For those who decide to buy a banjo. Banjo: history, video, interesting facts Traditional American instrument

The instrument was probably brought to America from West Africa, where some Arabic instruments were its predecessors. In the 19th century, the banjo began to be used by minstrels and thus found its way into early jazz bands as a rhythmic instrument. The banjo is played using a plectrum, the so-called “claws” (three specially designed plectrums worn on the thumb, index and middle fingers of the right hand) or simply with your fingers.

The banjo is a relative of the well-known European mandolin, a direct descendant of the African lute. But there is a sharp difference in sound between the mandolin and the banjo - the banjo has a more ringing and harsh sound.

A design feature of the banjo is its acoustic body, which looks a little like a small drum, on the front side of which a steel ring is attached with two dozen adjustable ties-screws, tensioning the membrane, and on the back side - with a gap of 2 cm. A slightly larger diameter wooden removable half-body is installed -resonator (removable if necessary to lower the volume of the instrument or to access the anchor rod that secures the neck and regulates the distance from the strings to the plane of the neck). The strings are tensioned through a wooden (less often steel) “filly” resting directly on the membrane. The diaphragm and resonator give the banjo a purity and power of sound that allows it to stand out from other instruments. Therefore, it found a place in New Orleans jazz groups, where it performed both rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment, and sometimes short, energetic solos and bridges. The four strings of a jazz tenor banjo are usually tuned like an alto ( do-sol-re-la) or (less commonly) like a violin ( sol-re-la-mi).

American folk music most often uses a bluegrass banjo (sometimes called a western banjo, country banjo) with 5 strings, a longer scale and specific tuning. The shortened fifth string is not tensioned on the peg head, but on a separate peg on the neck itself (at the fifth fret). Chord playing with a plectrum, which existed initially, was later supplanted by arpeggiated playing with “claws” worn on the fingers. Playing without the use of “claws” and various percussion techniques are also used. The 5-string banjo appears in traditional American music groups along with the fiddle, flat mandolin, and folk or dobro guitar.

The banjo is also widely used in country and bluegrass music. Prominent banjo players include Wade Meiner and Earl Scruggs, who are known for their innovative playing techniques. In Europe, the Czech band Banjo Band of Ivan Mládek became famous.

The 6-string banjo is a relatively rare instrument; it is popular with guitarists because its tuning is completely identical to that of a guitar, but not in the classic E tuning, but a tone lower, in D (D-A-F-C-G-D).

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Notes

1. In Australian slang, the word "banjo" means 10 Australian dollars.

Literature

• // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• Encyclopedia of a young musician / Igor Kubersky, E. V. Minina. - St. Petersburg: Diamant LLC, 2001. - 576 p.
• Everything about everything (Le Livre des Instruments de Musique) / Translation from French. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC, 2002. - 272 p.

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Excerpt describing Banjo

Banjo– a musical instrument is now very fashionable and in demand, previously it was quite difficult to buy it within the CIS, but now it is in every music store. It's probably due to the pleasant shape, ease of play and pleasant, quiet sound. Many music lovers see their idols in movies playing the banjo and also want to take possession of this wonderful thing.

Traditional American instrument

It is believed that there was no more important instrument for African traditional music in the 19th century; Thanks to its simplicity, it appeared even in the poorest families, and many black Americans tried to master it. This tandem is interesting: fiddle plus banjo, some experts believe that this combination is classic for “early” American music. There are various options, but most often you can find a 6-string banjo, because it is easy to play after the guitar, but there are varieties with a reduced or, conversely, increased number of strings

Blues and country banjo

There is no need to write off another type of American classic - country - these are fiery songs with a characteristic sound. Another guitar joins the duet and it turns out to be a full-fledged trio. It is important that musicians can exchange instruments, because the playing techniques are very similar; the only fundamental difference is the sound, which has a different resonant and timbre coloring. It’s interesting that some people think that the banjo sounds cheerful and this is its main difference, others, on the contrary, that it is characterized by a sad “blues” sound, it’s difficult to argue with this, since opinions are divided and a compromise can not always be found.

Banjo Strings

Strings are made of metal and less often of plastic (PVC, nylon), special windings are used (steel and non-ferrous alloys: copper, brass, etc.), which give the sound a more sonorous and sharper tone. The characteristic sound of a banjo is considered to be the sound of a “tin can”, since the first sensation is that the strings are clinging to something and rattling. It turns out that this is, on the contrary, good and many musicians strive to recreate this original “drum guitar” sound in their playing. In the auto industry there is a banjo bolt, which, according to some information, is related to music, but in fact, with its head (it is “tightly connected” to the washer and has a hole for fixing on the thread-free part), it resembles the structure of the drum-deck of the instrument, perhaps this is how it got its name.

Tool design

As already mentioned, the body is not a classic guitar soundboard, but a kind of drum; a membrane is fixed on the front side (it replaces the resonator hole), it is tensioned using a metal ring. This is very reminiscent of snare drum strings. And in fact it’s like this: after all, the sound is not external, like that of a guitar or balalaika, domra, but internal, drum-like, the membrane rattles - that’s why we get such a unique sound. The ring is attached using ties - these are specialized screws. Nowadays banjos are rarely made from leather, although this was the material used in the original; now they use plastic, which is practical and easy to replace if necessary, and is cheap.

The string stand is placed directly on the membrane, it determines the height at which the strings will be located. The lower they are, the easier it is for the performer to play. The neck is wooden, solid or made of parts, and is attached, like a guitar, with an anchor rod, with which you can adjust the concavity. The strings are tensioned by pegs that use a worm gear.

Types of banjo

The original American banjo has not 6, but 5 strings (it is called blue grass, translated as blue grass), and the bass string is tuned to G and always remains open (it is shortened and does not clamp), you need to get used to this tuning, although it is quite just after the guitar, since the technique of plucking chords is similar. There are models without a shortened fifth string, these are classic four-string banjos: C, G, D, A, but the Irish use their special tuning, where the G moves to the top, so it is very difficult to understand what they are playing, since the chords are pressed in an intricate way and not at all like that , as Americans are used to. The six-string banjo is the simplest, it is called a banjo guitar, it has the same tuning, therefore it is especially loved by guitarists. An interesting instrument, the banjolele, combines a ukulele and a banjo.
And if there are 8 strings, and 4 are double, then it is a banjo-mandolin.
There is also a popular attraction, the banjo trampoline, which has little to do with music but is very popular and is not recommended for children under 12 because it has some degree of danger. In some countries it is prohibited due to accidents, but these are just specifics. The main thing is good insurance and proper use of protective equipment.

Banjo. BANJO (English banjo), a stringed musical instrument. Around 17th century exported from West Africa to the southern states of the USA. In the 1830s. acquired its modern form. Varieties of the banjo are used in jazz. Musician with banjo... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

A stringed plucked musical instrument with a tambourine-shaped body and a long wooden neck with a neck on which 4 to 9 core strings are stretched. T. Jefferson mentions the banjo in 1784; Apparently, the instrument was brought to America by blacks... ... Collier's Encyclopedia

- [English] banjo] music a stringed musical instrument created based on the reconstruction of a folk instrument of American blacks; widely used in jazz (JAZZ). Dictionary of foreign words. Komlev N.G., 2006. banjo (English banjo)… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (English banjo), a plucked string musical instrument. Around 17th century exported from West Africa to the southern states of the USA. In the 1830s. acquired its modern form. Varieties of banjo are used in jazz... Modern encyclopedia

- (English banjo) a plucked string musical instrument. OK. 17th century transported from the West. Africa to the southern states of the USA. In the 1830s. took on its modern form... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

BANJO, uncl., cf. Stringed musical instrument. Play on b. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Noun, number of synonyms: 1 instrument (541) ASIS synonym dictionary. V.N. Trishin. 2013… Synonym dictionary

Unchanged; Wed [English] banjo]. A stringed musical instrument with a cylindrical leather-covered body and a long neck (originally a folk instrument of American blacks). * * * banjo (English banjo), plucked string musical... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

banjo- BANJO, uncl., Wed A stringed plucked musical instrument, with a flat body covered in leather and a long neck, first appeared among American blacks. You can't play country music without a banjo... Explanatory dictionary of Russian nouns

banjo- banjo is a stringed musical instrument with a tambourine-shaped body and a long wooden neck with a neck on which 4 to 9 core strings are stretched. T. Jefferson mentions the banjo in 1784 (apparently, the instrument was brought to America... ... Russian index to the English-Russian dictionary of musical terminology

Books

• Banjo. Deliverance, Jack Curtis, James Dickey. This edition includes two action-packed novels by the masters of psychological detective Jack Curtis and James Dickey - “Banjo” and “Deliverance”...
• Banjo. Deliverance, Jack Curtis, James Dickey. This edition includes two action-packed novels by the masters of psychological detective Jack Curtis and James Dickey - Banjo and Deliverance. ISBN:5-85434-071-2…

Banjo is a stringed musical instrument with a tambourine-shaped body and a long wooden neck with a neck on which 4 to 9 strand strings are stretched. A type of guitar with a resonator (the extended part of the instrument is covered with leather, like a drum). Thomas Jefferson mentions the banjo in 1784 - the instrument was probably brought to America by black slaves from West Africa, where some Arab instruments were its predecessors. In the 19th century, the banjo began to be used by minstrels and thus found its way into early jazz bands as a rhythmic instrument. In modern America, the word “banjo” refers to either its tenor variety with four strings tuned in fifths, the lower of which is up to a small octave, or a five-string instrument with a different tuning. The banjo is played using a plectrum.

The banjo is a relative of the well-known European mandolin, similar in shape to it. But there is a sharp difference in sound between them - the banjo has a more ringing and harsh sound. In some African countries, the banjo is considered a sacred instrument that can only be touched by high priests or rulers.

Origin
African slaves in South America shaped the earliest banjos into closely related African instruments. Some of the early instruments were known as “pumpkin banjos.” Most likely, the leading candidate for the ancestor of the banjo is the akonting, a folk lute used by the Diola tribe. There are other instruments similar to the banjo (xalam, ngoni). The modern banjo was made popular by minstrel Joel Sweeney in the 1830s. The banjo was brought to Britain in the 1840s by the Sweeneys, American minstrels, and quickly became quite popular.

Modern types of banjo
The modern banjo comes in a wide variety of styles, including five- and six-string versions. The six-string version, tuned like a guitar, has also become very popular. Almost all types of banjo are played with a distinctive tremolo or arpeggiated right hand, although there are many different styles of playing.

Application
Today, the banjo is commonly associated with country and bluegrass music. However, from a historical perspective, bando has a central place in African-American traditional music, as did 19th-century minstrel shows. In fact, African-Americans greatly influenced the early development of country and bluegrass music through the introduction of the banjo, as well as through innovative banjo and fiddle playing techniques. Recently, the banjo has been used in a variety of musical genres, including pop and Celtic punk. Even more recently, hardcore musicians have begun to show interest in the banjo.

History of the banjo

Back in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson described a similar homemade instrument called a bonjar, made from a dried pumpkin cut in half, a mutton skin as a top, strings from mutton sinew, and a fret board. And many sources mentioned that similar instruments were known on the island of Jamaica back in the 17th century. Many scholars of the history of American folk music believe that the banjo is a Negro folk instrument either smuggled out of Africa or reproduced on an African model in America. Consequently, it is much older than Russian (Tatar origin) balalaikas and Russian (German origin) accordions (but not gusli, horns and some types of folk bowed ones, almost forgotten now). Initially there were from 5 to 9 strings, there were no saddles on the neck. This is due to the peculiarities of the musical scale of blacks. There is no precise intonation in African black music. Deviations from the main tone reach 1.5 tones. And this has been preserved in the American stage to this day (jazz, blues, soul).

Not everyone knows the following fact: North American blacks did not really like to show whites the pearls of their culture. Gospel music and spirituals were literally dragged out to the white public from the black community by force of pincers. The banjo was pulled out of the black environment by the white minstrel-show. What kind of phenomenon is this? Imagine cultural life in Europe and America around the 1830s. Europe is operas, symphonies, theater. America - nothing but home singing of old grandfather's (English, Irish, Scottish) songs. But if you want some culture, give a simple American a simple culture. And so in the 1840s, a simple provincial white American received mobile, nomadic musical theaters with a troupe of 6-12 people throughout the country, showing the common man a simple repertoire (skits, skits, dances, etc.). Such a performance was usually accompanied by an ensemble consisting of 1-2 violins, 1-2 banjos, a tambourine, bones, and later an accordion began to join them. The composition of the ensemble was borrowed from slave household ensembles.

The dance on the minstrel stage was inseparable from the sound of the banjo. From the 40s until the end of the “minstrel era,” the stage was dominated by two inextricably linked artistic figures - the soloist-dancer and the soloist-banjo player. In a certain sense, he combined both functions in his person, because, in anticipation of playing and singing, as well as in the process of playing music itself, he stamped, danced, swayed, revealing and exaggerating (for example, with the help of additional sounds extracted from a wooden stand in circuses) complex rhythms Negro dances. It is characteristic that the minstrel piece for banjo even bore a name that was associated with any dance on the pseudo-Negro stage - “jig”. Of all the variety and diversity of instruments of European and African origin that took root on American soil, minstrels chose the sounds of the banjo as the most harmonious with their dominant system of images. Not only as a solo instrument, but also as a member of the future minstrel ensemble (band), the banjo retained its leading role...”

The sound of the banjo supported not only the rhythm, but also the harmony and melody of the music being played. Moreover, subsequently the melody began to be replaced by virtuosic instrumental texture. This required extraordinary performance skills from the performer. The instrument itself came to a 4- or 5-string version, and frets appeared on the neck.

However, black Americans suddenly lost interest in the banjo and categorically expelled it from their midst, replacing it with the guitar. This is due to the “shameful” tradition of portraying blacks in white minstrel shows. Negroes were depicted in 2 forms: either a lazy half-fool-idler from a plantation in rags, or a kind of dandy copying the manners and clothes of whites, but also a half-fool. Black women were depicted as full of erotic lust, extremely dissolute...

Later, from 1890, the era of ragtime, jazz, and blues came. Minstrel shows are a thing of the past. The banjo was picked up by white, and a little later by black brass bands playing syncopated polkas and marches, and later ragtimes. Drums alone did not provide the required level of rhythmic pulsation (swing), a moving rhythmic instrument was required to syncopate the sound of the orchestra. White orchestras immediately began to use a four-string tenor banjo (tuning c, g, d1, a1), black orchestras first used a guitar banjo (tuning a six-string guitar E, A, d, g, h, e1), and later relearned the tenor banjo.

During the first jazz recording in 1917 by the white orchestra “Original Dixieland Jazz Band”, it turned out that all the drums except the snare drum on the record were poorly heard, but the banjo rhythm was even very good. Jazz developed, the “Chicago” style arose, recording technology developed, better electromechanical sound recording appeared, the sound of jazz bands became softer, rhythm sections needed a more harmonically flexible guitar, and the banjo disappeared from jazz, migrating to a jazz band that had been experiencing a real boom since the 20s. last century country music. After all, not all whites wanted to listen to jazz.

Based on the melodies of English, Irish, Scottish songs and ballads, country music has also formed its own instrumentation: guitar, mandolin, fiddle, resonator guitar invented by the Domani brothers, ukulele, harmonica, banjo. The tenor banjo got a tuner on the 5th fret, a 5th string as thick as the first, and changed the tuning to (g1,c, g, h, d1). The playing technique has changed; instead of playing chords with a pick, arpeggiated playing with the so-called “claws” - Fingerpicking - has appeared. And a new child was named - American or bluegrass banjo.

Meanwhile, Europe recognized the tenor banjo. The great composers mostly died out, Europe suddenly gravitated towards the medieval-Renaissance song roots. The war slowed down this process, but after the war skiffles music appeared in England.

Then the famous Chieftains and Dubliners and Celtic music appeared. The Dubliners, for example, had both a tenor and an American banjo in their lineup. After the war, some jazz musicians wanted to return to their roots; the Dixieland movement arose in America and Europe, led by trumpeter Max Kaminski, and the tenor banjo sounded again in jazz. And it sounds now even in our Dixielands.

“George was holding in his hands some strange package wrapped in oilcloth. It was round and flat at the end, and had a long, straight handle sticking out of it. - What it is? - asked Harris. - Frying pan? “No,” George answered, looking at us with some dangerous gleam in his eyes. - This year it is very fashionable. Everyone takes them with them to the river. This - banjo».

The quote from the popular book “Three in a Boat and a Dog” by the English classic Jerome K. Jerome is probably known to everyone. But few people now know what exactly this “fashionable” instrument called “banjo” was at the end of the 19th century. (English banjo) is a plucked string musical instrument, related to the guitar. Its body looks like a flat tambourine with a leather membrane stretched on one side. With the help of a plectrum, the banjo produces a very sharp, sharp sound that fades almost immediately.

Initially, the body of the instrument looked like a flat drum open at the bottom, covered with a leather membrane, with a long neck with a head and no frets. The banjo had from four to nine gut strings, one of which was plucked with the thumb and was the melodic string, and the rest were used for accompaniment.

The future 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, described a similar homemade instrument back in 1784, which was called a “bonjar.” It was made from half a dried pumpkin, on which a lamb skin was stretched as a soundboard. The strings were made from mutton sinew, and a board served as the fingerboard.

Historians who study American folk music believe that the banjo is a black instrument, either taken from Africa around the 17th century or restored to an African model in America. Initially there were no frets on the fretboard. This is explained by the fact that black music did not have precise intonation. Permissible deviations from the main tone were up to one and a half tones. In American pop music this has survived to this day (jazz, blues, soul).

From the black environment, the banjo found its way into the white minstrel show. The dance and the sound of the banjo on the minstrel stage were inseparable. From the 1840s until the advent of the first jazz bands, the main actors on stage were two soloists - a dancer and a banjo player. At the same time, the musician to a large extent performed both functions, dancing and beating with his feet complex rhythms characteristic of black dances.

It is no coincidence that of all the various Old World instruments that appeared on the American continent, minstrels chose the banjo. This instrument performed an excellent role not only as a soloist, but also became an indispensable member of the future minstrel ensemble (band).

The banjo stands out among other instruments due to the clarity and power of sound that its head produces. Therefore, in jazz groups, the instrument performs both rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment. The four-string version is used here.

In the 19th century, the instrument was improved: one more string was added to the four, and frets appeared on the neck. The five-string banjo is characteristic of American folk music. On it, chords are played with the right hand using a plectrum (the thumb is used for bass).

The development of country and bluegrass styles actually began with the spread of the African-American banjo and fiddle, as well as the constant improvement of musical performance techniques. Nowadays, the banjo is increasingly used in a variety of musical styles, including pop, hardcore and Celtic punk.

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