Post by carlos alden on Jun 24, 2007 7:06:47 GMT -8
If you listen to Nacho Celtic much you'll eventually be hearing not a small amount of banjo music. Many listeners associate banjo with bluegrass music, but the field is so much broader than just that genre, and non-bluegrass banjo is what you'll hear.
I started out my musical life playing violin, but immediately upon entering middle school began playing electric guitar like every other 13 year old on the planet did in 1965. However, my Dad had a miniature piccolo banjo from HIS days in college in 1930, and I started dabbling with it by using the now-famous Pete Seeger book, How To Play The 5-String Banjo.www.amazon.com/How-Play-5-String-Banjo-Third/dp/0825600243
This led to a startling shift from playing blues and rock music to playing bluegrass banjo in a band in New York City while attending college. I worked hard to master and maintain the three-finger style, but after a few years felt I was doing calisthenics and the music was a display of technical ability and flashiness. I dropped banjo altogether and focused on guitar.
Several years later I picked up banjo again "just for fun" and delved into old-time music and the clawhammer style of banjo playing. I didn't take this seriously: when playing bluegrass, I had never lowered myself to try this hillbilly style, and to my jaded perception, this would be a lot easier to learn. Boy was I wrong. I found that although playing clawhammer banjo was initially easier compared to bluegrass it actually was much harder to master. After a year of fooling around with it I found I could bang out old-time, folk, blues, and a number of different genres using the clawhammer technique.
This led to an interest in different types of old-timey music, so-called because it is a style of music that historically predates bluegrass, and includes a number of different sub-genres. Think of it as including much of the banjo and fiddle and dance music from about 1890 through 1935, originating from southern Georgia to northern Vermont, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the midwest. It also includes the vast well of Appalachian music from the past 200 years or more, mostly brought over by Scot and Irish settlers.
The banjo music you'll hear on Nacho Celtic is mostly focused on this huge range of style, and includes artists such as Bob Carlin, Mike Seeger, Pete Seeger, and Abigail Washburn. It will sound like hillbilly music, folk music, children's music, and even like bluegrass music without the fancy solos and polyester suits. Sometimes I'll even get wild and play Bela Fleck, who is a total world of genres unto himself.
Carlos
I started out my musical life playing violin, but immediately upon entering middle school began playing electric guitar like every other 13 year old on the planet did in 1965. However, my Dad had a miniature piccolo banjo from HIS days in college in 1930, and I started dabbling with it by using the now-famous Pete Seeger book, How To Play The 5-String Banjo.www.amazon.com/How-Play-5-String-Banjo-Third/dp/0825600243
This led to a startling shift from playing blues and rock music to playing bluegrass banjo in a band in New York City while attending college. I worked hard to master and maintain the three-finger style, but after a few years felt I was doing calisthenics and the music was a display of technical ability and flashiness. I dropped banjo altogether and focused on guitar.
Several years later I picked up banjo again "just for fun" and delved into old-time music and the clawhammer style of banjo playing. I didn't take this seriously: when playing bluegrass, I had never lowered myself to try this hillbilly style, and to my jaded perception, this would be a lot easier to learn. Boy was I wrong. I found that although playing clawhammer banjo was initially easier compared to bluegrass it actually was much harder to master. After a year of fooling around with it I found I could bang out old-time, folk, blues, and a number of different genres using the clawhammer technique.
This led to an interest in different types of old-timey music, so-called because it is a style of music that historically predates bluegrass, and includes a number of different sub-genres. Think of it as including much of the banjo and fiddle and dance music from about 1890 through 1935, originating from southern Georgia to northern Vermont, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the midwest. It also includes the vast well of Appalachian music from the past 200 years or more, mostly brought over by Scot and Irish settlers.
The banjo music you'll hear on Nacho Celtic is mostly focused on this huge range of style, and includes artists such as Bob Carlin, Mike Seeger, Pete Seeger, and Abigail Washburn. It will sound like hillbilly music, folk music, children's music, and even like bluegrass music without the fancy solos and polyester suits. Sometimes I'll even get wild and play Bela Fleck, who is a total world of genres unto himself.
Carlos