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  #31  
Old 01-13-2013, 11:56 AM
Zigeuner Zigeuner is offline
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Originally Posted by GerryinAZ View Post
So... lemme get this straight then; By what you're saying, what we call a 5-string banjo (most commonly configured with the shorter drone string) is really just a 4 string banjo with an extra string? Hmmmm... I'd have to think about that one.

I can buy the idea that the 6-string banjo with a similar scale to a guitar with 6 strings all the same length and tuned in 4ths like a guitar was designed for guitar players that wanted to get a banjo-like sound.

Do you think the luthier who made the 6-stringer Sarah is playing in the video was designing it for a guitar player? Sorry, I can't buy that. I think we'd be okay calling it a 6 string banjo.

You are engaging in pettifoggery. (1) I merely stated that the banjo played by the young lady in the video is not a standard 6 string banjo.

Actualy, what you are saying, that a five string banjo is really a four string banjo with an extra string is quite true. For example, the tuning on a 5 string banjo with C tuning is identical to plectrum banjo. (C G B D)

Don't take it so hard.

(1) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pettifoggery (See especially definition #2)
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  #32  
Old 01-13-2013, 12:32 PM
GerryinAZ GerryinAZ is offline
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Originally Posted by Zigeuner View Post
You are engaging in pettifoggery. (1) I merely stated that the banjo played by the young lady in the video is not a standard 6 string banjo.

Actualy, what you are saying, that a five string banjo is really a four string banjo with an extra string is quite true. For example, the tuning on a 5 string banjo with C tuning is identical to plectrum banjo. (C G B D)

Don't take it so hard.

(1) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pettifoggery (See especially definition #2)
Taking it hard? You give yourself too much credit. I'm simply stating that your claims make little, or no sense to me. An instrument with 6 strings is really a 5 stringed instrument? Listen to yourself...

To be quite honest, it's you whom are giving me the distinct impression that you are one of the snobs at Bluegrass jams that keep me away. Seriously, the world really doesn't revolve around you! Please, don't take that too hard!
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  #33  
Old 01-13-2013, 03:11 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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Yes the sinister truth the 5 string banjo is really is a disguised 4 string!! The only honesty in the banjo world is the 6 string.
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  #34  
Old 01-13-2013, 03:32 PM
wcap wcap is offline
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Originally Posted by Doubleneck View Post
Above is the original question:
I guess this is what I fine "amusing" whenever someone asks about whether the 6 string banjo has relevancy to making music. To those of us that makes music with them and love them the answer is yes. These instruments make all the sense in the world to many of us that play current contemporary music and use them effectively. I am well aware of Bela Flack's amazing abilities, sorry but it is irrelevant to me I am not a instrumentalist. I can admire what he can do but not going to be listening to it, cause I tend to listen to what I can play and relate to. The history of the 5 string can be interesting but frankly equally irrelevent. The high 5 th string can add interesting possibilities I am sure but so can two more bass strings. I just find the 5th stringers always in the end seem to look at their instrument as the pure one and have difficulty with those who find it not preticularly relevant to their music, where the 6 is. Neil Young has got it down, just make music.

I do have NetFlix and will be looking for the Bela special on the History of the Banjo! Thanks for the reference
In my first post in this thread I admitted to tending to be a 5-string banjo snob, but then went on to directly address the original question and make a strong case for 6-string banjos. I think the link I posted ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maCN...endscreen&NR=1 ) argues very strongly for the 6-string banjo being a very useful, valid instrument in its own right. I LOVE the sound of that 6-string banjo in that clip (I have listened to it over and over again just to listen to that great banjo sound, which I think is almost bouzouki-like and very cool), and as I noted in my original post, that is definitely not a sound you would get from a 5-string. The 6-string is definitely a different and very valid instrument with some very cool, unique capabilities.

I brought up Bela Fleck in direct response to your stereotyping of 5-string banjos as being only useful for bluegrass or frailing (and so not being very interesting to you). My only point was that a 5-string banjo can be relevant to ANY music. Saying that though is not the same as saying that a 6-string is not also relevant, and it does not contest the idea that a 6-string might be a very good (better in fact) fit for some people.

As Wade said, I think banjo players in general tend to get a bit testy about things. I guess some of this comes from a very strong (and perhaps sometimes narrow-minded?) sense of tradition in the bluegrass world, but then also there are many of us banjo players (in my case I am not fundamentally a bluegrass musician) who are tired of the stereotypes that both the general public and other musicians have about banjos. Among certain family members, I can't play anything on my banjo it seems without them trying to stomp their feet along with the music as though they are at a hoe-down.... even if I am playing something that most definitely is not that sort of music. Many folks can't (or have not) imagine(d) the instrument in any other way. It is hard for many to imagine (or at least they have never imagined) that a banjo player might be a serious musician, or that a banjo might be useful for sensitive, nuanced music. So, in this context I think banjo players sometimes tend to get a little defensive.

It is ironic that 6-string banjo players now have reason to get defensive because of the deep seated biases of 5-string players!

And I will admit to having biases against tenor banjos, because I have unfair stereotypes in my mind about what they are good for. I'm sure they are much more interesting and versatile than I usually tend to think.

When a person who does not have background with banjos (not the OP in this thread of course) asks about what sort of banjo to get, it definitely is worthwhile explaining the unique characteristics of the different sorts, and it sort of bugs me when people suggest that the different sorts are interchangeable. Aside from tone, they are quite different instruments. If a beginner is wanting to play banjo because of the appeal of, say, Scruggs style or clawhammer, it is worth informing them that those styles (and some others) are somewhat dependent upon the unique characteristics of the 5-string banjo - and while a guitar player who wants to start playing banjo might find a 6-string appealing because of a perceived ease of transition, a 6-string would not be the best choice if that new banjo player's intention is to play those certain styles. Saying that though is not saying that a 6-string banjo is not a valid, useful instrument in its own right.

With more and more of these high quality 6-string banjos being sold, I'm eager to hear what sorts of creative and unique ways 6-string players use these instruments. There are some well-established 5-string banjo styles, and tenor banjo styles, and some virtuoso-level players who specialize in 5-strings and have taken the instrument in many different directions. I'd like to see what the likes of players of the caliber of Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, or Tommy Emmanuel, for example, would do with the instrument if they specialized on 6-string banjo. And I'd be thrilled if Wade would post some recordings of his beach music played on 6-string banjo!

If I could justify the expenditure, I'd love to go out and buy one, but my time with my instruments is already stretched thin (and I have this hankering for a 12 string guitar, not to mention a bouzouki.....).
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Last edited by wcap; 01-13-2013 at 04:03 PM.
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  #35  
Old 01-13-2013, 04:33 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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Wcap. Very thoughtful post. Steve
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  #36  
Old 01-13-2013, 04:56 PM
wcap wcap is offline
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Doubleneck (and others),

Please post some recordings of your music with your 6-string sometime. It would be fun to hear.

There are a lot of amazing role models for aspiring 5-string players to emulate. Not so many (unless I am unaware of them) for 6 string banjo. We need more.

I have to say, that YouTube video of the High Kings with their 6 string banjo was an eye opener (or should I say ear opener?) for me! It was one of those random finds on YouTube - a link that popped up on the right side of the page for a different video. When I first listened to it I could tell there was something different about that banjo. At first I thought maybe it was some sort of alternative tuning (which I suppose in a way it is!), and then finally figured out what was going on. It is a powerfully effective sound in that performance!
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  #37  
Old 01-13-2013, 06:42 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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Harvey Reid
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwht238bT6g
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  #38  
Old 01-13-2013, 06:48 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MbpHOla...feature=relmfu
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  #39  
Old 01-13-2013, 06:51 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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Different

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PZM25znqzmY
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  #40  
Old 01-13-2013, 06:58 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wspjACrHWuQ
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  #41  
Old 01-13-2013, 07:26 PM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Originally Posted by wcap View Post
This is fascinating stuff. For some time now I have found it odd that such a quintessentially American instrument as a banjo would have become established in Irish music. I was aware, of course, of the influence of Irish music on traditional American music. What I had not considered was the possibility that the links between Ireland and America via Irish immigrants might have resulted in the musical transfer between Ireland and the U.S. being two-way.
Oh, the exchange has always been two-way, whether it's banjos or anything else.

But banjos were explosively popular across the world long before the 20th Century: minstrel shows captivated audiences in Europe well before the American Civil War. You can think of minstrel show-era banjos as being the electric guitars of their day: manufacturers in England (especially) and France (to a lesser extent) started cranking them out for export and for their own domestic markets.

There are a few mentions of banjos being owned and used in British-ruled India in some of Rudyard Kipling's short stories, usually being played by young officers in their off-duty hours. I've also seen references to banjos being present at the gold mining camps during Australia's gold rush in the mid-19th Century.

John Pearse once told me that the single largest category of inventions granted patents in the US Patent Office records is for banjo parts, designs and accessories.

Banjos have always mutated rapidly and changed with the changing musical trends of the day, at least until the preferences and prejudices of bluegrass banjo players stopped most banjo-related innovations dead in their tracks with an overwhelming preference for the late 1920's Gibson Mastertone design.

This preference didn't start totally dominating the banjo market until the 1960's, so we have an ironic state of affairs where - despite the vast changes in materials science and instrument construction technology in that time - the last fifty years have been the most static and least innovative in all the banjo's generally feverish history.

That's not true in every particular, but it's most definitely true when considering the overall picture.


whm
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  #42  
Old 01-13-2013, 07:47 PM
Zigeuner Zigeuner is offline
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Originally Posted by GerryinAZ View Post
Taking it hard? You give yourself too much credit. I'm simply stating that your claims make little, or no sense to me. An instrument with 6 strings is really a 5 stringed instrument? Listen to yourself...

To be quite honest, it's you whom are giving me the distinct impression that you are one of the snobs at Bluegrass jams that keep me away. Seriously, the world really doesn't revolve around you! Please, don't take that too hard!
I seldom go to bluegrass jams, but knowing what I know about the banjo community, it's not so much snobbery as it is that they probably wouldn't want you around if you don't play very well.
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  #43  
Old 01-13-2013, 09:29 PM
wcap wcap is offline
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Originally Posted by Doubleneck View Post
All four of these clips are great. Very very nice.

The first and last really nicely illustrate how a 6 string banjo can transform a fingerstyle guitar-type arrangement. I would really enjoy playing one of these. Though I enjoy playing fast things on banjo sometimes, I have always thought that the banjo sound is most beautiful for slower pieces like in these two clips.

And Harvey Reid gets a nice clawhammer sound in the second clip.

The third clip is of a 6 string with a short 6th string like the 5th string of a 5-string banjo. I thought the comments following that clip were interesting:

"I got it from England on Ebay. 6 and 7-string banjos were fairly common there in the late 1800s. Some have made there way to the US, so you see them for sale every once in a while...."

So I guess my idea earlier in this thread of a 7 string banjo was not so crazy after all!

This also relates to Wade's interesting comments about all the innovation that went on with banjos in the past.

This has been an interesting thread.
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  #44  
Old 01-14-2013, 02:34 AM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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It has been fascinating for me to let the 6 string transform the song I would play on guitar. It transforms it and it also transforms the approach and technique you have to use. The result can be so cool. Examples for me "Here Comes The Sun". Dylan "Just Like A Woman". Only been at it a month! Seems like all I want to play. Just wonderful really.
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  #45  
Old 01-14-2013, 03:43 AM
wcap wcap is offline
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Originally Posted by Doubleneck View Post
It has been fascinating for me to let the 6 string transform the song I would play on guitar. It transforms it and it also transforms the approach and technique you have to use. The result can be so cool. Examples for me "Here Comes The Sun". Dylan "Just Like A Woman". Only been at it a month! Seems like all I want to play. Just wonderful really.
I don't know how much you get involved in creating original stuff, but are you finding that this instrument is suggesting all sorts of interesting arrangements, or new pieces, that had never occurred to you before? Each different guitar I have played, and each tuning, has done this for me. Actually, a few weeks ago I randomly put the capo on the 4th fret on one of my guitars and started noodling around, and within minutes I had some new sounds that I have since been working on developing into a new piece. I would imagine that this sort of thing would happen to an even greater degree when first playing a 6 string banjo.
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