The Gray Area

[Tim Twiss]

There is a murky area of banjo history which gives rise to many opinions...and speculation. It has to do with transitions between fretless and fretted....stroke and fingerstyle. With some music music it just becomes obvious, and others...not so much. Buckley, in particular,  leaves us hanging. He describes both styles in his book, poses with a fretted, and gives very little indication as to what to do for the most part but includes pieces which adapt well to either style. I say the best way is experiment...try it all ways. Nothing wrong with stroking a fretted on this site, or picking a fretless, or fricking a petless... I mean striking the stroke...or whatever. Anyway, I have had the good fortune to borrow a fretted instrument. It is a Luscomb restored by a great local repairman Jeff Branch. It has given me an opportunity to try things I have previously only done on fretless...and in some cases it was obvious that a fretted instrument would have been the proper choice. I'm not sure where we divide at, but certainly all this music needs to be looked at from all possible angles...otherwise, how will we know??     

[Tim Twiss]

I'm sure it is staring me in the face, but where did he say that about the fretless with markers?

George Wunderlich said:

I love this discussion.  What is odd is that Converse wrote in '65 that fretless with markers was the way to go, so fretless seems to have really hung in there through the end of the war.

[Tim Twiss]

James Buckley-Never met a tune of his I didn't like. A master arranger who really understood the Banjo Characteristic. His compositions are tops!

[Tim Twiss]

In particular, the fiddle type tunes (which began to appear in Buckley 1860) are especially difficult on a fretless. I would bet that as style of play crept into the banjoist's repertoire, you began to see fretted instruments appearing.

[Tim Twiss]

By the way, in reading those old Minstrel playbills, I sure wonder what went on on some of the "banjo solo" portions of the show. I bet you saw some real virtuosity, given the skill levels of the featured banjo guys in those groups. 

[Carl Anderton]

FBC gives a good description of banjo solo performances by Picayune Butler, Hy Rumsey and Tom Briggs.  They  featured "trick" playing quite a bit, such as pretending to wind up a clock with the right hand while playing with the left; and lots of comedy and singing. Their instrumental repertiore didn't stray far from jigs and reels, according to Converse.  I think that's what audiences expected in that day and age.  Briggs was said to be the favorite because of his "pleasing voice and manner."  Converse was clearly the leader in the technique department (on a fretless), but reviewers sometimes chided him on his need for more humor and better singing.