Building New Banjos for an Old-Time World Paperback / softback

by Richard Jones-Bamman

Part of the Folklore Studies in Multicultural World series

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

Banjo music possesses a unique power to evoke a bucolic, simpler past.

The artisans who build banjos for old-time music stand at an unusual crossroads ”asked to meet the modern musician's needs while retaining the nostalgic qualities so fundamental to the banjo's sound and mystique.

Richard Jones-Bamman ventures into workshops and old-time music communities to explore how banjo builders practice their art.

His interviews and long-time personal immersion in the musical culture shed light on long-overlooked aspects of banjo making.

What is the banjo builder's role in the creation of a specific musical community?

What techniques go into the styles of instruments they create?

Jones-Bamman explores these questions and many others while sharing the ways an inescapable sense of the past undergirds the performance and enjoyment of old-time music.

Along the way he reveals how antimodernism remains integral to the music's appeal and its making.