Banjo musical instrument. For those who decide to buy a banjo. Modern types of banjo

From West Africa, where its predecessors were some Arabic instruments. 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 [[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]][[K:Wikipedia:Articles without sources (country: Lua error: callParserFunction: function "#property" was not found. )]] lutes 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 transitions. 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

• Banio // 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: LLC “Diamant”, 2001. - 576 p.
• Everything about everything (Le Livre des Instruments de Musique) / Translation from French. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC, 2002. - 272 p.

Links

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View this template Banjo Game techniques Genres People

View this template Bowed Plucked Percussion strings Percussion keyboards Plucked-keyboards Friction-keyboards Other

View this template Typical tools Stylistic origin Sub- and fusion genres Famous festivals Other

Excerpt describing Banjo

Almost a month has passed since my first visit to the cellars. There was no one nearby with whom I could even say a word. Loneliness oppressed more and more deeply, planting an emptiness in the heart, acutely seasoned with despair...
I really hoped that Morone still survived, despite the “talents” of the Pope. But she was afraid to return to the cellars, because she was not sure whether the unfortunate cardinal was still there. My return visit could bring upon him the real anger of Caraffa, and Morona would have to pay really dearly for this.
Remaining fenced off from any communication, I spent my days in complete “silence of loneliness.” Until, finally, unable to bear it any longer, she went down to the basement again...
The room in which I found Morone a month ago was empty this time. One could only hope that the brave cardinal was still alive. And I sincerely wished him good luck, which, unfortunately, the prisoners of Caraffa clearly lacked.
And since I was already in the basement anyway, after thinking a little, I decided to look further and carefully opened the next door...
And there, on some terrible torture “instrument” lay a completely naked, bloody young girl, whose body was a real mixture of living burnt meat, cuts and blood, covering her from head to toe... Neither the executioner nor the more - Caraffa, fortunately for me, there were no tortures in the torture room.
I quietly approached the unfortunate woman and carefully stroked her swollen, tender cheek. The girl moaned. Then, carefully taking her fragile fingers into my palm, I slowly began to “treat” her... Soon clear, gray eyes looked at me in surprise...
- Quiet, honey... Lie quietly. I will try to help you as much as possible. But I don’t know if I’ll have enough time... You’ve been hurt a lot, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to “fix” it all quickly. Relax, my dear, and try to remember something kind... if you can.
The girl (she turned out to be just a child) groaned, trying to say something, but for some reason the words did not come out. She mumbled, unable to pronounce even the shortest word clearly. And then a terrible realization struck me - this unfortunate woman had no tongue!!! They tore it out... so as not to say too much! So that she wouldn’t scream the truth when they burn her at the stake... So that she wouldn’t be able to say what they did to her...
Oh God!.. Was all this really done by PEOPLE???
Having calmed my deadened heart a little, I tried to turn to her mentally - the girl heard. Which meant that she was gifted!.. One of those whom the Pope hated so fiercely. And who did he so brutally burn alive on his terrifying human bonfires....
- What did they do to you, dear?!.. Why did they take away your speech?!
Trying to pull higher the coarse rags that had fallen from her body with naughty, trembling hands, I whispered in shock.
“Don’t be afraid of anything, my dear, just think about what you would like to say, and I will try to hear you.” What's your name, girl?
“Damiana...” the answer whispered quietly.
“Hold on, Damiana,” I smiled as gently as possible. - Hold on, don’t slip away, I’ll try to help you!
But the girl only slowly shook her head, and a clean, lonely tear rolled down her battered cheek...
- Thank you... for your kindness. But I’m no longer a tenant... – her quiet “mental” voice rustled in response. - Help me... Help me “go away.” Please... I can't stand it anymore... They'll be back soon... Please! They desecrated me... Please help me “leave”... You know how. Help... I will thank you “there” and remember you...
She grabbed my wrist with her thin fingers, disfigured by torture, clutching it with a death grip, as if she knew for sure that I could really help her... could give her the peace she wanted...
A sharp pain twisted my tired heart... This sweet, brutally tortured girl, almost a child, begged me for death as a favor!!! The executioners not only wounded her fragile body - they desecrated her pure soul, raping her together!.. And now Damiana was ready to “leave.” She asked for death as deliverance, even for a moment, without thinking about salvation. She was tortured and desecrated, and did not want to live... Anna appeared before my eyes... God, was it really possible that the same terrible end awaited her?!! Will I be able to save her from this nightmare?!

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 virtuoso 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, and Europe was suddenly drawn to 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.

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 transitions. 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).

Write a review about the article "Banjo"

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: LLC “Diamant”, 2001. - 576 p.
• Everything about everything (Le Livre des Instruments de Musique) / Translation from French. - M.: AST Publishing House LLC, 2002. - 272 p.

Links

Banjo Game techniques Genres People

Bowed Plucked Percussion strings Percussion keyboards Plucked-keyboards Friction-keyboards Other

Typical tools Stylistic origin Sub- and fusion genres Famous festivals Other

Excerpt describing Banjo

Absolute continuity of movement is incomprehensible to the human mind. The laws of any movement become clear to a person only when he examines arbitrarily taken units of this movement. But at the same time, from this arbitrary division of continuous movement into discontinuous units stems most of human error.
The so-called sophism of the ancients is known, which consists in the fact that Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise in front, despite the fact that Achilles walks ten times faster than the tortoise: as soon as Achilles passes the space separating him from the tortoise, the tortoise will pass ahead of him one tenth of this space; Achilles will walk this tenth, the tortoise will walk one hundredth, etc. ad infinitum. This task seemed insoluble to the ancients. The meaninglessness of the decision (that Achilles would never catch up with the tortoise) stemmed from the fact that discontinuous units of movement were arbitrarily allowed, while the movement of both Achilles and the tortoise was continuous.
By taking smaller and smaller units of movement, we only get closer to the solution of the problem, but never achieve it. Only by admitting an infinitesimal value and an ascending progression from it to one tenth and taking the sum of this geometric progression do we achieve a solution to the question. A new branch of mathematics, having achieved the art of dealing with infinitesimal quantities, and in other more complex questions of motion, now provides answers to questions that seemed insoluble.
This new, unknown to the ancients, branch of mathematics, when considering issues of motion, admits infinitesimal quantities, that is, those at which the main condition of motion is restored (absolute continuity), thereby correcting that inevitable mistake that the human mind cannot help but make when considering instead of continuous movement, individual units of movement.
In the search for the laws of historical movement, exactly the same thing happens.
The movement of humanity, resulting from countless human tyranny, occurs continuously.
Comprehension of the laws of this movement is the goal of history. But in order to comprehend the laws of continuous movement of the sum of all the arbitrariness of people, the human mind allows for arbitrary, discontinuous units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrary series of continuous events and consider it separately from the others, whereas there is not and cannot be the beginning of any event, and one event always follows continuously from another. The second technique is to consider the action of one person, a king, a commander, as the sum of the arbitrariness of people, while the sum of human arbitrariness is never expressed in the activity of one historical person.
Historical science, in its movement, constantly accepts smaller and smaller units for consideration and in this way strives to get closer to the truth. But no matter how small the units that history accepts, we feel that the assumption of a unit separated from another, the assumption of the beginning of some phenomenon and the assumption that the arbitrariness of all people is expressed in the actions of one historical person are false in themselves.
Every conclusion of history, without the slightest effort on the part of criticism, disintegrates like dust, leaving nothing behind, only due to the fact that criticism selects a larger or smaller discontinuous unit as the object of observation; to which it always has the right, since the historical unit taken is always arbitrary.
Only by allowing an infinitely small unit for observation - the differential of history, that is, the homogeneous drives of people, and having achieved the art of integrating (taking the sums of these infinitesimals), can we hope to comprehend the laws of history.
The first fifteen years of the 19th century in Europe represented an extraordinary movement of millions of people. People leave their usual occupations, rush from one side of Europe to the other, rob, kill one another, triumph and despair, and the whole course of life changes for several years and represents an intensified movement, which at first increases, then weakens. What was the reason for this movement or according to what laws did it occur? - asks the human mind.

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 black slaves from West Africa, where its predecessors were some Arab instruments. In the 19th century The banjo became 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.

Collier's Encyclopedia. - Open Society. 2000 .

Synonyms:

See what "BANJO" is in other dictionaries:

4 string banjo Classification String instrument, Chordophone ... Wikipedia

Banjo- 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

- [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”...