A fantastic use for banjos

Subject: A fantastic use for banjos
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 11:30 AM

I have just been reading a truly fabulous book, Pops Foster's autobiography. He played with all the greats in New Orleans from 1880 on. And more interestingly, with the not so greats. all the pickup groups, mandoline picnic bands.
   But the best bit so far is his claim that the first snare drums seen in New Orleans bands were made by breaking the necks off banjos and playing the vellum bit sat on your knee, with drumsticks. Now, wasn't a clever way to deal with the banjo problem.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Scoville
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 11:39 AM

My college band and I once got onstage at a local bluegress show, each carrying a banjo of some variety. I think we had three five-strings, one fretless, and a mando-banjo (a bass banjo would have been the icing on the cake, but I guess we can't have everything). THose of us who couldn't play played "air-banjo".

About thirty seconds into the song, the emcee came out and told us there was a local ordinance against having more than two banjos within 500 feet of each other at any given time, and we'd have to either break it up or leave (at which point the rest of us went out and came back with whatever instrument we really did play).

The audience howled. We were the "kids with the banjos" for the rest of our college careers. It really did wonders for town-gown relations.



Not really a USE for banjos, but . . . I guess it shows they can be good for something.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 11:51 AM

What I want to know is: is Pops Foster telling the truth, or is this possibly the first ever sighting of the banjo joke?

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 12:01 PM

I wouldn't have thought using the banjo head as a drum was anything new even then. But doing that alone would not make a snare drum.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 12:05 PM

He didnt mention tying anything on the head for a snare effect. But it could have been done. In Africa they tie feathers across drumheads for the noise. There were plenty of supplies of feathers in the joints he played in in the District(or Storyville as it became better known). They were used to adorn the rear ends of the lady dancers on special occasions.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Ernest
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 12:10 PM

Greg: by solving the Banjo-problem they created a Bodhran-problem...

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: GUEST,Banjo Bill
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 01:39 PM

It's such a shame that gifted scholars should waste their time posting threads like this.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Kaleea
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 02:06 PM

For comic effect, I used to pull out a pair of lightweight drumsticks & (lightly) tap out a march cadence on the head of the banjo on which the banjoist was playing a tune such as the Battle Cry Of Freedom.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 02:42 PM

At our session we have legal limits on several instruments -- including fiddles, banjos and bodhrans. Not concertinas, though!

I've got a newspaper clipping (alas, undated) where TWO (count 'em, two) banjos were used by a fellow to murder his wife. As the sheriff was quoted, "I've never seen anything like it."

If anyone has the date and publication of this article, I'd really appreciate it -- I've even forgotten who gave me the photocopy.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 03:46 PM

I'm surprised Leadfingers hasn't joined this thread yet...

Banjo jokes do not apply to Rob Murch (of the Dartmoor Pixies). I hadn't really thought of the banjo as a musical (rather than percussive)instrument until I heard his playing.

Kitty

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Megan L
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 03:51 PM

Hey bat I didnt know the papers had ever reported my fathers playing :)

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 03:56 PM

I consider my lovely new (to me) 19-fret resonator tenor banjo perhaps the finest fightin' instrument I am ever likely to possess. Nimble yet weighty, well-balanced and blessed with a certain anti-aerodynamic quality that ensures a special impact in all applications, both public and private, amplified and unplugged.

It's great to play, too.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Jon W.
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 03:57 PM

You guys are killing me.

Actually I wouldn't be surprized if the earliest (African) banjos were primarily percussion instruments - I think I read something about that somewhere.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Scoville
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 04:14 PM

Bat Goddess--I want a copy of that if you ever find it.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 05:21 PM

The banjo is a very poor marital aid. In fact, I recommend against its use entirely in that regard.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 07:38 PM

I am shocked that nobody has mentioned that the banjo was first invented as an I.U.D. for Catherine The Great. With a history like that, who needs enemas! Fantastic is as fantastic does...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Cllr
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:17 PM

use for banjo with out increasing bodrain problems = kindling
Cllr

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:24 PM

The growth of popularity of sliced cheese was the result of an act of kindness by an eccentric philanthrophe named Wallace - he bought up all the unwanted banjos, and installed them in a factory, busily mandolining (!!!) cheese around the clock. His friend Gromit said it was all doomed to failure.

And it was - because of the sudden removal of such a large number of instruments, makers foolishly began rapid manufacture to replace the supply, as it was erroneously thought that the instrument was experiencing a re-surge in popularity!

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 15 Jun 06 - 09:34 PM

This Machine Kills Blue Devils.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Being ashamed doesn't prove you're wrong, any more than being angry proves you're right. :||

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 09:46 AM

This is the place where I learned that banjo function could be improved by the application of a steam roller....Actually, I like the sound of a banjo, being played by someone who knows how... I also like the sound of pipes--highland & uillean....
Did I ever tell y'all that I did 6 months in an institution for the somewhat discomboberated(nonviolent)? Certified harmless to myself & others....Tw

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:04 AM

Oh - and I expected a learned discourse about kindling campfires ...

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:13 AM

Too bad Pop couldn't come up with a solution to the accordion problem.

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Cllr
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 11:33 AM

ahh guest we know have a use for the kindling... bring on the acordians... anyone got a match

Subject: RE: A fantastic use for banjos
From: Ernest
Date: 16 Jun 06 - 12:03 PM

Use your recorders, Wilfried...   ;0)
Best
Ernest