A Note on Banjo Songs
Added 2018-03-08 16:20:26 +0000 UTCA well-known banjo virtuoso and alleged folklorist (who seldom sings) once told me something along the lines of:
"I don't sing because most of those old songs are just random verses people sang as a way of remembering the tune. They cared more about the tune than the words."
I now realize that the above assertion was drawn either from a narrow scope of ethnomusical experience or from a place of willful ignorance. While it's true that many old "songs" are little more than modular gibberish sung to accompany a more important dance melody, I would argue that the majority of our American banjo vernacular is deeply rooted in poetic tradition, many of which far pre-date the advent of the 5-string banjo.
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Comments
gradually getting my head around, largely thanks to your videos and this group. Until then I just made up my own way of playing the banjo. Thanks Clifton
Tony Stuart
2018-03-12 04:38:10 +0000 UTCRecognition of traditional music is worse in Australia where the banjo used to be common with numerous cake tin banjos but we don’t have any documented playing style. I can only assume that it would be similar to old style American players that I only recently discovered and am
Tony Stuart
2018-03-12 02:14:09 +0000 UTCI know from my archaeological training (which focused heavily on southeastern U.S. prehistory) that in many indigenous North American societies owls were and are still today associated with some kind of negative spiritual power (e.g. death, bad luck, evil spirits). As far as I know that was not the case in many historic or even prehistoric European cultures--certainly today in Western society the owl is mostly used to represent intellect or wisdom. It may also be that west African cultures held the owl in a dark place as well (I would not be surprised).
Clifton Hicks
2018-03-10 18:24:34 +0000 UTCHey gang; In response to the quote about lyrics as modular gibberish, I would suggest that is at the very least, a most un-romantic view of life. Co-incidentally I came across a verse in "I wish my baby was born." On versions that I listen to the last verse is... The owl the owl is a lonely bird it fills my heart with dread and terror. That's someone's blood, there upon his wings That's someone's blood there upon his feathers. This verse hit me hard. I was wondering if you are your gang knew anything about the history of the song or the reference to the owl. Up here in Canada, for the Ojibwe people the owl represents death. The idea is if you see an owl someone close to you will die. I have read that in your neck of the woods an owl can curse a wedding. anywho Keep it up Clifton. Love the site.
John F. Cooke
2018-03-10 17:39:17 +0000 UTCHowever, my views of the way the world works is that what people do and what they think has more to do with the social position they look at things from. Old time music and banjo playing can get stripped from its actual roots in singing and dancing to an abstract repetition of some performance determined "right" or canonical like a bad version of what people think of classical music is--although in that music you can see much passion and individuality too. Very often I get more satisfaction locally from going to jams with premium bluegrass players than some of the old time enthusiasts of this nature
Tony Thomas
2018-03-10 16:10:10 +0000 UTCThis is a big contrast to the 1960s when I got involved in old time music as a teenager when songs and singers whether on the banjo or guitar or even fiddle was what was expected if you got to gether with other to play old time music.
Tony Thomas
2018-03-10 16:07:22 +0000 UTCOne thing people who I knew who worked with some of the Black Banjoists like Dink Roberts and Rufus Kasey is that while Rufus was shy about his singing, both of them found it unsettling to go to joint concerts with white old time musicians like Tommy Jarrrel where Tommy would just play a fiddle tune on fiddle or banjo and not sing. Dink used to shout out "sing something Tommy!"
Tony Thomas
2018-03-10 16:06:11 +0000 UTCYes, I have found this peculiar or a reflection of the social and ideological physiogomy of the current old time revivalist kermesse. Old time music becomes the replication of a very limited number of styles, and becomes more and more driven by the playing of what are designated as "fiddle tunes." The approach to replicating them seems to be to reproduce identically certain performances of these tunes in particular limited styles. I belong to an old time banjo facebook group. Almost every single post of someone playing the banjo is a post of someone playing a banjo version of a fiddle tune, usually a tune that among the thousands of old time fiddle and banjo tunes on my hard drives or that I have heard or in the books I have, a tune I have never ever heard of anyone playing solo on the banjo. The picking can be nice, but it seems to establish the idea that old time banjo is playing fiddle tunes and does not involve singing and does not involve the great banjoists. Right now I am listening to a mix playlist of Dock Boggs, Bill Cornett, myself, Rufus Kasey, and Elizabeth Cotten p, Fred Cockerham, and Doc Watson playing versions of Reuben and Hustling Gamblers. Most of them would have been excluded from banjo contests I have been in for singing at all!
Tony Thomas
2018-03-10 16:04:33 +0000 UTCYes. This is a glaring injustice that sits all too comfortably at the forefront of our "community" as banjoist/folk musicians. I have always hated any form of injustice.
Clifton Hicks
2018-03-09 12:26:45 +0000 UTCYes. I fought that good fight for about five years when I lived in Boone and made the festival circuit every summer. I have entered in two or three banjo contests and NEVER was moved up to the second round. Eventually someone tipped me off that every time I sang they disqualified me. Another person once tipped me off that a panel of banjo judges all agreed that my playing style was not "old time" and they disqualified me. I have also "ruined" many perfectly good jams by singing the words to a song. The first jam I ever tried to play in they sat and did "Sourwood Mountain" in A for what seemed like eternity. Finally I got so agitated that I climbed up on a tree stump and sang Sourwood Mountain at the top of my lungs (so I could hit those high A notes). Another good jam 'ruined' with vernacular poetry!
Clifton Hicks
2018-03-09 12:21:04 +0000 UTCThe worst is that great singers who are banjoists get excluded from the pantheon of old time banjo and music and people who are instrumentalists who play music as an abstraction are more and more at the center. Ideas that are even stereotypical and wrong in formal music become more and more part of what many who participate in old time music think is what a person should do. Keep it going Clifton time to confront cold dead evil
Tony Thomas
2018-03-09 02:57:46 +0000 UTCThe other thing is that playing music has a purpose other than cataloging it. Multiple verses or a common fund of verses is a way that people can make their own individual expression fit for the occaision with a song having a dual purpose of expressing oneself, communicating with an audiance, and often playing for dancing. Dumb people think a song is a definite list of words played by a set of regulated notes, at a given pitch and tempo, That has nothing to do with with what this music is about.
Tony Thomas
2018-03-09 02:56:01 +0000 UTCBanjoists need to take back singing banjo tunes, or singing tunes with the banjo.
Tony Thomas
2018-03-09 02:53:26 +0000 UTC
