"Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3: Africa Sessions" (2009) [2] is the Soundtrack for The Bela Fleck "Throw Down Your Heart" (2009) [1] rockumentary
> These divisions center on the longstanding debate about what constitutes "Bluegrass Music". A few traditional bluegrass musicians do not consider progressive bluegrass to truly be "bluegrass", some going so far as to suggest bluegrass must be [...]
Having enjoyed "electro blues", for some years I had been searching on YT for "electro bluegrass" without success but today it seems the genre is finally populated. (although from what I have found there's still plenty of opportunity to discover the proper cross between high lonesome and EDM)
Rhiannon Giddens is a world class musician who specializes in banjo. If you ever played Red Dead Redemption 2 you'll have heard her song Mountain Hymn. She's at the forefront of the movement to reclaim the banjo as an African instrument.
What does reclaiming the banjo as an African instrument mean? I read the interview you linked and it’s really weird, bordering on neurotic. Like this:
“For bad, you look at how you take something that was rooted in Black culture, and that became a collaborative instrument, and then the narrative becomes: No, it’s actually a white instrument. Black people have nothing to do with it.”
Huh? What is a “white” instrument? They’re inanimate objects. The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an American instrument and it’s well understood that its roots were in an instrument Africans brought over. That’s American - a netting lot of things.
> Huh? What is a “white” instrument? They’re inanimate objects.
And inanimate objects can have common associations with racial identities.
> The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an American instrument and it’s well understood that its roots were in an instrument Africans brought over. That’s American - a netting lot of things.
Giddens says as much immediately after the part you quoted.
Those are good questions! FWIW I think your comment comes off as quite combative ("the interview is weird, neurotic"; "[my position is] well understood"). That can set up a discussion to go down a less useful route. I think if you phrased your comments in a more open manner, you may get more interesting responses exploring perspectives other than your own. Just my two cents.
Its a dumb take. We get a lot of them. I’m old enough to remember Martin Luther King’s assassination. I really felt like things were normalizing in the ‘90s. Alas we have devolved into something ugly where every comment includes mention of a certain New York real estate mogul and a joyful thread about banjos must include a specious claim to reclamation.
> What does reclaiming the banjo as an African instrument mean?
The contemporary objection from some circles to “cultural appropriation” isn’t generally that group X is taking some aspect of culture from group Y. Rather, it is that group X is doing so while enjoying social and economic privilege unavailable, or historically unavailable, to group Y. It is, like so much of what drives human behavior, ultimately a struggle over resources. So, “reclaiming the banjo” might mean ensuring that more attention and money in banjo playing flows to African-Americans.
Drone strings are significant. The bagpipe has a drone (pipe?), andit seems that when many Scots migrated to the US and Appalachia, they tried to find another way to play music using drones. One of the big ones was the dulcimer which was & perhaps is a particularly Appalachian instrument. (Although check out Mimi & Richard Farina highly recommended). If you hear Amazing Grace on a bagpipe you will get the idea.
Banjo players of HN, represent! I’m the banjo player for “You, Me, Everybody” < https://youmeeverybody.bandcamp.com/album/you-me-everybody >. Our song “Stranger” was featured in S02E04 of Netflix’s “Sweet Tooth”, and that’s us (in make up!) playing it at the start of the episode.
My dubious claim to fame is that I believe I was the first person to put banjo tablature on the web, possibly the net as a whole. I used EMACS (eight megabytes and continuously swapping, indeed) in 92 or 93 to make ASCII art of tab:
We’re living in a real golden age of banjo today. There are technical virtuosos in all areas, prominent banjo players who don’t use it for yuks, and it’s a sound people recognise but don’t pull back from.
The article author alludes to the terrible times after “Deliverance” was released. For 20 years that movie dominated perceptions of banjo and banjo players. Every banjo player today still gets asked for Duelling Banjos but, in my experience at least, no more “squeal like a pig” comments or associations with inbreeding. Mumford and Sons, “O Brother Where Art Thou”, and Taylor Swift have all done their part to normalise the sound of the banjo.
I love it. It’s hard to be sad when you’re playing the banjo. (Insert obligatory comment about how it’s easier to be sad when someone else is playing the banjo. And yes, I’ve heard all the banjo jokes. And seen the Gary Larson cartoon. And the Thunderstruck video. And the one with the band walking down the train tracks. Every banjo player gets those sent to them on a regular basis, it’s part of the job)
Fun bit of trivia for you: members of my family claim my great grandmother taught Earl Scruggs the finger roll technique he made famous. He was boyhood friends with my grandmother's brother and they would hang out and pick on the porch.
His wikipedia page suggests the technique was common in the area, so while she probably didn't teach it to him, there's probably a kernel of truth in there somewhere.
It was definitely in the air with players like Snuffy Jenkins. That particular part of North Carolina was full of banjo players and the three finger sound was “in the air” in many different ways at the time. It didn’t serve the Earl Is God hero worship of the time so it didn’t get talked about much in the 50s and 60s but it’s clear he didn’t pick up a banjo and invent everything he did. He perfected it yes, but did not invented it de novo.
That’s a great story about your great grandmother! What was her name? I’d love to help perpetuate the story.
Reminded me of a fun bit of my own trivia! My Highschool guidance counselor, also an acoustic bass player in the folk idiom, babysat Bela Fleck as a youngster! She was instrumental (ha) in fostering my drive to set my sights on Music School, which I did.
She also helped introduced FIRST robotics to our small rural highs school. She was an awesome woman.
I am a recent banjo player (about 2 months). I've played the guitar for years and suddenly got the urge to pick up the banjo. Needless to say, I got a few weird looks. Some tech guy in SF playing the banjo, what?
Anyways, there are a lot of folks players that live in my neighborhood and play at the local bar, maybe that had some influence on it. The banjo is a beautiful instrument and it's just so fun to play! I've been learning clawhammer and I find it a complete joy.
Clawhammer is a ton of fun! Because you’re already a musician maybe you know this already but my standard advice to new players is to play with tolerant others as soon as you are able to keep time through chords. It helps you keep solid time, feel the groove, let go of mistakes, and it fuels the drive to improve. Maybe you’ll be one of the folks playing at your neighbourhood bar inspiring the next banjo player!
Tbh I've always been a bedroom musician. Not really played too often with others, mostly jam tracks off of youtube.
It is really fun to play with others though and the times I've done it have been a blast. It definitely is the best way to improve.
Similar to speaking a language in many ways.
Would be great to find a fiddle to jam along with once I improve a little more.
San Francisco has always had diverse music. Hell Jerry Garcia played banjo.
If you ever feel sorrow and your down in San Antone, just beg borrow or steal two nickels and dime and call me on the phone. I’ll meet you at Alamo mission.
In the latter part of the 19th century manufacturers like SS Stewart and JB Schall began promoting the banjo as an instrument for music hall beyond the minstrel stage. They catered to the women's market with smaller instruments like Stewart's "American Princess" banjo. (Note that women figured out they could play regular-sized banjos and the smaller banjos mostly disappeared from the market.)
Yeah, but that lineage of banjos became 17-fret tenor banjos in the teens, which are still really nice instruments if you play Irish trad tenor and don't need the volume of a 23-fret. So, not all a bad thing.
He's trying to preserve old banjo music and teaches how to play the old standards in two finger and clawhammer style, often with nylon/nylgut strings on vintage instruments, trying to replicate the original sounds.
I'm another long time hackernews reader and banjo player. Back in the days when we used to work in data centers, I was pulling a long late night for some server maintenance with my banjo and I heard the night security guard come in on his routine patrol. I played a bit of dueling banjos (from behind a rack). He spun on his heels and got out of there. He didn't come back through again that night.
30 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 72.2 ms ] thread[1] https://g.co/kgs/zJyVM2
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_Acoustic_Planet...
Banjo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo
Bluegrass; traditional and progressive feature the banjo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music :
> These divisions center on the longstanding debate about what constitutes "Bluegrass Music". A few traditional bluegrass musicians do not consider progressive bluegrass to truly be "bluegrass", some going so far as to suggest bluegrass must be [...]
There may or may not be banjo on the Thomas Wesley album feat. music videos, for example
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/rhiannon-giddens-banjo-w...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eMe54XsJUE&t=243s
“For bad, you look at how you take something that was rooted in Black culture, and that became a collaborative instrument, and then the narrative becomes: No, it’s actually a white instrument. Black people have nothing to do with it.”
Huh? What is a “white” instrument? They’re inanimate objects. The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an American instrument and it’s well understood that its roots were in an instrument Africans brought over. That’s American - a netting lot of things.
And inanimate objects can have common associations with racial identities.
> The banjo in its modern form is well understood to be an American instrument and it’s well understood that its roots were in an instrument Africans brought over. That’s American - a netting lot of things.
Giddens says as much immediately after the part you quoted.
The contemporary objection from some circles to “cultural appropriation” isn’t generally that group X is taking some aspect of culture from group Y. Rather, it is that group X is doing so while enjoying social and economic privilege unavailable, or historically unavailable, to group Y. It is, like so much of what drives human behavior, ultimately a struggle over resources. So, “reclaiming the banjo” might mean ensuring that more attention and money in banjo playing flows to African-Americans.
https://www.vox.com/videos/2022/10/21/23416843/banjo-black-a...
My dubious claim to fame is that I believe I was the first person to put banjo tablature on the web, possibly the net as a whole. I used EMACS (eight megabytes and continuously swapping, indeed) in 92 or 93 to make ASCII art of tab:
We’re living in a real golden age of banjo today. There are technical virtuosos in all areas, prominent banjo players who don’t use it for yuks, and it’s a sound people recognise but don’t pull back from.The article author alludes to the terrible times after “Deliverance” was released. For 20 years that movie dominated perceptions of banjo and banjo players. Every banjo player today still gets asked for Duelling Banjos but, in my experience at least, no more “squeal like a pig” comments or associations with inbreeding. Mumford and Sons, “O Brother Where Art Thou”, and Taylor Swift have all done their part to normalise the sound of the banjo.
I love it. It’s hard to be sad when you’re playing the banjo. (Insert obligatory comment about how it’s easier to be sad when someone else is playing the banjo. And yes, I’ve heard all the banjo jokes. And seen the Gary Larson cartoon. And the Thunderstruck video. And the one with the band walking down the train tracks. Every banjo player gets those sent to them on a regular basis, it’s part of the job)
His wikipedia page suggests the technique was common in the area, so while she probably didn't teach it to him, there's probably a kernel of truth in there somewhere.
That’s a great story about your great grandmother! What was her name? I’d love to help perpetuate the story.
She also helped introduced FIRST robotics to our small rural highs school. She was an awesome woman.
I hope it functions as a halfway house, getting people used to the sound of the banjo even if it’s not THE sound of the banjo.
Anyways, there are a lot of folks players that live in my neighborhood and play at the local bar, maybe that had some influence on it. The banjo is a beautiful instrument and it's just so fun to play! I've been learning clawhammer and I find it a complete joy.
Would be great to find a fiddle to jam along with once I improve a little more.
Hey, Fiddleford McGucket started like that!
If you ever feel sorrow and your down in San Antone, just beg borrow or steal two nickels and dime and call me on the phone. I’ll meet you at Alamo mission.
https://www.youtube.com/@CliftonHicksbanjo
He's trying to preserve old banjo music and teaches how to play the old standards in two finger and clawhammer style, often with nylon/nylgut strings on vintage instruments, trying to replicate the original sounds.