Transition from the gourd - Minstrel Banjo2024-03-28T09:21:36Zhttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?commentId=2477478%3AComment%3A98502&feed=yes&xn_auth=noJohn Masciale said:
Howe li…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-11-15:2477478:Comment:1025382013-11-15T02:57:47.293ZBob DeVellishttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/BobDeVellis
<p><br></br> <br></br> <cite>John Masciale said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?id=2477478%3ATopic%3A98563&page=4#2477478Comment98691"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Howe liked writing collections of music, primarily for instrumentalists. He lumped together instrumental tunes with vocal ones. I like going to sheet music collections like Levy to look up the original piano scores for a number of these tunes. Our book <em>I…</em></p>
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<p><br/> <br/> <cite>John Masciale said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?id=2477478%3ATopic%3A98563&page=4#2477478Comment98691"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Howe liked writing collections of music, primarily for instrumentalists. He lumped together instrumental tunes with vocal ones. I like going to sheet music collections like Levy to look up the original piano scores for a number of these tunes. Our book <em>I Like That Good Old Song</em> came from all original piano sheet music of the era. Howe's work is invaluable in looking at popular melodies of the time. It is amazing how many of the tunes in the instructors have lyrics, but not everything comes from vocal sources. I have to think that in many cases lyrics were added to popular melodies such as Come, Haste to the Wedding. Other tunes are clearly instrumental, including many of the hornpipes, polkas, waltzes, etc. Many of these are intended for dance. So I see dance music (tunes), and singing music (songs). Then of course there are pieces from classical sources, and Opera, again both instrumental and vocal.</p>
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<div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>I hope folks don't mind a newbie jumping into the conversation and bringing a dormant thread back to life. I just wanted to make some observations regarding Elias Howe. Howe, as a young man, played violin and discovered that he could go to other violinists, cop their tunes (many of which were of Irish and Scottish origin), and sell them. He also acquired tunes from other tune books. Over time he amassed a huge collection of American and British Isles tunes, which he sold on street corners and door-to-door. He also re-packaged those tunes in a variety of forms so that he could expand his market to players of other instruments. Eventually his collection grew so large and profitable that he was able to sell it, in 1850, to the Oliver Ditson Company. A part of that transfer was a non-competition clause that required Howe to desist from publishing any music for a period of ten years.</p>
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<p>In a sense, Howe was later a competitor of Boucher. Both supplied the U. S. Army with drums. Abraham Lincoln offered Howe the position of Director of Bands for the U. S. Army but by 1860, he was no longer constrained by his agreement with Ditson from publishing. Leaving music publishing would have been a costly move. He also manufactured instruments, including drums, and the U. S. Army was a major customer. He was the principal supplier to the Massachusetts regiments. </p>
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<p>Howe was a close friend (and his wife was a cousin) of Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson (who may, at one point, have leaked war plans to a southern lady with whom he became infatuated, and who later served as Grant's Vice President). Wilson chaired the Committee on Military Affairs, and, as a staunch Republican, was in a position to influence Lincoln's appointments. This may explain why Howe was offered the Army Band Director position, which he declined. </p>
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<p>As a further aside, a descendant of the Howe family shared an anecdote with me involving this Elias Howe and the Elias Howe who is better known as the inventor of the sewing machine. Both lived in the same town at one point. Henry Wilson was in the habit of sending his friend copies of the Congressional Record. Often, however, they were inadvertently delivered to the other Elias Howe. The two men apparently didn't get along and the Howe who erroneously received his namesake's copies of the Congressional Record would often refuse to return them to their rightful owner, further straining an already chilly relationship according to family stories passed down through the years.</p>
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<div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Sorry for veering off topic but the mention of Howe and some of his links to the people and events of the period we're focusing on struck me as possibly of interest to some folks here.</p>
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</div> John, a quick update. I just…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-09-22:2477478:Comment:999892013-09-22T12:29:17.491ZMark Weemshttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/MarkKellyWeems
<p>John, a quick update. I just spent all day yesterday at Hoppin' John's Festival here in NC playing with Rob Morrison, Dave Kirchner, James Pentecost, Dan Gibson and Bryant Henderson. It was rainy the whole day and everyone else was having trouble with their skin heads not playing - a good test for my gourd - which was almost unaffected and I was able to play it just like it was a plastic head. I think it's because Pete Ross leaves more of the gourd and therefore has less surface area to be…</p>
<p>John, a quick update. I just spent all day yesterday at Hoppin' John's Festival here in NC playing with Rob Morrison, Dave Kirchner, James Pentecost, Dan Gibson and Bryant Henderson. It was rainy the whole day and everyone else was having trouble with their skin heads not playing - a good test for my gourd - which was almost unaffected and I was able to play it just like it was a plastic head. I think it's because Pete Ross leaves more of the gourd and therefore has less surface area to be effected by the humidity. <br/> <br/> <cite>John Masciale said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?xg_source=activity&id=2477478%3ATopic%3A98563&page=2#2477478Comment98677"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Mark, have you played on a 40 degree night with lots of humidity? On such a night I've needed to heat up the head on both my hoop banjos and gourd banjos.</p>
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</blockquote> People who study it cannot de…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-29:2477478:Comment:989662013-08-29T00:19:05.674ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p>People who study it cannot defintely mention more than one or two song sung by anyone in the United States (other than direct African immigrants) that originated in AFrica. There are a few anecdotal references to things people find familiar in West Africa and Dena Epstein and Lomax and others have reported songs in West African language still sung in the early 20th century in the Georgia and Carolina costal area, but it isnt the question of songs that anyone claims originates in Africa,…</p>
<p>People who study it cannot defintely mention more than one or two song sung by anyone in the United States (other than direct African immigrants) that originated in AFrica. There are a few anecdotal references to things people find familiar in West Africa and Dena Epstein and Lomax and others have reported songs in West African language still sung in the early 20th century in the Georgia and Carolina costal area, but it isnt the question of songs that anyone claims originates in Africa, but of a musical approach that characterizes West African music, largely although there must also be large central African influence, but of a set of rhythmic and harmonic and structural approaches to music that scholars of musicology believe reflect African American patterns in contrast to European American, African or European or for that matter Asian patterns.</p>
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<p>Musicologists believe many many tunes whatever their origin tunes assoiated with earky minstrelsy certainly either embody or attempt to embody this musical approach,</p>
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<p>It isnt a question of direct derivation of a tune but its structure, A good examp[le of this which might be applied to the performance of many minstrel tunes I know of--and I dont know of many0-- would be my desription of the fiddle tunes approach Joe Thompson used in an article for Harvard and Oxford UP's dictionary of African American biography which goes "Joe Thompson’s fiddling focused tunes into sets of strongly accented eight-beat phrases in scales that added the flatted fifths to the minor pentatonic scale. He repeated these phrases with melodic and rhythmic variations, usually following lower-pitched phrases with higher-pitched phrases repeated fewer times. Neither banjo nor fiddle was restricted to pure rhythm or lead; instead, they each created counter melodies that drove a relentless propulsive dance groove."</p>
<p>Not that this is an exclusive definition of African American music but it provides something. Take a look at the analysis of how minstrel banjo tunes can be used to learn African American syncopation and musical approaches on Bob Winans Web site</p>
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<p><br/> <br/> <cite>Strumelia said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?xg_source=msg_com_forum&id=2477478%3ATopic%3A98563&page=5#2477478Comment99045"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><blockquote><p>There continues to be a lot of reading African musical influence into <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Minstrel banjo</span>. To be honest most of the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Minstrel repertoire</span> has no such connection after all,</p>
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<p>Dan'l,</p>
<p>first, let's just temporarily <em>put aside</em> the minstrel repertoire that obviously <em>does</em> have African music influence, such as Juba, Pompeii Ran Away...and we'll go with your 'most' comment. And I agree that most of the <em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">repertoire</span> of the tutor books</em> seems to be tunes that did not originate in Africa. </p>
<p>When we speak, there are significant differences between the terms "minstrel banjo" (meaning all playing of the banjo by minstrel players, including playing techniques), and "minstrel repertoire" (referring only to the tunes and songs played by minstrel performers in general, not how they played them or what instruments they played them on). These two terms cannot be interchanged from sentence to sentence as though we are talking about the same thing.</p>
<p>Yes, a majority of <strong>minstrel repertoire</strong> seems to consist of European and American-composed tunes and songs. But once they are played on a banjo with a short drone string, using the typical syncopated 'banjo-y' patterns and rhythms, and using the tuning intervals and playing patterns found in most minstrel banjo tutors, then yes we hear to one extent or another the African influence in <strong>minstrel banjo playing</strong>. This cannot be dismissed as insignificant, because it forms the very core of what we recognize as 'the banjo sound'. But play those same tunes on a banjo using say guitar style or heavy Irish rhythms while using the drone string as simply another melody string, or play it on a tenor banjo in tango style, then likely not much African influence is apparent anymore.</p>
<p>But my main point is that there is a big difference between the meanings of the terms 'minstrel banjo' and 'minstrel repertoire', and we can't simply use them interchangeably without our discussions rapidly becoming inaccurate and confusing, leading to new debates. :)</p>
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</blockquote> Dan'l, I can certainly agree…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:990502013-08-28T23:16:46.244ZStrumeliahttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/Strumelia
<p>Dan'l, I can certainly agree to disagree on some things with you. I'm not really looking for fights with others who love playing banjos. :)</p>
<p>Dan'l, I can certainly agree to disagree on some things with you. I'm not really looking for fights with others who love playing banjos. :)</p> Paul Ely Smith said:
Tony,…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:988672013-08-28T17:21:20.929ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p><br></br> <br></br> <cite>Paul Ely Smith said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?commentId=2477478%3AComment%3A98866&xg_source=msg_com_forum#2477478Comment98866"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Tony,</p>
<p>Ah, the Bacon Silver Bell! I always have thought that design was the best of that era. My solution there was to get a Bacon Blue Ribbon plectrum (same tone ring) and make a 5-string neck. It is a fine sound, but I can't…</p>
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<p><br/> <br/> <cite>Paul Ely Smith said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?commentId=2477478%3AComment%3A98866&xg_source=msg_com_forum#2477478Comment98866"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Tony,</p>
<p>Ah, the Bacon Silver Bell! I always have thought that design was the best of that era. My solution there was to get a Bacon Blue Ribbon plectrum (same tone ring) and make a 5-string neck. It is a fine sound, but I can't seem to take my hands off the gourd banjo these days. By the way, "Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down" in <em>Hidden in the Mix</em> is an outstanding study of African American banjo history! I am lost in that book currently, but I had to go straight to the banjo chapter first, of course--Great work!... Cheers, Paul</p>
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<p>this is far off topic, but I always wished that Earl Scruggs had played a Silver Bell instead of that Gibson. Chuck Ogsbury who makes the Odes and made the Omes, the finest production crafted banjos being made today models his tone rings on that silver bell</p>
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</blockquote> It was the product of years o…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:990492013-08-28T17:14:36.483ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p>It was the product of years of work where i got an education on the strengths of real musical history from music historians outside of the banjo, old time music, and folk music world where I learned how much of what I knew as a folkie old time music buff etc etc was dead wrong once I had to produce documented research. There were so many things in that which were products of my raising my ideas with music historians like the composer Joseph Byrd and Jeff Todd Titon known for his work on the…</p>
<p>It was the product of years of work where i got an education on the strengths of real musical history from music historians outside of the banjo, old time music, and folk music world where I learned how much of what I knew as a folkie old time music buff etc etc was dead wrong once I had to produce documented research. There were so many things in that which were products of my raising my ideas with music historians like the composer Joseph Byrd and Jeff Todd Titon known for his work on the blues and kentucky fiddling (though he is an excellent old time banjoist) and the great and generous David Evans (who is a great guitarist and does have a fine old banjo from Boston sitting in his closet unplayed since the 1960s). It was also fortified and inspired by the rigor and previous work of our own Robert Winans. Both Bob Winans and Greg Adams, no strangers to this site, helped a lot in that.</p>
<p></p> All this is unfortunate as I…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:989602013-08-28T14:52:48.289ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p>All this is unfortunate as I have long wished I could get some of these makers I know who grow gourds for banjo making and other art to grow me a 1923 wide necked Tubaphone or a 5 string version of a Bacon Silver Bell</p>
<p>All this is unfortunate as I have long wished I could get some of these makers I know who grow gourds for banjo making and other art to grow me a 1923 wide necked Tubaphone or a 5 string version of a Bacon Silver Bell</p> Paul Ely Smith said:
Actual…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:989592013-08-28T14:50:46.497ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p><br></br> <br></br> <cite>Paul Ely Smith said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?commentId=2477478%3AComment%3A98953&xg_source=msg_com_forum#2477478Comment98953"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Actually, the official musical terminology on that shift of tuning would be that it was tuned up a fourth, G to C. I think Tony is absolutely right that the gourd banjo may well have disappeared were it not for the appropriation of…</p>
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<p><br/> <br/> <cite>Paul Ely Smith said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/forum/topics/transition-from-the-gourd?commentId=2477478%3AComment%3A98953&xg_source=msg_com_forum#2477478Comment98953"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Actually, the official musical terminology on that shift of tuning would be that it was tuned up a fourth, G to C. I think Tony is absolutely right that the gourd banjo may well have disappeared were it not for the appropriation of the banjo by the minstrels. I still prefer my gourd banjo to any of the other supposedly-improved banjos I have here, though. //</p>
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<p><em>The gourd banjo did largely disappear as a viable musical instrument used by banjoists after the banjo was used by the minstrels because the minstrels popularized and no doubt encouraged innovations in banjo construction and playing that made gourd banjos obsolete.</em></p>
<p><em>I am not talking about musical preference or personal delight. I have six or seven banjos and five acoustic guitars and one electric guitar. That electric guitar has been in the case and gets taken out once every other year for a harmonic adjustment becuase I prefer old time music, acoustic blues, acoustic folk, and rag time and bluegrass. That doesnt mean that in the history of music actually played by people the world round, electric guitars have slaughtered acoustic guitars and banjos, and in the real world recorded music has slaughtered live music</em></p>
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</blockquote> There continues to be a lot o…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:990462013-08-28T14:44:09.145ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p>There continues to be a lot of reading African musical influence into Minstrel banjo. To be honest most of the Minstrel repertoire has no such connection after all, and why try so hard to appear politically correct? Let's be historically correct. Most credit can be given to African-Americans and Euro-Americans, their ancestors some."</p>
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<p>I think people should play the music that they want and are under no injunction to do anything they do not want. By minstrel music, I take it…</p>
<p>There continues to be a lot of reading African musical influence into Minstrel banjo. To be honest most of the Minstrel repertoire has no such connection after all, and why try so hard to appear politically correct? Let's be historically correct. Most credit can be given to African-Americans and Euro-Americans, their ancestors some."</p>
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<p>I think people should play the music that they want and are under no injunction to do anything they do not want. By minstrel music, I take it you mean pre Civil War stroke minstrel banjo playing, because minstrel entertainers continued into the early 20th century. To me minstrel music is just as much Emmett Miller as Frank Converse, and Dave Macom actually gives a pretty fair version of probably what banjo styles and repertoire you might have heard on the minstrel stage around 1910 from five-string banjoists.</p>
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<p>As someone who feels politics are a thousand times more important to me than music, I wouldnt want to be incorrect politically. </p>
<p>Minstrel entertainment was the first widespread instance of a continuum of European Americans and Europeans adopting African and African American originated or influenced music and using it for their own purposes. Like everything of that nature, it involved a range of influence from stuff that probably sounded like direct reproduction of what Black people did to stuff that sounded like it never left Europe (although we do know particularly in fiddling that folk music in the British isles were already being changed and influenced by African and African New Word music in the 16 and 1700s!). So it just depends on what you want to do and was probably a mixture. It was subject to trends and counter trends where both non-minstrel popular and even formal music influenced it and competed with it on one side while authentically Black music and later Black minstrel companies competed with it. Even in the 20th Century white-racist minstrel entertainers like Emmett Miller were carrying the music of Louis Armstrong into minstrel entertainment.</p>
<p>European American culture is so thoroughly influenced by AFrican culture and African American culture that it is pretty hard to separate sometimes. But at the same time it doesnt mean that distinctly European musical influence no longer existed, or that Black music got collapsed into European music, There were different locations on a broad range just as there is now.</p>
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<p>Nothing in the real world is pure</p>
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</div> "Are you meaning raised up fr…tag:minstrelbanjo.ning.com,2013-08-28:2477478:Comment:988202013-08-28T14:26:18.039ZTony Thomashttps://minstrelbanjo.ning.com/profile/TonyThomas
<p>"Are you meaning raised up from what would be a 'drop G' equivalent (minstrel dGDF#A) to 'Drop C' tuning (gCGBD) ? If so, then that's two and a half steps, not three. A small detail, but important and potentially confusing for new learners going back and forth between various tunings. :)"</p>
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<p>No banjo tunings once pitched at A started being pitched at C, those at E began being pitched at G. </p>
<p>The architecture of banjos made in the late 19th century, such as the great…</p>
<p>"Are you meaning raised up from what would be a 'drop G' equivalent (minstrel dGDF#A) to 'Drop C' tuning (gCGBD) ? If so, then that's two and a half steps, not three. A small detail, but important and potentially confusing for new learners going back and forth between various tunings. :)"</p>
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<p>No banjo tunings once pitched at A started being pitched at C, those at E began being pitched at G. </p>
<p>The architecture of banjos made in the late 19th century, such as the great Boston banjos, was altered to support this and focus on the high distinct treble epitomized in the 20th centur by the Bacon name Silver Bell for the last of Day's major banjo designs</p>
<p>In very much of formal music, a series of international formal and informal agreements went on in the late 19th and early 20th century agreeing about a common pitch we know now as 440 for A,</p>
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<p>"There continues to be a lot of reading African musical influence into Minstrel banjo. To be honest most of the Minstrel repertoire has no such connection after all, and why try so hard to appear politically correct? Let's be historically correct. Most credit can be given to African-Americans and Euro-Americans, their ancestors some."</p>
<p>When I first heard minstrel banjo being played, I think the great album out out by a bunch of people in the 70s I thought the music sounded exceedingly European, not even European American. I remember having a discourse with Beuhling about it then. But, two things, what would you expect European Americans of that time to make. </p>
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<p>What would you expect given the way that we knew this music only from formal printed transcriptions and tab from the minstrel tutors. But if one listens to attempts to transcribe African American songs from that period, the music is smoothed out, often deprived of its syncopation, the blues and other African origined scales and modes are minimized or removed, and the music might sound quite musical</p>
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<p>Bob Winans told me that when he began investigating minstrel banjo back in the 1970s discovering all the tutors while doing other research in libraries, no one really knew what it would sound like and he expected it might sound like clangy choppy tenor banjo played by the last generation of minstrels. All people had to go by was the music discovered in the tutors and song books,</p>
<p>However, now, having spent some time trying to have an understanding of what constitutes black musical patterns, a huge number of the tunes are structured the way African American music of parallel kinds is structured. A huge proportion of the tunes entered the Black banjo repertoire of the most "traditional" performers because whatever the origin they fit in the musical needs of black music makers whether they started out as Black tunes or not.</p>
<p>Now, most Black banjo music I am familiar is dance music oriented toward the way Blacks did the old dances, whereas most minstrel tunes we have are presented as show music for an entertainer, usually for an entertainer singing and as time went on the tutors and song books became more adapted for parlor entertainment etc.</p>
<p>However, it seems fairly clear to me that very much of the actual white minstrel music was much more syncopated and swingy than the written music indicates. Some of the artists probably used much more of the blues scale and other Black sounds than the music would indicate. This seems to be indicated by the reports of people who heard them and by the musicians of other music, particularly the piano, who introduced music that was syncopated precursors of ragtime, that claimed to be inspired by the syncipations of minstrel banjo.</p>
<p>Bob Winans has a very good musical analysis of how African American syncopation can be learned by studying some of the original minstrel tutor music. I know he is at work on a larger work to make a real musicological study of the AFrican American rhythmic and harmonic influences in Emmett's music.</p>
<p>There was probably a range of African American influence from entertainers that sounded like Black musicians to musicians who had little Black influence. This probably changed over the years with ups and downs as minstrel entertainers mixed it up and mixed their repertoires with performers of regular popular music and even European formal music. </p>
<p>I think as soon as the alternative of a hoop or frame head for a banjo became known, it simply made more sense for most banjoists to use them and abandon gourd banjos because they were hard to make, fragile, and hard to maintain and not loud enough and didnt involve all the trouble involved obtaining, seasoning, cleaning, and otherwise working gourds into being banjos.</p>
<p>Hoops or frames were not "substitutes" for gourds. They were and are better than gourds. The geographical question isnt unimportant. There is no information suggests that any major development in the history of the development of the physical banjo, after the importation of the early gourd banjo, took place in the South as opposed to the North, this includes the fact that the ioldest recorded sighting of any banjo in the US took place in NEW YORK CITY in the 1700s. Even Sweeney had to tour the North and the British Isles to have some impact on the world as a banjo player and in popularizing the innovations in the banjo he is associated with. Perhaps we might include Boucher being in the South, although we do not know whether Boucher made banjo or whether he simply was a central vendor of banjos others made, but beyond him all the major makers that had impact, all the major banjo entertainers who popularized the innovations in the instrument that folk makers by and large followed centered themselves in the northern industrial cities.</p>
<p>Minstrel banjo playing celebrates the eruption of the banjo as an URBAN NORTHERN and even European enterprise, spread by the national and even international character of popular entertainment and production spread by newspapers, telegraphs, railroads, and steam ships. Organizing the crafting or manufacture of instruments around gourds predates this development. They are available in a limited area. They are hard to grow in a standardized way. They are not that adaptable to be modified to suit the innovative ideas of both craftspersons and entertainers.</p>
<p>this is pretty much like the flat fingerboard question. Africans arriving in the early modern new world entered a world where boards, often staves used to ship sugar, rum, and other products, were fairly plentiful compared to West Africa. They saw European instruments with flat fingerboards. That seemed to work a lot better than the round pole like necks used in WEst AFrica. Likewise with violin like friction pegs compared to those ropes from West AFrica. </p>
<p>We have not a single illustration or record of anyone anywhere in the New World playing a West AFrican lute with pole neck or ropes for tuning. We have but one example in all of the Americas, from Brazil in the 19th century, of someone playing any West AFrican lute--not one in the banjo's lineage. </p>
<p>I dont doubt that people did play these instruments in the Americas, but what I am trying to illustrate is that innovations along the line of the banjo's development were more attractive than the dropped features of West AFrican lutes, and disappeared because people could make the music they needed easier with the new innovations.</p>
<p>Sane thing happened with gourd banjos. Once the idea of making banjos with a frame or hoop head became known it seemed much more useful and easy to do with the gourd banjo. I would also add that probably even among AFrican Americans, the eruption of the commercial banjo entertainment and manufacturing industry in the late 1830s and 1840s made the banjo more popular and its playing more widespread. For many it wasnt the idea of the banjo organically growing out of gourd banjos but being encouraged by the reflected glow fo the minstrel banjoists, and their influence would have been felt</p>
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