Early Banjo Tail Pieces

[Dan Gibson]

If you take a bunch of modern clawhammer and bluegrasss players, lock them in a room together  and toss in a discussion of the merits of different types of tail pieces, the result often borders on carnage as everyone defends their own preferences.

How would a similar discussion of early banjo tail pieces come out?  Are there any significant differences in sound or volume exhibited by the numerous styles of tailpieces -- large/small, thick/thin, etc. -- I have seen in photographs of early banjos (authentic and reproduction), or are the differences mostly aesthetic?

 

Dan Gibson, Storyteller/Banjoplayer

Dallas, TX; Burlington, NC

www.dangibson.net

[Paul Certo]

Tone rings seem to get the same kind of overkill discussions going as tailpieces. The reality is a lot of musicians are hung up on getting the exact sound of their idols. What they don't seem to grasp is they will never have their idols HANDS. They rush off to buy whatever banjo  X is playing, and start changing parts when the same instrument sounds different in their own hands. Have someone else play your favorite instrument, and see how different it sounds in their hands. It's very revealing. What they should do is find the banjo that really sounds the best in their own playing style, buy it,and quit looking for the Holy Grail. Players of other instruments often sell and replace instruments trying to achieve the same thing, but banjo players are in a unique position-they can change parts guitarists, etc can't change. This triggers the discussions. Seems more prevalent among bluegrass banjo players than other styles. Discussions of "What's the best.... for playing .... are counter productive. You have to feed the inner self with your instrument, not some other persons opinion.

Paul

[Dan Gibson]

Thanks for the reply, Paul.  I agree with you about the Holy Grail syndrome.  I've been caught up in it from time-to-time and wind up giving myself a dope-slap for expending so much energy on the resulting real or imagined minute changes.  So, I'm not planning wholesale swapping exercises. 

 

My question was about 90 percent tongue-in-cheek, although it does contain a certain amount of curiosity about early banjo tail pieces piqued by the seemingly endless variety I've seen in photographs.  My opinion is that tail piece designs were aesthetic in nature and simply provided a convenient and tangle-proof place to tie off the strings.  Banjos could probably get along very well without one,  with the result that many players in some generes would have more to time to play and one less thing to obsess over.

[Moschella Banjos]

the thing that always needs to be remembered is that by all modern standards, the vast majority of early banjos were kind of terrible instruments. they were often made out of poor wood and built by jobber craftsman who were often not luthiers, but jacks of all trades. much of what we appreciate about many, though not all of these instruments today are their aesthetic and historical values.

but even modern minstrel banjos have something of an almost ephemeral feel to them--they are so slight of presence that i think the various properties of the main sound generating portions of the instruments, e.g. string type and gauge, bridge wood, and head thickness/quality/tighness, are far and away the main factors in determining sound. in an instrument as refined and boat-anchor solid as a typical boston banjo, which would have been exquisitely crafted and remains harmonic in overall form, it makes sense that one might easily be able to discern the differences in tone produced by a brass ring scalloped just so, or a neck wood of particular density when comparing one instrument to another. but in most minstrel banjos there is little point in worrying about the acoustic properties of a tailpiece, when its functional value is much greater than anything else, and when each instrument is nearly unique.

 

as a side note, it is also important to remember that a great many tailpieces on extant early banjos are not, in fact,original at all. though i'm sure some are still more or less contemporary, many are modern reproductions. this, i know, is true in bollmans collections, and im sure the same goes for other banjos as well.

Dan Gibson said:

Thanks for the reply, Paul.  I agree with you about the Holy Grail syndrome.  I've been caught up in it from time-to-time and wind up giving myself a dope-slap for expending so much energy on the resulting real or imagined minute changes.  So, I'm not planning wholesale swapping exercises. 

 

My question was about 90 percent tongue-in-cheek, although it does contain a certain amount of curiosity about early banjo tail pieces piqued by the seemingly endless variety I've seen in photographs.  My opinion is that tail piece designs were aesthetic in nature and simply provided a convenient and tangle-proof place to tie off the strings.  Banjos could probably get along very well without one,  with the result that many players in some generes would have more to time to play and one less thing to obsess over.