@@matthewcullen1298 You have also seen some insane changes, selfdriving cars, computers that fits in your pocket with all the information in the world... tiktok
As a new banjo player (switching over from classic guitar) something just seems overtly natural about this way of playing. Thank you for articulating what my thoughts felt!!!
I don’t know if a single bluegrass banjo player who uses clawhammer. Plenty of old-time players though. Do you have any examples? I’d love to see them.
The banjo is derived from the African instrument called akonting. African slaves in America continued to make and play them. Slowly the gourd body was replaced with a wooden frame, and five strings became the standard. The banjo became very popular with the white Americans, especially in the southern and appalachain regions. Eventually the wood body was replaced with metal and steel strings and frets were added to get the bluegrass instrument we know today. However, this video shows that the older wooden style is still around.
Exactly! The banza, precursor to the banjo: ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX The akonting: ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a The *muh banjo* 😭🪕 crowd is doing way too much in the comments.
I’m from the Appalachian mountains, and this is how I learned to play banjo after I picked up guitar. However, I’m much more comfortable playing with finger picks since I played guitar for so long before learning banjo. TLDR learned hammerclaw, but prefer finger picks for comfort
It came from them, not Africans. For some reason the black Americans think their African captors allowed them to pack their things before they were force-marched through the jungle to the slave markets. That didn’t happen.
@@scumshine2351 “Music is at a low ebb. Admirable tunists, and no mean tunists, the people betray their incapacity for improvement by remaining contented with the simplest and the most monotonous combinations of sounds. As in everything else, so in this art, - creative talent is wanting. A higher development would have produced other results; yet it is impossible not to remark the delight which they take in harmony. The fisherman will accompany his paddle, the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task of shelling grain, with a song; and for long hours at night the peasants will sit in a ring repeating, with a zest that never flags, the same few notes, and the same unmeaning line." - Burton’s Africa, page 468.
@@scumshine2351 “Devotedly fond of music, the negro's love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle ; his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs; he contents himself with improvising a few notes without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate. . . . When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form; women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail. After venting a little natural distress in a natural sound, the long, loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before." - Burton's Africa, page 497.
Thanks for the history lesson. Banjo is such a unique string instrument. It's like a Violin and a snare drum had a kid that grew really tall and lanky.
for the over-sensitive reactionaries confused about what she's saying (not what you think she's saying) and the history of the banjo, here's the smithsonian on the history of the banjo "Few musical instruments are more deeply connected to the American experience than the banjo. The banjo was created by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Caribbean and colonial North America. Here, they maintained and perpetuated the tradition within a complex system of slave-labor camps, plantations, and in a variety of rural and urban settings. From the earliest references in the 17th century, and through the 1830s, the banjo was exclusively known as an African-American tradition with a West African heritage. What further distinguishes the banjo is that it did not come from Africa “as-is” as an unaltered tradition. Rather, the banjo’s creation was the result of a blending between West African and European forms. Sharing some similarities with the guitar, the best-documented form of the early banjo includes a drum-like body made out of a gourd (or sometimes a calabash) and a neck that could accommodate 4 strings-three long strings that run the full length of the instrument and one short thumb string that stops about halfway up the side of the neck. The drum-like gourd body and strings of different lengths are uniquely African, while the flat fingerboard and tuning pegs are more commonly associated with European traditions."
@@NoahBodze ok, im going to take your comment at face value for a moment even though youre absolutely begging for it not to be. First of all, im curious why, in your opinion, “feral blacks” would attempt to, in your opinion, falsely reclaim an instrument most strongly associated in mainstream culture with inbred, white trash racists? Seems like a funny choice but I digress. While I don’t know how to convince you the smithsonian wouldnt kowtow on the historicity of something because of your “culture war”, ill give you this excerpt from an article in a 2022 issue of _Nature_ that I ironically found while searching “banjo origin africa debunked” “The banjo entered world musical culture through the ingenuity of communities of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. The banjo is rooted within the lute-playing traditions of West Africa, where several remarkably banjo-like instruments and playing styles exist today. The banjo is a creation of the Black diaspora, however, and has no obvious single ancestor among extant West African lutes. Understanding the relative similarities between extant West African lutes and the gourd banjo may shed light on the cultural context of banjo origins. This study examines structural similarities between the gourd banjo and 61 West African lutes using two quantitative approaches for measuring and representing similarity among entities. The banjo groups with a cluster of lutes from peoples in the Senegambia region speaking Bakic languages, which includes the Jola ekonting, an instrument that has garnered considerable recent attention as a banjo relative, but also shows similarities to lutes from the Niger Basin. This suggests that the relatively egalitarian social context of lute playing seen in Bakic language-speaking cultures may have been especially influential on the development of the banjo among enslaved populations in the Caribbean, but that the banjo draws on heterogeneous cultural influences and that more attention should be paid to the influence of eastern Sahel musical cultures on the evolution of the instrument.” I’ll excerpt a portion of a review put out by the Winterthur Portfolio (a Uchicago journal) on the 2007 biography of Joel Sweeney as well, titled _The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy_ (please forgive formatting errors, it was copy and pasted from a pdf) “When historians of American minstrelsy and popular music write about early nineteenth-century blackface performance, they seldom mention Joel Walker Sweeney. Popular performers such as Thomas Rice (who popularized the character ‘‘Jim Crow’’), Dan Emmett (composer of ‘‘Dixie’’), and Billy Whitlock (an early blackface banjo player) usually receive a lion’s share of the glory for making minstrelsy and the banjo part of America’s musical consciousness. The few authors who do mention Joe Sweeney erroneously portray him as either the first white banjo player or inventor of the modern (that is, five-string) banjo. Independent scholar and banjoist Bob Carlin disagrees with his predecessors’ treatments of Sweeney and seeks to set the record straight with his The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy. Carlin argues that Joe Sweeney is one of the most important American minstrels, particularly because of his role in popularizing the banjo. Sweeney helped make this instrument famous by bringing together several existing musical practices to form a novel mode of performance centering on the banjo. A native of Appomattox County, Virginia, Joe Sweeney learned African American songs and performance style from slaves on plantations near his home. Most important, those same bondsmen taught him to play the banjo, an instrument with West African origins that by the 1830s had gained widespread recognition from white musicians and instrument makers. Sweeney inserted his African American musical skills into the blackface routines then fashionable among whites to create a type of entertainment that quickly caught on with concertgoers”
@@wrench8149 im shocked. i'd deign to guess you might only trust sources that provide claims that support your preconceptions, veracity be damned. however, im curious _why_ you dont trust the smithsonian and which sources you _would_ trust.
As I understand it; the banjo is inside red the only instrument that is 100% American. Early versions were found among black slaves, those being made with hollow gourds having one to four strings. More refined versions came with the body type we know now having four string and a more standardized tuning. He fits string was added later on and with it came the claw hammer style. Earl Scruggs did not invent the three finger picking style, but he did make it popular.
There're precursor instruments to the banjo in various African instruments. It did evolve in the US however, and a very similar thing can be said to have happened with the mountain dulcimer, which early version of which were brought to the US by the German settlers who became the Pa Dutch, later taking it down into the Appalachians where it evolved into its current form. So if the Banjo is 100 percent american, it's not the only one
@@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410banjo was made in America...the precursor instruments weren't called banjos... a lute isn't a banjo. A guitar isn't a lute. A mandolin isn't a guitar. A violin isn't a mandolin. A violin isn't a bass...ya get it
@@notsomething7561"the banjo is inside red the only instrument that is 100% American." The banjo is absolutely an American instrument. It may have begun on a stick with strings and evolved to a gourd with strings but it was made and has become synonymous with American bluegrass and classic country music.
It's a lyre with a resonating chamber. There is evidence of a lyre in Syria about 2700 BCE. Not much later there are lyres in Egypt. And the Greeks did great things with it.
I did not know this about the banjo ... Ms. Giddens is pure talent! I've been enjoying her music since following the Carolina Chocolate Drops ... Outstanding musicians, brilliant sounds, great history for all music lovers.
The real question no one is asking is why do you spell the the saying "no one" as "noone"? If it was spelled that way you would pronounce more like the word "known".
@@charlesbrown4483 no, he stole the idea from african americans and popularized it when doing his mistrel shows. He "invented" it by copying what african americans were playing at the time while doing blackface.
I don’t think that’s right. They would have been used for American music more than Irish music. It was an Irish-American minstrel who popularized the banjo though, but due to the racist nature of minstrel shows, he played it because it was seen as a black instrument.
Pretty sure that's a hard no. Irish music wouldn't get the banjo until much later in the 20th century decades if not a full century after its use had been popularized among white people in the United States after the minstrel bands took it.
I grew up in the blue ridge mountains, one of /the/ historical centers for blue grass. Been a while since I heard someone say clawhammer. And also love that she talked about the African and African American roots of blue grass, the banjo, and other string instruments. Lots of people make blue grass a part of their southern identity but forget where it came from and the historical processes (many of them not at all pretty) that gave rise to the music tradition. Blue grass (and music across the Atlantic/‘New World’) is just one of many ways people of African descent adapted, resisted, and created new ways of being in the world and the fact that blue grass has also been traditionally a music tradition for blue collar workers, rural communities, low income people and a tradition that speaks to things like hard work, pain, struggle, and turning that stuff into an unmatched and entirely unique sound speaks volumes to its history and the people who pioneered it. That’s why many blue grass instruments (washboards, everyday items for percussion, standing basses made out of alternative materials, etc) are usually still so unique and unconventional. Even “traditional” instruments are played in entirely unique “non traditional” blue grass (like the violin vs the fiddle)
@@rtk90083 nope. I never said there weren’t plenty of other influences in blue grass. I’ve family descended from Irish and other ‘settlers’ who influenced the genre, so I’m plenty aware of the impact and origins of other groups on the genre. And there are intersections between the two genres besides. ‘This chrismarie person’ isn’t confusing the two. Perhaps it seems I’m over-exaggerating the AA influence, but that’s not my intention. Didn’t mean to piss off the comment section lmao
The original basic stick with strings may have originated elsewhere and the gourd with strings may have originated elsewhere but the snare/first tom with strings for resonance was created in Appalachia in the Americas, completely synonymizing itself with southern bluegrass and classic country. Sorry ma'am but this instrument was invented here and the "picks" you refer to are finger-picks used to retain the finger-style technique while allowing for a louder, more amplified sound.
@@mizzury54 She clearly said, "The banjo is an African American instrument that was invented in the Caribbean" Which makes absolutely no sense. You are the one hearing what you want to hear, because she never said it was invented here with roots in Africa... Those words never came out of her mouth.
The banza, precursor to the banjo. ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX The akonting, a related lute instrument in West Africa, played similarly in an indigenous style ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a The modern banjo descends from the banza the same way the modern piano descends from the pianoforte and the earlier harpsichord and clavichord.
Amazing how people can introduce further inaccuracies when attempting to correct someone. The idea of utilizing a circular drum (as opposed to a gourd) is attributed to Joel Sweeney of Appomattox, VA, who was a wheelwright and violinist by training. It was this prototype that Sweeney began performing with in the 1830s. These performances, in which Sweeney would play a caricature of a plantation slave, would ultimately give rise to the minstrel show. This was the context in which most white Americans (yes, including those in Appalachia) first encountered the banjo.
I just learned something new from you today - we are indeed a great people but are misrepresenting it too much foolishness. Thank you for that little bit of light in such dark times for a people.
I had heard of people playing ballads from 16th century England on Banjos and had always assumed they came from yee ole country but turns out most of those were played on Lutes which are similar enough to Banjos to translate some songs!
@@donquixote8462most old world string instruments come from the arab oud (sehtar) sehtar would become sitar in modern hindi, kittara in ancient greek, cithara in latin, guitarra in spanish, then finally guitar in english. the lute and guitar embellishments on the banjo were added later, in america.
@@davebarrowcliffe1289from what part of history. The most divisive parts? Originally we were all part of the human race. But lets focus on the most divisive parts of history because thats more unifying. (Sarc)😶
You see, the Caribbeans are in the Americas and are populated by allot of africans. So a black person in the Caribbeans can be accurately described as an african-american. Sorry for the sass couldn't helpmyselff lol
The Caribbean …. In America it’s called a slave instrument . That’s who invented it slaves . Blues came from it too … yer all welcome without slaves there’s no banjos and no rock n roll 🤔
@@FuzzMasterGeneraland without slave owners there was no slaves, without slaves no slave traders/traffickers, and without traders, no tribes selling prisoners of war, without the tribes selling prisoners of war they'd either be enslaved or killed instead, there, now there's two equally useless comments in this thread. "Yer all welcome for the complete waste of breath"
Exactly, just yesterday someone stole my bike, and my "Stop stealing my bike" sign I happen to witness it just as they began to take off and in a moment of frustration I yelled out "Hey you bastards! Can't you read the sign!?" Quickly one yelled back "NOPE!" I began to laugh realizing I had over estimated my adversary.. I currentlt have a Newport cigarette box truck parked out front , rear cargo door open, and I am nearby hiding in wait. They will learn to respect the sign.
Okay, I just have to point out that if it was invented and created in the Caribbean. Wouldn't it be a Caribbean instrument, then that was based off of an African instrument??? I'm just saying......
It was brought from Africa and developed in the Caribbean, where many of the ancestors of today’s African Americans are from due to the Atlantic Slave Trade. They brought it to the North American mainland as the banza/banjar and it developed with time and exposure to Euro-descended musical traditions into the modern banjo. The banza, precursor to the banjo. ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX The akonting, a related lute instrument in West Africa, played similarly in an indigenous style ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a
It's amazing to hear that the banjo is an instrument from West Africa and the Caribbean. I always thought it came from the South. Now, it makes sense why the southern states are where it was was most popular. Always something new to learn, no matter how old I get or how many books I read! ❤
To all the Scottish people upset they don't get to claim the origin of the banjo is from their home, know that you're at least home to the starting point of how most life is made according to some placodrem fossils.
Scottish people didn't even get the banjo until Irish Americans brought them over there from working farms with black people, America was the hot bed of multiple cultures meeting and exchanging music, and instruments
Is it known which Caribbean island the banjo was invented in? I'm Jamaican, and I don't recall ever seeing the bajo being played in the late 1940s until 2024. ✌🏿✌🏿🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲
This is the equivalent of saying an electric guitar with pickups, 24 frets, and a whammy bar was invented by some dude somewhere in Asia or the middle east back in the early 1800s
This comment section got me to do research and guess what: shes right and the scholarly research backs her up. Enslaved Africans in the Caribbian and North America developed banjos. These two different places developed this independently because those enslaved people had a common origin in West Africa.
The Caribbean is part of the Americas. It was invented by enslaved African people in the Caribbean and adopted later by African people in mainland America.
Nobody calls Africans in the Caribbean "African-Americans". That designation applies strictly to the USA. Brazil is in the Americas too, but blacks in Brazil aren't called African-American.@@fromthebackseat4865
I remember watching Rhiannon on “Nashville” and thinking she was a talented actress who could also play an instrument. It was only after the show ended that I realized she was a legitimately great musician!
No, but a lot of people from Africa wound up in the Caribbean thanks to the transatlantic slave trade, it is from the African diaspora that the banjo was born
@@DaBuick can i teach how to google how african americans came to the caribbean. After I can help you google the enormous impact africans had on caribbean culture
The banjo is a uniquely American instrument. Modeled after the African akonting. Developed the Appalachian sound after Scottish bagpipe tunes.Went from a gourd to wood with a short 5th string added in 1831. 3 finger picking stlye was developed by Snuffy Jenkins and perfected by Earl Scruggs around 1945. Been used in jazz, gospel, country, rock, blues, bluegrass, orchastra, hip hop and others. Very fun stuff!
We saw Rhiannon Giddens at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last year. That woman can play. I mean really pick it! And she’s got that angelic voice, to boot!
Claw hammer on a fretless banjo. You have my respect
When old-time clawhammer players obtained the first manufactured banjos, they would sit down and file off the frets. Fretless was the norm.
No doubt! She's awesome 😎 🎉
She definitely knows what she is talking about 🎉👍💯👌🙏🎶
She is a professor in music!❤
Frailing, love that old time music.
My granddad played like this (1880 to 1983) 103 at the time of his death.
That's a solid innings mate😊 he would have seen some crazy changes in the world in his lifetime.
It's absolutely insane to think someone alive during the wild west lived until the 80's
My grandfather born in 1889 died in 65 from complications from breaking a hip falling on the steps. Was in excellent health before that fall.
It's a happy sound
@@matthewcullen1298 You have also seen some insane changes, selfdriving cars, computers that fits in your pocket with all the information in the world... tiktok
Ms. Giddens is a beast of a musician
I'm a huge fan🤩
She’s beautiful in every way
She played banjo on Beyonce's new album... making Beyonce the second best singer on that album.
So talented with all genres
As a new banjo player (switching over from classic guitar) something just seems overtly natural about this way of playing. Thank you for articulating what my thoughts felt!!!
Claw hammer sounds so damn good, and a lot of bluegrass players use this as well!
I don’t know if a single bluegrass banjo player who uses clawhammer. Plenty of old-time players though. Do you have any examples? I’d love to see them.
Steve Martin. Man plays a very very mean drop thumb. He uses it at times when playing bluegrass tunes. Although mainly a 3 finger guy.
@@TotallyNotLoki bluegrass is a pretty loose term, I consider Willi Carlisle to be bluegrass and you can look him up, amazing song writer.
@@TotallyNotLokibilly strings cma play both styles but primarily uses clawhammer
@@seanjuthbilly strings isn't bluegrass
The banjo is derived from the African instrument called akonting. African slaves in America continued to make and play them. Slowly the gourd body was replaced with a wooden frame, and five strings became the standard. The banjo became very popular with the white Americans, especially in the southern and appalachain regions. Eventually the wood body was replaced with metal and steel strings and frets were added to get the bluegrass instrument we know today. However, this video shows that the older wooden style is still around.
Exactly!
The banza, precursor to the banjo:
ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX
The akonting:
ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a
The *muh banjo* 😭🪕 crowd is doing way too much in the comments.
Thank you. I was gonna correct her but I’m glad someone did! ❤
@@ZzackVeethere was nothing to correct, listen and she said exactly the same thing as the commenter, just a summarized version
Banjos still have wood frames with metal added
What a racist comment 😂
The Carolina Chocolate Drops is the name of the band she is in. Go check them out, you might just be surprised 😊😊
I was just wondering what was her name… Thank you!
They’re so good. Check ‘em out if you get a chance.
Thank you !
Did think she plays with them anymore, she's amazing.
I love them and Corn Bread and Buttered Beans
Rhiannon is SO FUCKING TALENTED AND GORGEOUS !!!!!
Yes she iz
Go marry her, and that's why all the great musicians have their fame from banjo and top 100 songs in every list has 90 banjo songs in it
Quit reading my mind???
Perhaps ironic that she is named after a Fleetwood Mac song, as Lindsay Buckingham is one of the most famous clawhammer guitarists.
The deep Appalachian players play claw hammer style too
Ralph Stanley was taught this style by his mother
I was taught but we call it hybrid picking
That’s where blacks learned it. They came here with literally nothing, which was more than they had in Africa.
I’m from the Appalachian mountains, and this is how I learned to play banjo after I picked up guitar. However, I’m much more comfortable playing with finger picks since I played guitar for so long before learning banjo.
TLDR learned hammerclaw, but prefer finger picks for comfort
That would make sense that they'd be playing the banjo in its original traditional style
The Irish and Scots love the banjo, too - fits their earlier music that was also played on lute-like instruments. Lovely.
Popular in the Appalachian area too.
(Irish and Scottish lineage being common there.)
It came from them, not Africans.
For some reason the black Americans think their African captors allowed them to pack their things before they were force-marched through the jungle to the slave markets.
That didn’t happen.
@@NoahBodzeright and because they didn’t have luggage, every single memory or piece of their culture was washed away, erased overnight?
@@scumshine2351 “Music is at a low ebb. Admirable tunists, and no mean tunists, the people betray their incapacity for improvement by remaining contented with the simplest and the most monotonous combinations of sounds. As in everything else, so in this art, - creative talent is wanting. A higher development would have produced other results; yet it is impossible not to remark the delight which they take in harmony. The fisherman will accompany his paddle, the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task of shelling grain, with a song; and for long hours at night the peasants will sit in a ring repeating, with a zest that never flags, the same few notes, and the same unmeaning line."
- Burton’s Africa, page 468.
@@scumshine2351
“Devotedly fond of music, the negro's love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle ; his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs; he contents himself with improvising a few notes without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate. . . . When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form; women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail. After venting a little natural distress in a natural sound, the long, loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before."
- Burton's Africa, page 497.
Clawhammer or picks, both sounds are LIFE! Instant smiles when i hear a banjo. ❤
Thanks for the history lesson. Banjo is such a unique string instrument.
It's like a Violin and a snare drum had a kid that grew really tall and lanky.
for the over-sensitive reactionaries confused about what she's saying (not what you think she's saying) and the history of the banjo, here's the smithsonian on the history of the banjo
"Few musical instruments are more deeply connected to the American experience than the banjo. The banjo was created by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Caribbean and colonial North America. Here, they maintained and perpetuated the tradition within a complex system of slave-labor camps, plantations, and in a variety of rural and urban settings. From the earliest references in the 17th century, and through the 1830s, the banjo was exclusively known as an African-American tradition with a West African heritage. What further distinguishes the banjo is that it did not come from Africa “as-is” as an unaltered tradition. Rather, the banjo’s creation was the result of a blending between West African and European forms. Sharing some similarities with the guitar, the best-documented form of the early banjo includes a drum-like body made out of a gourd (or sometimes a calabash) and a neck that could accommodate 4 strings-three long strings that run the full length of the instrument and one short thumb string that stops about halfway up the side of the neck. The drum-like gourd body and strings of different lengths are uniquely African, while the flat fingerboard and tuning pegs are more commonly associated with European traditions."
@@NoahBodze ok, im going to take your comment at face value for a moment even though youre absolutely begging for it not to be.
First of all, im curious why, in your opinion, “feral blacks” would attempt to, in your opinion, falsely reclaim an instrument most strongly associated in mainstream culture with inbred, white trash racists? Seems like a funny choice but I digress.
While I don’t know how to convince you the smithsonian wouldnt kowtow on the historicity of something because of your “culture war”, ill give you this excerpt from an article in a 2022 issue of _Nature_ that I ironically found while searching “banjo origin africa debunked”
“The banjo entered world musical culture through the ingenuity of communities of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean. The banjo is rooted within the lute-playing traditions of West Africa, where several remarkably banjo-like instruments and playing styles exist today. The banjo is a creation of the Black diaspora, however, and has no obvious single ancestor among extant West African lutes. Understanding the relative similarities between extant West African lutes and the gourd banjo may shed light on the cultural context of banjo origins. This study examines structural similarities between the gourd banjo and 61 West African lutes using two quantitative approaches for measuring and representing similarity among entities. The banjo groups with a cluster of lutes from peoples in the Senegambia region speaking Bakic languages, which includes the Jola ekonting, an instrument that has garnered considerable recent attention as a banjo relative, but also shows similarities to lutes from the Niger Basin. This suggests that the relatively egalitarian social context of lute playing seen in Bakic language-speaking cultures may have been especially influential on the development of the banjo among enslaved populations in the Caribbean, but that the banjo draws on heterogeneous cultural influences and that more attention should be paid to the influence of eastern Sahel musical cultures on the evolution of the instrument.”
I’ll excerpt a portion of a review put out by the Winterthur Portfolio (a Uchicago journal) on the 2007 biography of Joel Sweeney as well, titled _The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy_ (please forgive formatting errors, it was copy and pasted from a pdf)
“When historians of American minstrelsy and popular music write about early nineteenth-century blackface performance, they seldom mention Joel Walker Sweeney. Popular performers such as Thomas Rice (who popularized the character ‘‘Jim Crow’’), Dan Emmett (composer of ‘‘Dixie’’), and Billy Whitlock (an early blackface banjo player) usually receive a lion’s share of the glory for making minstrelsy and the banjo part of America’s musical consciousness. The few authors who do mention Joe Sweeney erroneously portray him as either the first white banjo player or inventor of the modern (that is, five-string) banjo. Independent scholar and banjoist Bob Carlin disagrees with his predecessors’ treatments of Sweeney and seeks to set the record straight with his The Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy. Carlin argues that Joe Sweeney is one of the most important American minstrels, particularly because of his role in popularizing the banjo. Sweeney helped make this instrument famous by bringing together several existing musical practices to form a novel mode of performance centering on the banjo. A native of Appomattox County, Virginia, Joe Sweeney learned African American songs and performance style from slaves on plantations near his home. Most important, those same bondsmen taught him to play the banjo, an instrument with West African origins that by the 1830s had gained widespread recognition from white musicians and instrument makers. Sweeney inserted his African American musical skills into the blackface routines then fashionable among whites to create a type of entertainment that quickly caught on with concertgoers”
I ain’t trusting the Smithsonian.
You know the other Africans who enslaved them didn’t let them pack their things before they force-marched them through the jungle, right stupid?
@@wrench8149 Savages don't trust facts and history they can't molest or rewrite to be the heroes.
@@wrench8149 im shocked. i'd deign to guess you might only trust sources that provide claims that support your preconceptions, veracity be damned.
however, im curious _why_ you dont trust the smithsonian and which sources you _would_ trust.
She is amazingly talented
She played banjo on Beyonce's new album, "Cowboy Carter."
With all due respect to Beyonce, the best singer on the album didn't utter a note.
@@user-dh6bj2me5pBeyoncé deserves very minimal respect.
As I understand it; the banjo is inside red the only instrument that is 100% American. Early versions were found among black slaves, those being made with hollow gourds having one to four strings. More refined versions came with the body type we know now having four string and a more standardized tuning. He fits string was added later on and with it came the claw hammer style. Earl Scruggs did not invent the three finger picking style, but he did make it popular.
There're precursor instruments to the banjo in various African instruments.
It did evolve in the US however, and a very similar thing can be said to have happened with the mountain dulcimer, which early version of which were brought to the US by the German settlers who became the Pa Dutch, later taking it down into the Appalachians where it evolved into its current form.
So if the Banjo is 100 percent american, it's not the only one
@@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410banjo was made in America...the precursor instruments weren't called banjos... a lute isn't a banjo. A guitar isn't a lute. A mandolin isn't a guitar. A violin isn't a mandolin. A violin isn't a bass...ya get it
@@joshuacrosby2484At no point did he claim that the banjo wasn't made in America. Where did you get that from?
@@notsomething7561"the banjo is inside red the only instrument that is 100% American." The banjo is absolutely an American instrument. It may have begun on a stick with strings and evolved to a gourd with strings but it was made and has become synonymous with American bluegrass and classic country music.
@@kami2646what did you take the quoted sentence to mean, exactly?
Why does the sound this instrument automatically put a smile on my face 😊
It's a lyre with a resonating chamber. There is evidence of a lyre in Syria about 2700 BCE. Not much later there are lyres in Egypt. And the Greeks did great things with it.
Having a short drone string too is part of it.
The banjo is closer akin to the West African lyres, like the kora. But please, continue ignoring the lesson.
They like to take credit where credit isn’t due. She is just making it up or did a very poor job of research.
@@TommyStrategicwill do !
Wish the butthurt bigots would prove her wrong. lol
I did not know this about the banjo ... Ms. Giddens is pure talent! I've been enjoying her music since following the Carolina Chocolate Drops ... Outstanding musicians, brilliant sounds, great history for all music lovers.
I could listen to her all day long
I'm so proud of you for conserving our history. Thank you.
Now unto conserving our community 😅
Oh so now you're also Caribbean?
@@TheSololobo......as soon as you're deleted, the community will be conserved😊😊🖕
A 90% chocolate on chocolate unalive rate says y'all ain't conserving anything 😂
That sounds absolutely beautiful. Thank you for educating me about the history of the banjo!! I've always loved the sound of the banjo!
The real questions noone is asking is "do you hear banjos?" and "Will it Djent?"
If I remember correctly... rob scallon made it djent. But I also could be thinking of his sitar video. Lmao
Andy Caltex played banjo (in a Ned Kelly helmet) thru a DS1 in the 80s...
Not djent, but punk as!
It'll djent. Trust me. I'm a banjo doctor.
The real question no one is asking is why do you spell the the saying "no one" as "noone"? If it was spelled that way you would pronounce more like the word "known".
No it's not dear god
I've never seen a fret less banjo before. Sounds very cool. Thanks for teaching me something today.
She taught you revisionist history is what she taught you. The “banjo” as we know it was invented by Joel Sweeney.
@@charlesbrown4483 stfu about your “revisionist history” charles. pick up a book about music history, you sound like a fool
@@charlesbrown4483 no, he stole the idea from african americans and popularized it when doing his mistrel shows. He "invented" it by copying what african americans were playing at the time while doing blackface.
Not that strange when you consider the violin has no frets and was probably the only other instrument most slaves saw and heard.
It’s not a banjo
“This ain’t Texas (woooo) ain’t no Hold’ em…”😂
I’m glad Beyoncé collaborated with such a talented musician on cowboy Carter
@@sdsamara literal cancer to the ears
@@TheUnseen0n3That not what country music lovers thought. Number 1 single, number 1 album.
@anthonycoleman9593 her fans supported her sir,not country music lovers,that's not country music ,unlike the young lady in this video
The fretless Minstrel Banjos were probably used mostly for simple accompaniment in Irish Traditional Music
I don’t think that’s right. They would have been used for American music more than Irish music. It was an Irish-American minstrel who popularized the banjo though, but due to the racist nature of minstrel shows, he played it because it was seen as a black instrument.
@@TotallyNotLokiyou don't have to think it's right
It is. Try again
@@shogun0810 send more tears
Pretty sure that's a hard no. Irish music wouldn't get the banjo until much later in the 20th century decades if not a full century after its use had been popularized among white people in the United States after the minstrel bands took it.
@@shogun0810 it most certainly is not
I grew up in the blue ridge mountains, one of /the/ historical centers for blue grass. Been a while since I heard someone say clawhammer. And also love that she talked about the African and African American roots of blue grass, the banjo, and other string instruments. Lots of people make blue grass a part of their southern identity but forget where it came from and the historical processes (many of them not at all pretty) that gave rise to the music tradition. Blue grass (and music across the Atlantic/‘New World’) is just one of many ways people of African descent adapted, resisted, and created new ways of being in the world and the fact that blue grass has also been traditionally a music tradition for blue collar workers, rural communities, low income people and a tradition that speaks to things like hard work, pain, struggle, and turning that stuff into an unmatched and entirely unique sound speaks volumes to its history and the people who pioneered it. That’s why many blue grass instruments (washboards, everyday items for percussion, standing basses made out of alternative materials, etc) are usually still so unique and unconventional. Even “traditional” instruments are played in entirely unique “non traditional” blue grass (like the violin vs the fiddle)
Blue grass is Irish and Celtic in origins. The banjo is a Caribbean instrument made by an African-American.
Yeah, i think this chris marie person is mixing up blues and bluegrass
@@rtk90083 nope. I never said there weren’t plenty of other influences in blue grass. I’ve family descended from Irish and other ‘settlers’ who influenced the genre, so I’m plenty aware of the impact and origins of other groups on the genre. And there are intersections between the two genres besides. ‘This chrismarie person’ isn’t confusing the two. Perhaps it seems I’m over-exaggerating the AA influence, but that’s not my intention. Didn’t mean to piss off the comment section lmao
@@mikee6354It has Irish and Celtic influences because whites started to like it but blue grass is black! 😂
The original basic stick with strings may have originated elsewhere and the gourd with strings may have originated elsewhere but the snare/first tom with strings for resonance was created in Appalachia in the Americas, completely synonymizing itself with southern bluegrass and classic country. Sorry ma'am but this instrument was invented here and the "picks" you refer to are finger-picks used to retain the finger-style technique while allowing for a louder, more amplified sound.
She said it was invented here with roots in Africa. You hear what you want to hear.
@@mizzury54 She clearly said, "The banjo is an African American instrument that was invented in the Caribbean" Which makes absolutely no sense. You are the one hearing what you want to hear, because she never said it was invented here with roots in Africa... Those words never came out of her mouth.
The banza, precursor to the banjo.
ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX
The akonting, a related lute instrument in West Africa, played similarly in an indigenous style
ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a
The modern banjo descends from the banza the same way the modern piano descends from the pianoforte and the earlier harpsichord and clavichord.
Amazing how people can introduce further inaccuracies when attempting to correct someone. The idea of utilizing a circular drum (as opposed to a gourd) is attributed to Joel Sweeney of Appomattox, VA, who was a wheelwright and violinist by training. It was this prototype that Sweeney began performing with in the 1830s. These performances, in which Sweeney would play a caricature of a plantation slave, would ultimately give rise to the minstrel show. This was the context in which most white Americans (yes, including those in Appalachia) first encountered the banjo.
You are 100% wrong 😂😂😂😂
I've followed you for years and greatly enjoy everything you do! You are fantastic! Thank you 🥰
Wait a second if it was invented in the Caribbean then it would be a Caribbean instrument
Skin worship
Yea
Listen a little bit closer. It has it's roots in Africa.
@@mizzury54according to her,the rest of the world knows ...except her
All of us have our roots in Africa.@@mizzury54
Ms. Giddens is by far one of my favorite musicians.
Carolina Chocolate Drops!😊
Mine too. She would come into my work and I would swoon 😂
Well technically the banjo is British. William temllet made the first 6 string banjo in 1846
"1846" I read that as, historically speaking: "a week ago, last Thursday." You gotta go way further back. Just saying.
Temlett banjos were zithers, and were british knockoffs of American Dobson banjos.
@@barryallenporter8127 Americans always trying claim and take shit that ain't there's😂 it's British.
I believe her music is African period
I just learned something new from you today - we are indeed a great people but are misrepresenting it too much foolishness. Thank you for that little bit of light in such dark times for a people.
Damn, yall invented everything.
and still they get almost no credit for it, sad!
Everything ever invented was invented by people whose ancestors came out of Africa 😅
I had heard of people playing ballads from 16th century England on Banjos and had always assumed they came from yee ole country but turns out most of those were played on Lutes which are similar enough to Banjos to translate some songs!
Which is the obvious precursor to the modern guitar and banjo so yeah ... more revisionism.
@@donquixote8462most old world string instruments come from the arab oud (sehtar) sehtar would become sitar in modern hindi, kittara in ancient greek, cithara in latin, guitarra in spanish, then finally guitar in english. the lute and guitar embellishments on the banjo were added later, in america.
The banjo as we know today was invented in America and took in influences from europe
"an African American instrument that was invented in the Carribbean"
The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas, smarty pants.
@@tylerjmastSo ask anyone from Jamaica if he's "African American..."
See what happens.
Not what she said
The african-carribean-west african would have only 4 strings. U cant claim to play a style that originates back in africa while using all 5 strings.
@@davebarrowcliffe1289from what part of history. The most divisive parts? Originally we were all part of the human race. But lets focus on the most divisive parts of history because thats more unifying. (Sarc)😶
I instantly started bopping when she started to play!! I couldn’t help myself!!!
“African American instrument that was invented in the Caribbean…”
Got it.
Yes. I'm glad you got it
Chinese instrument 1500 years ago.
Next blacks are gonna claim they invented Earth next or created the universe 😂😂
the Caribbean islands are considered part of the Americas the same way the islands of Britain and Ireland are considered part of Europe.
You see, the Caribbeans are in the Americas and are populated by allot of africans. So a black person in the Caribbeans can be accurately described as an african-american.
Sorry for the sass couldn't helpmyselff lol
Tbh there's instruments like that everywhere, china, Europe, Egypt... You can't say the banjo is from x cuzz has resemblance to older instruments,
Oh of course it did. 🎉 That's why banjos are so popular in West Africa.
😂😂😂😂😂
The Caribbean …. In America it’s called a slave instrument . That’s who invented it slaves . Blues came from it too … yer all welcome without slaves there’s no banjos and no rock n roll 🤔
@@FuzzMasterGeneraland without slave owners there was no slaves, without slaves no slave traders/traffickers, and without traders, no tribes selling prisoners of war, without the tribes selling prisoners of war they'd either be enslaved or killed instead, there, now there's two equally useless comments in this thread. "Yer all welcome for the complete waste of breath"
There they go again doing what they're good at
Exactly, just yesterday someone stole my bike, and my "Stop stealing my bike" sign I happen to witness it just as they began to take off and in a moment of frustration I yelled out "Hey you bastards! Can't you read the sign!?" Quickly one yelled back "NOPE!"
I began to laugh realizing I had over estimated my adversary..
I currentlt have a Newport cigarette box truck parked out front , rear cargo door open, and I am nearby hiding in wait. They will learn to respect the sign.
Good at crying mayo tears? Yeah, like clockwork.
Triggering fragile bigots with historical facts.
These facts wouldn't anger a superior people, only the inferior ones.
Clawhammer on a banjo will shred your fingers. She is so talented
Okay, I just have to point out that if it was invented and created in the Caribbean. Wouldn't it be a Caribbean instrument, then that was based off of an African instrument??? I'm just saying......
Don't overthink it.
Appropriating other peoples cultures is what they excell in.
It was brought from Africa and developed in the Caribbean, where many of the ancestors of today’s African Americans are from due to the Atlantic Slave Trade. They brought it to the North American mainland as the banza/banjar and it developed with time and exposure to Euro-descended musical traditions into the modern banjo.
The banza, precursor to the banjo.
ruclips.net/video/UTQc9MErxZk/видео.htmlsi=s853cN-WkG_-cbDX
The akonting, a related lute instrument in West Africa, played similarly in an indigenous style
ruclips.net/video/lzt0v9roU6g/видео.htmlsi=z9ByA4IZCRjhgU9a
Tethers and their lies
Thomas Solwell wrote a book on how inter-mixed southern white n southern black cultures are.in language, music etc.
Anyone interested in the origin story she is telling, which is true, watch “Throw down your heart” a documentary by Bela Fleck. It’s brilliant
It's amazing to hear that the banjo is an instrument from West Africa and the Caribbean. I always thought it came from the South. Now, it makes sense why the southern states are where it was was most popular. Always something new to learn, no matter how old I get or how many books I read! ❤
To all the Scottish people upset they don't get to claim the origin of the banjo is from their home, know that you're at least home to the starting point of how most life is made according to some placodrem fossils.
Also I'm not going to correct your spelling on placcy... that would be childish. 🫥
@@markbarnett9275 Not only would it be childish, you'd be wrong. Placodremi are an extinct species of fish.
Scottish people didn't even get the banjo until Irish Americans brought them over there from working farms with black people, America was the hot bed of multiple cultures meeting and exchanging music, and instruments
It's funny how the blackest instrument ended up being the widest instrument ever. I kind of feel like the Kalimba is like that today😂
Same shit happened to mandoline.
From rich people in Italy to rednecks in bluegrass
Welcome to cultural appropriation! Rasta hats are to your right, dream catchers and rain sticks to your left.
Except for the pesky little detail about the banjo not actually being an African instrument in the first place...... Revisionist bullshit.
Is it known which Caribbean island the banjo was invented in? I'm Jamaican, and I don't recall ever seeing the bajo being played in the late 1940s until 2024. ✌🏿✌🏿🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲
The oldest one they've found so far was on Martinique, so pretty far from Jamaica
Hati and/or Suriname, off the coast of South America. The oldest surviving banjo is from 1770.
No because she's full of shit.
Fat out yes gal. Guinea 🇬🇳 West Africa is this sound and this soy d epic old skool African blues 😎 ❤ Thank you 😊
Did the country star Stringbean play this way? Looks like his style or the style he used.❤️👍
White guy a Anglo Saxon made the first banjo on a Viking ship on the way to discover America I thought
Dick brain America was already Occupied so it was already Discovered way before British Invasion. Get your wordings in order will you.
it's African but invented in the carribean, then perfected in the states.People have been play stringed instruments with a sound box since forever.
This lady is outstanding . Does not get the overall love I think she deserves. A beautiful voice
This is the equivalent of saying an electric guitar with pickups, 24 frets, and a whammy bar was invented by some dude somewhere in Asia or the middle east back in the early 1800s
Japanese lady listening:
“Hold my lute”
"I dont play with pigs" and I was like, well thats some piggy racism xD, until i figured it out xD
Picks. Not pigs
Thanks for giving us a great history lesson. Much respect to you.
Mozart was black. I am just getting ahead of the curve on this stuff!
Sorry, but he wasn’t. Alexandre Dúmas was, but not Mozart, unless you want to go back 40,000 years or so.
🤣🤣
You can find his image on my page😊
So how asia have a similar instrument. You can even hear same sound
This comment section got me to do research and guess what: shes right and the scholarly research backs her up. Enslaved Africans in the Caribbian and North America developed banjos. These two different places developed this independently because those enslaved people had a common origin in West Africa.
Exactly!! My late Husband played Claw Hammer..So good to see this being brought forward!!
The Modern banjo is actually an african american instrument?
I mean, stringed instruments with resonating bodies have been everywhere
Would you say the same if the video was about a mandolin or a koto? You'd probably have more respect for those instruments
Where did I show I lacked respect for isntruments?@@banko1808
Wait until you find out who owns the patent to the guitar
Okay, who was the first to stretch a string down a flat piece of wood and across some kind of resonator?
Bet it wasn't an African?
Everything worthwhile originated in Africa or by an African elsewhere in the world. That's why the African continent is so advanced and affluent.
It's a drum head...
@@rgetsoHey buddy, you alright? That was a weird thing to comment. You wanna share why you feel this way?
By that definition, it sounds like it would be an Oud or Lyre of some sort, which I would guess comes out of Mesopotamia.
I've played with Pigs .. but the equipment gets dirty and broken and.....
Oh. What? Oh. play with PICKS !
Never mind.....
Lol
What a talent!!! Love her voice and music!!!
And then comes Earl Scruggs.
he stole his sound from the black men chained in his basement
If it was invented in the Caribbean then its NOT an African American instrument... it would be a CARIBBEAN instrument
Caribbean is part of the americas....
How can it be an African American instrument if it was invented in the Caribbean? lol
The Caribbean is part of the Americas. It was invented by enslaved African people in the Caribbean and adopted later by African people in mainland America.
Nobody calls Africans in the Caribbean "African-Americans". That designation applies strictly to the USA.
Brazil is in the Americas too, but blacks in Brazil aren't called African-American.@@fromthebackseat4865
@@fromthebackseat4865they should all be deported back to Africa
@@fromthebackseat4865 Have white people ever invented anything? I’m just curious if any history has yet to be effected by the revisionism.
The same way an Oregonian can also be an American.
I remember watching Rhiannon on “Nashville” and thinking she was a talented actress who could also play an instrument. It was only after the show ended that I realized she was a legitimately great musician!
The Caribbean is not Africa.
No, but a lot of people from Africa wound up in the Caribbean thanks to the transatlantic slave trade, it is from the African diaspora that the banjo was born
Wrong
why are white people so offended when black people get credit for something lmao
Also African Americans aren’t from the Caribbean
@@DaBuick can i teach how to google how african americans came to the caribbean. After I can help you google the enormous impact africans had on caribbean culture
Wrong.
They always gotta make everything about being african lmaooo
Rhiannon is one of the best musicians alive today
Great video. I'm a huge fan of Otis Taylor, in Denver, CO. He's such a great instrumentalist and a kind beautiful soul. Long live Otis! ❤
One of the best vocalists ever
The banjo is a uniquely American instrument. Modeled after the African akonting. Developed the Appalachian sound after Scottish bagpipe tunes.Went from a gourd to wood with a short 5th string added in 1831. 3 finger picking stlye was developed by Snuffy Jenkins and perfected by Earl Scruggs around 1945. Been used in jazz, gospel, country, rock, blues, bluegrass, orchastra, hip hop and others. Very fun stuff!
So the 5 string instrument in Egypt over 2,000 years ago was what?
@patb9375 you are probably either thinking of the benet, which is the Egyptian harp or the lyre.
The banjo is one of the best sounding instruments of all time 🤘🏼😎
She absolutely gorgeous! and oh so talented
We saw Rhiannon Giddens at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville last year. That woman can play. I mean really pick it! And she’s got that angelic voice, to boot!
Wow! I love the history lesson and the playing!
This girl can indeed sing
ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL I LOVE IT!!!!!👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾❤️👏🏾😪😪😪
Talent and looks off the charts!
She is so talented
Yes, that banjo calls out to my spirit. Praise God for the ancestors 🙌 🙏 And she's a beautiful woman too.
Awesome style and great history lesson as well. Thank you❤
I absolutely love to hear her play and sing.
Rhiannon Gideons music gets me so hype
Wow. Excellent playing and information.
Clawhammering it back! Respect!
Get it and tell it! Awesome style.
Love and respect her style
Wow talent galore and beautiful to boot
Love this woman! Talented and informative! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
We are the best in everything we do for real
Wow, I can't unhear the west african aesthetic of the sound having never recognised it before! Nice one 🙏
Whoo, sounds pure.
It’s so beautiful like an old tv show😫🫶🏽
I love this type of music! It's cool to me!😊
I love that sound! Respect
Good for you you're better than everyone else congratulations All hail to You.