uploading them again?

I'd like to know how many surviving instruments or diagrams of instruments show partial fretting in line (so to speak) with Dobson's 'visual aids'. Was that the sole reason for having them? I notice his Star book contains 'Simplified Tunes'. Surely these simple tunes are less harmonically adventurous than advanced tunes (e.g. Converse) and could therefore benefit by being played in some form of meantone tuning, as with the early cittern repertoire? But that appears not to be the case.

The raised or flush frets issue highlights one performance practice issue: with raised frets, we know what precise intervals were being used, whereas with flush frets, the player had the option of playing before, on or after the fretline in any given circumstance, and we cannot be certain what they were doing. Fiddle players and singers adjust intervals microtonally as they see fit, so why not banjo players. But why was there a need to show a partial second fret if that fret was flush?

The more we question, the more questions arise...
Rob -- The images show up fine on my Mac here at home. I wonder what the issue might be... Anyway, I'll try to export the images as a different kind of file and post again.

Meanwhile:

I agree that there is a much more varied intonational practice than is evidenced by the tutors. Being pedagogical in nature, I believe the tutors just went for an easy way to get folks started. I also believe that they frequently took the easy (lazy) way out. The only book that shows any real attempt at teaching intonation is Converse's Instructor. Even HIS other books don't treat it in very much detail at all.

Of course, what an individual teacher (including the authors) would have taught may be a very different issue. Some things are easier to convey in person.

In Dobson's Star book, "simplified tunes" refers, I believe, mostly to his use of a type of tablature. Many of the tunes in Briggs seem more suited to a treatment of meantone or, better still, just tunings.

As for meantone tuning -- I have seen no evidence at all for that. Meantone, too, is a compromise tuning -- fifths are compromised in favor of pure thirds. In a fretless situation, that wouldn't be necessary. Most of the books teach and describe equal temperament. Converse seems to describe a form of just intonation similar to syntonic diatonic in which the thirds and the fifths are pure.

Basically, in the books with no mention of frets, there is also no mention of anything resembling equal temperament or temperament of any kind for that matter. All of the books that mention frets seem to be dealing primarily with equal (rule of 18 and all that).

Without frets there is no need for temperament -- but it's difficult to teach good intonation from a book.

With frets -- temperament becomes necessary and the main one for fretted instruments at that time (as now) was equal.

I see the partial fret as a vestigal organ of an intonational practice that was dying as frets were becoming standard.

Regarding the practices of professional players:

Certainly their intonation would have been influenced by that of the fiddle -- they played with fiddlers, some of them were fiddlers themselves...
Another attempt at the first two images.

Rob -- if you still can't see them, give me your email and I'll send them as pdfs.

The Buckley fingerboard:


The Dobson fret layout:

For those familiar with the Rice book's fingerboard diagram, you'll notice that Buckley seems to have borrowed and modified it for his book.

Rice doesn't have the partial fret.
I've sent Jim my email address, as I still can't see the images. I'm assuming it's the result of my new Windows 7 operating system, but it would be good to know if anyone else is having problems seeing Jim's images?

Rob
OK -- this is strange.

I can't see my own images on the infernal non-macs we have at the conservatory but I can see them fine at home. And why can both Rob and I see the 3rd image but not the first two?

Can anyone offer advice in how to post them so all can see?
I have no trouble with the first set of images from here at work (IE8). I cannot view the second set!

Very interesting information, Jim. Thanks for all that!
Cannot offer advice, but early this morning I saw image 1 and 3 I am using a lap top running Windows Vista, I cannot honestly say if image 2 was there. Think it could have something to do with the site, It's very slow to come up sometims and on occasion I've had more success going through Google. Only image 3 is there now by the way.
Jim Dalton said:
OK -- this is strange.

I can't see my own images on the infernal non-macs we have at the conservatory but I can see them fine at home. And why can both Rob and I see the 3rd image but not the first two?

Can anyone offer advice in how to post them so all can see?
strange...I'm down to image #3 also. Creeping pix sickness!
But Greg's pictures are fine -- I can still see only #3 here at work.

Everything was cool on my Mac at home...

My experience with these "other machines" at work has never been a happy one -- I don't know if it is the machines or software themselves or if it is the conservatory network or our IT department but things never seem to be as they should. If I didn't know others were having the same issues, I would have simply suspected it was a problem here.
Is Ning pulling them ? Can they ? Is the site running out of storage space ? Will they be on your Apple Mac when you get home ? Mystery. ! Good Night you Guys, gotta go and do some practice.

Jim Dalton said:
But Greg's pictures are fine -- I can still see only #3 here at work.

Everything was cool on my Mac at home...

My experience with these "other machines" at work has never been a happy one -- I don't know if it is the machines or software themselves or if it is the conservatory network or our IT department but things never seem to be as they should. If I didn't know others were having the same issues, I would have simply suspected it was a problem here.
Looks like it was a TIF file?

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