Talk:Banjo

Clawhammer vs. claw-hammer

Life is too short to engage in an editing war over "claw-hammer" or "clawhammer." That being said, the rationale given is that it should be spelled "claw-hammer" because otherwise people will think it's pronounced "cla-whammer". It's hard for me to believe that spelling should be changed in order to cater to those who can't read or pronounce.Tribe 17:09, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

The rationale that it's "never" spelled "claw-hammer" is clearly false, as I have seen it spelled that way many times. This is an encyclopedia, and as such is meant to provide information to those who aren't familiar with the banjo, its types of play or the vagaries of English spelling. "Clawhammer" is indisputably one way to spell it; its orthography also indisputably derives from "claw hammer". To place a dash between the two words and form "claw-hammer", then later to remove it, is a normal English practice, as in "aero-plane", which became "aeroplane" (and later "airplane"), but there is no corresponding confusion in the pronunciation of these forms of the word. It's hard for me to believe that confusion is PREFERABLE to clarification. Seems lots of other people--educated in the grammar of English, and also banjo players like me--have no problem with "claw-hammer", so what's the big deal? Doovinator 17:27, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

True...to say "I have never seen it spelled" the way you use it is incorrect....because I've seen you use it that way. But aside from you, I've never seen it spelled that way. Contrary to your protestations, there has never been any confusion....until now. The "big deal" is that you have decided to impose a spelling that the vast majority of banjo players do not use....and the sole reason is that you confused the pronunciation when you were a child.Tribe 17:50, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

I didn't write the article, and I didn't put it in originally as "claw-hammer", that was someone else--but clearly someone else who had seen it spelled that way. I'm surprised you haven't. I've seen it spelled all three ways, and if it were clear what the pronunciation were, whatever way it was spelled, it would be no big deal to me. However, I have taught English for the last three years (and played banjo for close to twenty) and I can assure you that EVERY nine or ten year old is confused by "clawhammer", along with all the non-native English speakers on the planet. I don't guess it hurts to have it both ways, though. Doovinator 02:38, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

At the risk of reopening old wounds I find I can't agree with Doovinator's argument. Google results for "clawhammer" outnumber "claw-hammer" sixty to one. English is a dumb language filled with unintuitive special cases that must be learned individually, and this is no exception. IceKarma 15:30, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

Oh please! Look at "Aluminum" if you think one way is the be-all and end-all of English. Google can survey, AT BEST, the past ten years. Any books or articles from twenty-five or thirty years ago, and the term "claw-hammer" will outnumber "clawhammer" sixty to one, but these won't be on Google. English is not set in stone, and to be young and stupid is not a virtue. There's plenty of room to learn it both ways. Doovinator 15:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The Bass String

Sweeney added the bass string, or is credited with doing so. Assuming a total of five strings, the bass string is the fourth string up from the floor counting upwards (redundancy intended); not the 5th string, which is commonly called the "drone string."

I have repeatedly read and heard it said that Sweeney added the drone; this seems rather doubtful, since many or most african-origin examples of banjo-like instruments already had strings that functioned as drones even before spreading beyond Africa. Thus, the Sweeney origin of the 5th string seems doubtful. MWBailey

I am a banjo player myself and I know that Sweeny added the fifth string up from the floor (the drone), before that was added the banjo was mostly used for strumming. Piratebob13 21:28, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Sweeney and the 5th String

I think Sweeney is generally credited as having added the 5th string, but since it has been more or less proven that he didnt, the argument goes that, well, OK, then maybe he added a 4th string. Since there is still confusion and uncertainty about which string he added (if any), I changed "bass string" to "another string". GeeMo

The infamous 5th String...

Joel Walker Sweeney of The Sweeney Minstrels, born 1810, was often credited with the invention of the short fifth string. Scholars know that this is not the case. A painting entitled The Old Plantation painted between 1777 and 1800, shows a black gourd banjo player with a banjo having the fifth string peg half-way up the neck. If Sweeney did add a fifth string to the banjo, it was probably the lowest string, or fourth string by today's reckoning. This would parallel the development of the banjo elsewhere, for example in England, where the tendency was to add more of the long strings, with seven and ten strings being common. Sweeney was responsible for the spread of the banjo and probably contracted with a drum maker in Baltimore, William Boucher, to start producing banjos for public sales. These banjos are basically drums with necks attached. A number have survived and a couple of them are in the collections of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. Other makers, like Jacobs of New York, or Morrell who moved his shop to San Francisco during the Gold Rush, helped to supply the growing demand for the instrument in the mid-1840s, as the minstrel shows traveled westward to entertain the the gold diggers.

taken from here: http://www.trussel.com/bti/banjhist.htm

--4.250.63.11 07:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Here is a link to the painting The Old Plantation : http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume3/images/OldPlantMed.jpg

Perhaps someone can add it to the article and clear up any misunderstanding about the 5th string.

--4.250.63.11 07:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me as if the banjo painted has 3 long strings and 1 short, is this so? Doovinator 02:27, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Old-Time Banjo Styles

Added info on Mike Seeger's DVD. --TheListeners

Seeger long neck

Removed the reference to Vega, as it made it seem that the instrument maker invented the long neck. Seeger developed the instrument, letting Vega use his name, as cited in The Vega Pete Seeger Banjo. --scruss (talk) 11:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Tenor Scale Length

I am going to change the statement that says 17 fret banjos are more common in Irish traditional music is it is not true. for some evidence of this look at these threads on a popular banjo forum: http://www.banjohangout.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=66083 http://www.banjohangout.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=68066 i realise this does not prove much but it helps back up my statement

African American template

Although the banjo has origins in African American slave communities, in its modern usage (and for at least the last century) it has been predominantly played by white musicians. It is insignificant enough a part of African American culture that it is never mentioned in African American music, much less in the main African American article. This template is wholly out of place in this article, and I will continue to remove it each time it is added. Cmadler 23:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

And I will continue to add it. As an African American, I would argue that the fact that it is African American in origin IS significant. It is just another fashion in which the pervasiveness of African American influence is manifested in American music. Neither country music nor bluegrass would be what they are today without the introduction of the banjo and the unique musical stylings of African Americans in the playing of both the banjo and the fiddle.[1][2] The fact that this isn't mentioned in the African American music article is an omission that should be corrected -- and is, IMO, the result of ignorance or inadvertent omission rather than non-notability. Furthermore, the omission of such factual information from one article on Wikipedia is hardly an argument for the continued omission of such information elsewhere, particularly given the gaping holes in the project and widely acknowledged systemic bias vis-a-vis subject matter related to non-whites -- quite the contrary. The fact is most people are completely unaware of the banjo's origins -- all the more reason the template should remain. People commonly associate bluegrass music with only poor, Appalachian whites. However, modern musicologists, cultural anthropologists and others finally are setting the record straight, with numerous articles and monographs devoted to the pervasive influence of African Americans on bluegrass music and the role played by the banjo as an instrument and stylistically as well. There are those who disagree with you on this matter, and you are not permitted to unilaterally make such a determination -- and on such a flimsy premise! You've got to come up with something better than citing the absence of information/knowledge on a topic as a rationale for your continued deletion of the AA template from this article. Ignorance or omission is not an effective -- or even remotely rational/defensible -- argument. And unless and until you do, the template stays.deeceevoice 06:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

And just so there's no doubt, I've tweaked the section treating African American music to include information further bolstering the appropriateness of the African American template, as well as the addition of a link to the AA portal, and have added citations to the relevant text (starting a "References" section), including to the opening assertion regarding the AA origin of the instrument. (You will note that I earlier edited the opening back to the more accurate assertion that the banjo is of African-American, rather than African, origin -- and added a reference to Africans in Appalachia for good measure.)deeceevoice 07:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The Banjo is one of may African contributions to music. Topics on wikipedia should reflect history not just contemporary views. Please do not remove the template again. futurebird 22:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

The key question is not whether the banjo is or is not an African-American (or even an African) contribution to music. The question is how useful the inclusion of this template is. If someone reading this page is interested in learning more about the African ancestry of the banjo, there are links in the article lead, and the template does not provide any. If someone is interested in learning about African American music, there is a link in the lead, which is repeated farther down in the template. If someone wants to learn about the banjo in minstrelsy, again there is a link in the lead. The real effects of the template are to provide direct links from the banjo article to pages such as Reparations, Rastafari movement, Nation of Islam, Black nationalism, NAACP, HBCU, and AAVE, to name a few. Is it really a useful addition to have this directly linked from this article? NO! We might just as well link to the Irish potato famine, because the banjo today is mainly used in bluegrass music, which has some Irish ancestry, or to the DuPont company, which originally developed the PET film which is now widely used on banjo heads. This "six degrees" approach is not helpful to readers, nor to the development of Wikipedia. Tell us what the direct connection is between the banjo and some of the other African American topics, please! Cmadler 14:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, why didn't you say so before -- instead of advancing the ridiculous arguments of "insignificance" and omission elsewhere? Blackface, African American culture, African American music, minstrel show. deeceevoice 23:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I got no problem with the roots music template instead. But, gee. Didja notice? Alphabetically, "African American music" comes before the others? I just love the alphabet. Don't you? :p deeceevoice 14:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Origin

user:199.172.214.103 changed "of African American origin" in the first sentence to "of African origin". I'm not sure which version is better, mainly because of the ambiguity of the word origin: The banjo itself was created by Africans (or African Americans) in America, but its origins go back to Africa. Rather than revert, I decided to post the question here. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

maybe... "The banjo is an African American adaptation of a musical instrument of African origin. " ? futurebird 00:23, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Including both origins sounds like a good solution. I think the what (a stringed instrument) should be the focus of the first sentence. How about: "The banjo is a stringed instrument of African American origin adapted from one or several African instruments." ? Or is it too clumsy? ---Sluzzelin talk 00:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it sounds fine. Tweak: "The banjo is a stringed instrument of African American origin adapted from several African instruments." futurebird 00:57, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks again. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Banjo jokes

Would it be allowed to put a section in on well known banjo jokes (maybe under Trivia) ?--SpectrumAnalyser 22:02, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Image Correction

Note that the image labelled "5-string banjo" in the section titled "5-string banjo" is clearly a 4-string banjo. Surely someone has a good image for this section? Crubins 14:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. As a 5-string player myself, I immediately guessed that it was added by someone not too familiar with banjos. The trumpet in the image is also an obvious tip-off as they are typically associated with 4-string banjos in Dixieland Jazz, not 5-string banjos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.87.186.68 (talk) 13:20, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so how do we get a good picture? If I have to put up my own, you will all be sorry, 'cause I'm pretty ugly!Crubins 01:58, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Empirecontact for loading a pleasant image. Crubins (talk) 12:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Image/Tuning Discrepancy

The image at the head of the article is of a 5-string, but the tuning given is the standard tenor tuning (CGDA) rather than the usual GDGBD (or GCGBD) for 5-string. One or the other should change, surely... Paul Magnussen (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

First Sentence

"The banjo is a stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States, adapted from several African instruments."

So, Sweeney (white) may have added a string, another European-American developed steel strings, Henry Dobson developed the frets and the resonator, yet this was an instrument solely "developed by enslaved Africans"?

I would say the opening sentence is biased and demonstrably wrong. HedgeFundBob (talk) 15:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Tweaked it. Hopefully found a middle ground that will please all.Kww (talk) 13:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to revert, just for now, since I suspect this wants more discussion first. As for me, I'm quite certain that a fretless banjo with gut strings and no resonator is still a banjo. I'm less certain, but still comfortable with the idea that a banjo with fewer strings is still a banjo. So, all of those innovations are important in the history of the banjo, and most of them are post-Sweeney. I'd still give the origin credit to black slaves. (Of course that credit may only be due to the fact that we're fuzzy on the banjo's African ancestor(s), which may have quite simply been banjos themselves.) So, in terms of innovation, I'd put Sweeney in the "History" section, rather than single him out in the lead. The lead could somehow refer to ongoing development, but I'm not sure how that should be done. Cretog8 (talk) 17:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a difficult line to draw, and I thought I had done it by giving credit to African slaves for the "development" and to others for "refinement". If mentioning Sweeney in the lead is going too far, I'm OK with crediting the "refinement" to a larger group. Kww (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Scale Length Diagram

I drew up this diagram to illustrate the different scale lengths. Anyone else think it would be useful? Criticisms?
Kww (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Good start, but it also need metric scale lengths, and you're missing banjo-uke, pony, A-scale and Seeger styles --scruss (talk) 02:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Basic construction

This article seems to be missing the basic description and construction of a banjo, and jumps right into obscure (to a non-musician) variations. Is the face really drum-like as it appears? How is its construction different than a Guitar?

Sevesteen (talk) 23:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Great Idea Sevesteen. The banjo's construction is different than most other stringed instruments. I have heard the banjo descried as a drum on a stick! That's part of its appeal for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jumpinbean (talk • contribs) 22:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Zither Banjo Caption

The zither banjo caption states that the instrument is a six sting. This is false, the zither banjo was always a five-stringed instrument. British builders typically used a set of guitar tuners as they were cheap and made the headstock symmetrical, the sixth tuner was attached to nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.166.14.45 (talk) 17:24, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Four-String Banjo

Who is this lovely young lady playing what appears to be a Deering Good Time 5-string banjo at the head of this section? I would hate to move this picture, but it is certainly misplaced.