History of the Banjo
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- The banjo's sound is synonymous with country, folk, and bluegrass-music as "white" as it gets. For many, it's the quintessential American instrument. Its origin, though, lies in Africa, in various instruments featuring skin drum heads and gourd bodies. Slaves fashioned them into the modern version in the colonial Caribbean, from where it traveled, via 19th-century minstrel shows, into the very heart of American popular culture. Duke University historian Laurent Dubois, one of the world's foremost experts on the Caribbean, traces the banjo's extraordinary trajectory and the part it has played in the very concept of America.
This program is presented in partnership with the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University.
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At 7:30 he's right about the Caribbean playing an important role in modern democracies. I assume he's referring to Haiti. I"m pleasantly surprised to see that acknowledged.
The banjo was formed and brought by African slaves to America , the Irish and Scottish just adopted it into their musical style , even the name banjo is an African word , it’s not an Irish or Scottish word , I mean come on think about it, the name banjo sounds very african, people need to do more research , some folks don’t like to give Africans positive credit to the contributions to American culture and history.
the banjo was never in Africa, it's ancestors were. The banjo as we know it is American.
@@claytonwalter8700 It's the same instrument played in the same way. It's an African instrument that continued to be played by Africans in the Caribbean in the Americas who were enslaved. The play of even the 1970s clips he showed are still recoginizable and comparable to West African djelli akonting players of Senegal from the finger stroke on the strings to even the percusive tap as well as even deliberately falsetto singing styles. It doesn't really become "American" other than the language change.
@@claytonwalter8700 Also the other Africanness of the instrument is when he mentioned an early 1800s performer who described what occurred during a failed rebellion of enslaved Africans in Virginia. Well, all the djeli (griot) of West Africa whether they play the akonting, the ngoni/xhallan, or the kora or other harps.... they are ALL storytellers. The point is they recall actual history or current events as they are singing. That was their function in society to perform for the people or ruling class and recount an event while playing the instrument. So this notion that the American version evolved into something else by enslaved Africans doesn't hold water when you cmpare it to its African context. The only major change is language and setting and the changes to the instrument as it becomes constructed differently.
@@kemetnubiakamp The banjo itself was invented in North America by enslaved Africans. Yes it’s quite remarkably similar to the instruments it’s based on.
@@claytonwalter8700 It's literally descendant of several west african instruments. Nothing about the banjo is european not even it's name. Just white people needing to have their stamp on any and everything black because their imperialist colonial mindset can't allow themselves to be influenced by something black or have black people have made something without them.
Yeah, because actually hanging around and learning something would be bad. Especially if it shatters racist illusions. Stay dumb about it then. This is an awesome documentary.
Jeff Menzies is doing amazing work currently in Jamaica with traditional banjo making!
I really wish there were more black musicologists and historians because I feel like there's a lot of things he missed the opportunity to talk about just by the nature of not having lived the black experience.
Like, he mentioned how the banjo is seen as a symbol of history and tradition and of American ignorance but not enough about how it became SPECIFICALLY a symbol of White Southern American tradition and all the ignorance and intolerance that goes along with that. And that it stopped being a symbol of black tradition after it became the staple instrument in minstrel shows which were weaponized propaganda against former slaves and black people stopped having a reverence for tradition because they stopped being able to romanticize their parents and grandparents lives.
I feel like he kind of glossed over the fact that it used to be a symbol of hope and became a symbol of oppression.
Or maybe that's just me.
You'd have to look to people like Rihannon Giddings who talks about how the music was "discovered" in Appalachia all while citing Black banjo players in Appalachia but disregarding them in search of the named white musicians in the same area. Also the outlet in which black Banjo players were allowed to perform as minstrels who further blackened their faces to play their own instruments in the American minstrel shows.
It's so cool to see how all the instruments came about. People have some great imaginations on how to create the tools to make great music.
The introduction alone was worth a "like" ;-)
idiot
The music of Appalachia had its roots in several traditions, and the syncopation of Appalachian an Old Time originated from Black musicians. Those rhythms developed the basis of Ragtime
This presentation was trash. You clearly went out of your way to skip over the Black American pioneers of banjo folk music who introduced it white people. You spent 30 minutes on Africa and the Caribbean but showed nothing about where the American origin of banjo music came from. Which supposedly was the premise your presentation. Africa and Caribbean don’t play this style. You intentionally omitted the credit to Black American pioneers of American banjo music, Leadbelly, Arnold Shultz, Deford Bailey etc
Has a good focus on the roots, but are they correct? Was it made in Africa? Yes, sure, who knows, but if you want closer truth, watch the documentary from Clifton Hicks. Certainly the best instrument, regardless whether it is blakc or white.
The Banjo came from Africans! Say what you wish, but this instrument comes from us.
Thomas Williams us?
No africans in the new world invented banjos, no banjos in africa before that
@@writerrad Who invented their degree sunburn?
@@writerrad You need to lower your meth dosage immediately.
What is wrong with her face?
Amazing introduction!
Lo mejor de todo es que a 11 años de este video están ya apropiándose, no solo del banjo sino también del country 🤯😞
Joel Walker Sweeney was quite explicit that he learned to play the banjo from African Americans enslaved and freed who lived on plantations near the farm his family owned in Virginia. Before he joined commercial circus groups and show business Sweeney played in a local band that included African Americans. Sweeney and all the other minstrel banjo players of his era were quite explicit in proclaiming that he was playing music in a style that he learned from Black people on an instrument created by Black people. They considered it necessary to emphasize this by performing in Black face to represent their view of how Black people made music and behaved. No doubt what they did ended up as expressing racism and insulting, but they clearly saw banjo playing as a Black thing, and tried to approximate it in order to do that.
I should say that EARL SCRUGGS WAS ADAMANT TO SHOW HIS SUPPORT TO THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF THE BANJO in part out of shame for the way earlier stuff by Louise Scruggs in the 1950s . A friend of mine who is a banjo and African instrument collector based in Sweden helping to acquire African instruments that are the precursor of the banjo for the museum on the banjo Earl set up near where he was born shortly before he passed.. I am not unknown to the world of the banjo. In the avatar picture here, I am playing the Kyle Creed banjo that Tommy Jarrell used for most of his major recordings.
Laurent and I have been friends for more than a decade and he credits me for encouraging to turn his research toward the banjo but Bluegrass was started by BILL MONROE NOT LESTER AND EARL. Laurent is one of the world's leading experts on the culture of the Black Caribbean where the banjo originated and has written a series of overwhelmingly great books on Haiti and Guadaloupe. Because of this he has had access to some of the most deep and extensive scholarship of the Caribbean and Africa from the world's leading scholars which has been a boon for banjo research.
lol this comments section has me feeling like I'm sifting through shit looking for gold. There's certainly some gold there but most of it is well, shit.
Dink Roberts @ 21:10 !!!
The banjo is as American as the Kung Pow Chicken.
Menstrels are laughing at your comment while watching others eating pheasants
bluegrass was started by flatt and skruggs, eh?
..... yeah.
Nope, they just perfected it!
It was actually Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs who created blue grass
Nope. Blue grass was create African Americans.
J Giles they invented the banjo, not bluegrass. That being said, the banjo in 1948, when bluegrass was created, had about as much in common with the banjos the slaves used as a F-150 has with a Model T.
African Americans had long abandoned the banjo as a vestige of slavery by the time bluegrass was created.
Yeah and Elvis Pressley invented Rock and Roll. LOL.
This video content is deceitful.
Bob Marley grew up listening to banjos in Jamaican traditional music, many reggae songs have become standards in modern Bluegrass, or New Grass. Reggae is Bluegrass slowed down, I am not sure why the Whalers played slower, hmm, I'm thinking, nope, not sure why.
reggae borrowed from American R&B and sould music. Go look up Roscoe Gordon.
MisterZoe Yes, and Bluegrass is blues and jazz based, as well as fiddle tunes it's an offshoot of Jazz.
are you a devotee of Jamaica's weed, because that seems to be the only solurce of your ideas. Why not read a serious book about banjos written in the past 30 years.
hey man, i hate your other comment was withheld, but i have to ask you. what exactly are you saying about imperialist cultures pretending that they had invented something?
My point exactly
What an intro!
Doug Dillard brought me here
here is a string Band Out of St. Kitts and Nevis with a locally hand made Banjo
Nothing sucks the fun out the banjo more than scholars. They revel in minutia and forget to dance!
ni ban
ni jo
ni gui
ni tare
I'm a white guy and I didn't learn to play banjo but as a part of a college music theory class we discussed the origins of different instruments and the professor gave us the whole history of the banjo. It came from Africa. Fact.
Did someone tell the professor that getting too close to this kind of mic will easily cause distortion and excessive wind noise, and may cause some banjo players to abandon this video, despite our reputation for enjoying harsh sounds?
Well, that's pretty common of most professors and academics...distortion and excessive wind noise.
did someone tell the prof too that he's presentation is all false
Laurant is an expert banjo player in both the old time and bluegrass styles as well as on tenor banjo in the jazz style. he is an amazing man, a world class scholar of the Caribbean, author of a great book on the banjo, the supporter behind the scenes of important initiatves in banjo research and on top of that his hobby of being soccer football fan has gotten him to be asked to cover the world cup when it happens for major publications. Besides he great scholarly books on the Caribbean, he has had New York Times best seller books on Soccer and Haiti today and he he a hell of a banjo player
dark haired richard dawkins blows your mind about banjos and makes their sales stop falling.
well, the modern banjo we all know today was infact developed in america. When early european people came to america and decided to add a more classical/celtic touch to the "bango". so in a way the banjo is just like all of america, how all the different cultures came together and began fusing with one another to make something completely original.
plainly wrong
Nice try, it's still African in origin
@Shane Lindsey, America can and does claim full credit for the banjo. The banjo was invented in America by African slaves. The only thing Africa can claim is that they invented the inspiration for the banjo, which is the Ekonting.
Ummm hey.... actual African here, we don't need your permission to claim something that's ours. I can play jarabi on a gayaguem, that instrument will still be a Korean instrument
Thanks!!!
The modern 5 string was invented by Joel Sweeney who added a couple of strings and used a snare drum instead of a gourd. The gourd banjo had three strings, a drone, and the top two strings , Sweeney added the third and fourth string creating the 5 string, American all the way.
"invented"? no... Modified thanks to the industrial revolution made possible from European atrocities globally. Too many European words are foreign for you all to pump yourselves up like that. Let's start with Algebra an Arabic word. Coffee another one. You don't know history. You were told that white man did is all then you find out that is bullshit and you have a meltdown. LOL
CVbeats I said modern banjo, with a snare drum, and more strings, he modified the much older African version. Meltdown? Why is this suddenly about race? I was talking about the banjo and its history. What a bigoted response to assume you know the first thing about me based on your stereo type of a white male.
CVbeats Why did you make this political? We're not in class.
CVbeats Pump myself up, I don't know history? Every single empire that ever existed committed atrocities, including some big ones in Africa who started the slave trade. The Europeans ended slavery, The US and Britain were the first counties to outlaw slavery, which still exists to this day and parts of Africa and the Middle East. European countries are the most tolerant in the World, diversity is a western ideal. The fact that you get to spout your stupid comment with impunity is a product of free speech, another terrible American ideal, which came from the Enlightenment.
Bitch you made it about race you dumb ass. "Joel Sweeney a European American" You can't even stay on topic. Free speech? Bitch go back to Europe where you belong.
Lmfao the person who plays at the beginning was actually the lieutenant governor of Illinois,I guess here in illinois politicians waste their time playing banjos instead of passing budgets (and they will tax me for playing my banjo!)
banjo playing bison Ha That's funny.
Many cultures developed instruments that are similar to the banjo. But it was Europeans that gave the world the 12 note scale. Without that all music would be out of tune.
Ok....the video is about the African origins of the banjo
The gentleman who invented the banjo we all know today was a American European called Joe Walker Sweaney who added the fifth string and also the circular rim which is used today. way different from the African instrument and very American
St. Apollonius bitch please...africans have been playing the banjo before europeans stepped their foot in africa.
St. Apollonius Another attempt of whitewashing history, just ad a string to something another group created. Why not set out on the high seas and find a land that has people living their for centuries and teach that white lie to school children.
St. Apollonius ...where did Sweeney learn to play?
I have no dog in this hunt, but the akonting doesn't seem way different than the banjo. Few things happen in isolation, and tracing stuff back to it's origin is often murky. Seems more accurate to say the American banjo came from African roots, but america modified it and popularized it, and created a lot of music to play on it. Calling it American seems fair as long as it's understood what it's roots are
Right...and I'll bet you also believe Antonio Stradivari invented the violin.
"..Try to do a more technical analysis..." Geez, Louise, give me a break. That's all we need is some "professional student" taking all the fun out of playing the banjer and trying to make it understandable for all their high brow, "just enough education to be dangerous" kith and kin. I'm always amused at people who have to analyze something like this. I notice the first part of the word is "anal", and that tells me a lot. Oh, ye learn-ed wherefore art thou head?
ignorance never helped anyone, Laurent is a terrific banjo player
What a serious bore I gave up 8 minutes in.
St. Apollonius .....protect that ignorance....
Pelu Maad I will if you will
St. Apollonius ...you did....I know better....
you fight hard to be an ignorant racist.
When im bored of a video I normally don't feel compelled to leave a comment 😂