What is a Banjo Guitar? An Introduction to the 6-String Banjo | Elderly Instruments
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
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Demonstrated by Elden Kelly
Filmed, edited and produced by Michael Erlewine - Hudba
Excellent video...and a smooth speaking voice. I like those 6 string banjos !!!
Awesome!
Great playing
The Banjitar was originally used in a Jazz setting because back in the 1920s & 30s before we had amps, we had Banjitars. They're 6 String Banjos tuned like Guitars but are also louder in volume than Guitars because you've got horn players around you & a whole string section behind you, so you had to be heard over the other instruments.
I'm a guitar player that's new to banjos (& 6 string banjo's). Have seen quite a few 6-string banjo's from the mid to late 1800's that were evidently popular as far back as those dates. Some were gourd and some had traditional pots.
Most people have never heard a live early jazz or dixieland band with the thundering brass. Just for the musicians to keep a unified rhythm led alone the dancers, the loudness of the banjo and banjo guitar was needed., Banjo design in the late 19th century and early 20th century had focused on amplifying the sound expecially creating a "silver bell" ringing treble, even in the era of gut or fabric strings. When metal strings became more widely available in the early 20th century, the tenor, plectrum ( a 5 string banjo without the 5th string), and guitar banjos and a few more odd ball banjos that emerged and disappeared between 1905 and 1920 only to disappear from use like the melody banjo, the tango banjo, the banjolin, and the banjoline (there are others LOL), became widely popular rhythm instruments especially because dance work for small ensembles and large became popular. Many of these banjos, with the tenor being the one that survived of the pack, were tuned in 5ths like violin family instruments and were marketed as something a musician trained to play the violin or horns could pick up easily.
The odd thing is that amplification, the development of bigger guitars, and the move away from Dixieland to swing, and the development of amplification, at first for band stands and dance halls, and later for guitars wiped out the great variety of banjos that became a big part of the popular music world internationally, and the big herd of hybrid banjos, incuding the guitar banjo, the mando banjo, the banjo line, the melody banjo, and others only we banjo nerds know of vanished to dusty corners of hock shops.
@@writerrad They've been revived so we could bring back dixieland Jazz.
That's how to do it. Keep 'em coming.
Great 🌹❤👍
ElderlyInstruments
Johnny St Cyr played one & so did Django Reinhardt.
The Big advantage of this instrument is that the Tuning is fully Chromatic. Unlike the 5 String Banjo, you can play in every key without re-tuning, & you can even use your Guitar capo too.
Would you review the Washburn B6 banjo open back?
I have the Gretsch Dixie Six G9460 and the sound is a little withdrawn compared to the really nice ones here, as you'll hear, but it's plenty good enough for me & my jug band thing. I use a Myers "The Feather" clip-on mic and a Blackstar LT Boost through a Roland KC110 if it has to be amplified.
I'm satisfied.
Sourcing the right loop-end strings isn't the easiest thing though.
You'll wanna swap out the Tailpiece with a terminator Tailpiece so you can use your favorite Guitar strings
The banjo guitar, sometimes called the guitar banjo, emerged very early in banjo production because the guitar was a more prestigeous and difficult instrument to make, and the idea of a six-string banjo used like a guitar was a more inexpensive and marketable product to some builders starting in the 1840s and 1850s. However, the instrument never really took off until the very late 19th century. Plectrum played instruments, guitars, and banjos and the mandolin descended instruments, really never had a heyday until the 1880s and afterwards when starting with the mandolin's big popularization, metal, mostly steel strings, became popular.
The brief heyday of the guitar banjo came in the 1900s to about 1930. Dancing to ragtime, blues, early jazz and other popular music became popular and plectrum played rhythm instruments became popular. This is where the banjo guitar emerged from all the major banjo makers of the era
. The loudness of these instruments was their forte, because the larger dreadnaught sized guitars and the fairly large and loud arch top guitars that became used in jazz and other dance bands did were not common until the 1920s. Many banjoists seen in early Jazz bands, and almost every one of the New Orleans players, starting with the great John St Cyr, who always considered himself a guitarist, not a banjoist played banjo guitars.
The instrument died when amplification became available in dance band situations, and the arch top acoustic and then electric guitars became available., jazz bands and orchestras dropped both tenor and guitar banjos for guitars,.
Would you mind sharing the name of the song you played on the Gretsch?
I was going to ask the same thing :)
are those guitar strings? because i want to know if you can change the strings and get a good tension to press on. i need electric strings, will that work?
Lightest gauge man,don't burst the head or warp the pot,5 string banjo strings are tight enough and the one i have is a loud bugger(5 string),leccy xtra lights would work i'm sure,just cross reff the string gauges of 6 string banjo to electrics and possibly bronze acoustics to get the max gauge to use then go for it.
@@pir869 Banjitars are meant to use Guitar Strings, & they have quite a strong head.
If you play 6 string please don't try to play Dixieland or early jazz. Those require a bright, peppy sound that usually provides the main rhythm. The tubby, non-cutting 6 string just doesn't qualify.
Great playing