New recording available-Buckley's Banjo Guide of 1868.

[Tim Twiss]

Ready to ship. Only $15.00 and this includes shipping.

Use Paypal at http://www.timtwiss.com/.

This 2 CD set contains 94 tunes....pure, simple, beautiful solo Minstrel Banjo.

You can also download the original book if you do not already have it.

 

[Mark Weems]

Tim Twiss said:

What you got against these books Mark? Don't you like the music in them? NOBODY says it is the only thing. But it is a good thing. It must have existed.....yes, I think it did. I like that music. I did not grow up in the south. I'm grateful to have something like that. I think they were snapshots of something that existed at the time. Of course, not the only game in town, but good stuff.

"deliberate, commercially designed productions for  beginners, packaged in a handful of cities in the North"

I think that is a narrow and snobby view of the music. Too much effort into detail to be a brush off commercial product. I detect detail and care in the arrangements. Not everybody's cup of tea, but why knock it?

[Tim Twiss]

Mark Weems said....

To my mind, however, to study them independently of the greater living folk tradition of old time banjo (Clawhammer, Round Peak, etc.) is where the real snobbery lies.

Mark...why you picking such an attitude with this stuff?  We're all on the same team. I respect highly what you do. All I feel from you is an attitude with little support for my research and playing. I'm just sharing what I do....and it is different from you. It IS studied at the exclusion of looking at other styles. I really don't care for most of the other stuff. Never listened to it....not interested. My background is vastly different and steeped in modern popular traditions and Classical music. But, that is who I am. If you  don't care for it, that's fine. I am taking a pure look at something....understanding it the best I can.

[Strumelia]

Dan'l said:

Mark - I feel its a bit of an overstatement to claim there was much of a BANJO folk tradition existing before the first tutors were available.  What was there was not exactly a white tradition in any event.

I didn't realize we were only considering 'white banjo traditions' for the discussion.  (!)

  Before Joe Sweeney and very few others there's indications that the black slaves had a banjo tradition, but not scores of traditions, and certainly not yet the white traditions that developed in the hills. Those many other traditions of which you speak apparently developed after the Civil War as the country amalgated and the banjo itself was disseminated into the boonies.

"Apparently" ?   According to who?   Is it merely 'apparent' they did not exist because such folk styles had no instructional booklets commercially published and distributed?  Or, perhaps various traditions of banjo playing styles which Mark refers to were developing well before the Civil War, in populated and agricultural regions of the South and the Caribbean... regions that were not necessarily remote or inaccessible but rather were well traveled by both whites and blacks variously involved in trade, settlement building, slavery, shipping, agriculture...and maybe such banjo traditions also made their way later on (along with banjos) 'into the boonies' as you say, after the CW.

[Mark Weems]

Tim, don't be so sensitive. Although we seem to have some different ideas about this stuff, I agree that we are on the same research team. You don't need to feel that I don't support your research - I think your work represents a monumental contribution to the study of Minstrel Banjo Style, and one that we have all benefited from. 

[Strumelia]

Well stated Paul.   :)

[Tim Twiss]

Ahhh....happy sigh. Let's bring this one in for a landing now.

Anyway, back to the first point.....I hope those of you that get my recording of the entire Buckley 1868 enjoy it.

[Bell Banjos]

I'M sure enjoying it, Tim. Still. This stuff gets under your skin. I could never play most of it. I don't venture beyond the ninth fret. I've been having visions of minstrels and the old days all day.

[Tim Twiss]

Thanks Terry. I'm sure it's nice to hear your baby singin' real purty.

[Strumelia]

I think the tutor instructional books are a great guide in terms of indicating how the tunes went- the notes, the fingering techniques - what a treasure to have!  And certainly the tunes from the tutors can be played exactly as notated and thoroughly enjoyed on their own just as is (that's the stage of the journey where I am right now).  But the 'complete' picture of how music must really have sounded then would more likely be approximated after we have absorbed the bare bones structure of the tunes and songs and then closed our books and brought the music to life- playing it in our kitchen with family, alone on a neighborhood stoop, by the hearth or campfire, with our friends at potlucks or dances, accompanied by whistles or tambos or bones, or guitars, drums and fiddles...joyful and alive, both intimate and exhuberant. 

The tutors are not so much the end destination as they are a wonderful signpost, gently pointing us in a direction so we ourselves can add the living stuff of laughter, tears, shows, dances, worship, toil, romance, thrills... the music of rough young America both including and beyond the scope of the printed banjo tutor publications surely must have been a bright rich ragtag whirl of textures, various traditions and cultures, languages, rhythms... That's how the music likely 'really' sounded then...and now.   :)

[Tim Twiss]

Amen sister!!!

[OK-4]

Tim, did you do all of these stroke style, or are you finger-picking some also?

[Tim Twiss]

Both.