Appalachian Music
Important Musical Instruments
• Banjos
• Dulcimers
• Fiddles
• Jew harps
• Mouth Bows
Banjo
• The five string banjo evolved from
African instruments.
• Joel Sweeney from Appomattox,
Virginia helped make it an international
craze. The Boston Post proclaimed in
1841, “Only those who have heard
Sweeney know what music there is in a
banjo”.
• The banjo at that time was fretless, just
like a fiddle.
• Frets started becoming popular on
banjos in the 1880’s.
• There are many musicians in the
Southern Appalachian Mountains where
the fretless banjo continues to be the
instrument of choice.
How to Play the Banjo
You will need two finger picks and a thumb pick. The thumb pick is plastic,
but you need to use metal finger picks. Plastic finger picks won't work out.
And yes, you really need to use picks to play bluegrass banjo—playing with
bare fingers is actually harder than playing with picks.
Some tab is written using the lines rather that the spaces. You can adapt to
either style. Each space or line represents a string. The “O” in the staff space
stands for an open string, and the “T”, “M”, and “I” represent your thumb,
middle, and index fingers. The numbers represent what fret or position (for the
Appalachian Banjo) you place your finger at with the left hand.
Dulcimer
• A fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically
with three or four strings. It is native to the Appalachian
region of the United States.
• The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its
fretting is generally diatonic.
• The Appalachian dulcimer appeared in regions
dominated by Irish and Scottish settlement.
• Several diatonic fretted zithers exist in Continental
Europe, which bear a strong similarity to the dulcimer
such as the scheitholt and langeleik.
Playing the Dulcimer
The dulcimer should lie on your lap with the peg-head toward your left hand or
side. You adjust the instrument, raise your knees up and down until it is level, get
comfortable and you are ready to play!
Hold the pick in your right hand firmly but gently between your thumb and forefinger.
The wooden noter is held with the left hand. Cradle the noter in the bend of the
four fingers and use the thumb to apply pressure on the first finger so the noter is
firm and does not slip around. The noter is used by many dulcimer
players to "note" the melody string(s).
The string nearest to you is String 1 (on a four-string dulcimer - the first two strings). I
always tune to the DAA or Ionian tuning, so the first string is "A".
The 2nd string is also "A". The 3rd string (the biggest string) is tuned to "D".
Notice on the "fret board" there is a "strum hollow." This is the obvious place near
the end of the dulcimer where you strum the instrument. Over the "Strum Hollow"
you can strum the strings with your thumb, a thumb pick, or a flat pick.
Fiddle
• The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical
instrument, including the violin; it is a colloquial term for
the instrument used by players in all genres, including
classical music
• Fiddle has a more generalized meaning than violin.
Whereas violin refers to a specific instrument, fiddle may
be used to refer to a violin or any member of a general
category of similar stringed instruments played with a
horsehair bow,
Jew’s Harp
• Thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in
the world.
• a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a
Chinese drawing from the 3rd century BC.
• Despite its common English name, it has no particular
connection with Judaism. This instrument is native to
Asia and used in all tribes of Turkish people in Asia.
• it consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed
attached to a frame.
Mouth Bow
• The most traditional sort of mouth bow is similar to its
counterpart, the simple hunting bow, being little more
than a springy bough with a length of twine, leather, or
gut strung between the two ends.
• The Appalachian mouth bow is a variation on this style,
having a flat strip of wood, tapered on each end, rather
than the rounded branch. Its design is clean and
uncomplicated, and lends itself to artistic woodworking or
painting
Appalachian Music
Based upon Anglo-Celtic folk ballads and instrumental
dance tunes. The former were almost always sung
unaccompanied, and usually by women, fulfilling roles as
keepers of the families' cultural heritages and rising
above dreary monotonous work through fantasies of
escape and revenge.
The ornamentation and vocal improvisation found in many
Celtic ballads seems to have led to that particular tonal,
nasal quality preferred by many traditional
Appalachian singers.
• Two other ballad types arose from the particular
American experience.
• One type arose from the African tradition,
reflecting an actual event or action with real
historical characters, and where the flow of text
was highlighted by an emotional mood of grief or
celebration, rather than a plot line.
• The second ballad type was from the popular
music source of the parlor or sentimental ballad,
mostly from the Victorian or Edwardian eras,
presented in the Minstrel Show or Music Hall,
and eventually passing into a folk tradition
through sheer repetition.
Religious Music
• Religious music, was probably the most
prevalent music heard in Appalachia.
• During the Colonial period the press was
controlled by a clergy which had no interest in
the spread of secular music, therefore, not much
of the latter survived in written form. There were
three types of religious music: ballads, hymns,
and revival spiritual songs.
Instrumental Music
• The instrumental tradition of the Appalachians
started as Anglo-Celtic dance tunes and
eventually was reshaped by local needs, African
rhythms, and changes in instrumentation.
• The fiddle was at first the main instrument, often
alone. Originally the tonal and stylistic qualities
of the fiddle mirrored those of the ballad.
• The 'reel' is generally thought to have developed
in the Scottish highlands in the mid-eighteenth
century.
Irish Influence
• Irish immigration also added its own flavor. The
sound of the pipes and their drones added a
double-stop approach where two strings are
usually played together.
Purposes
• Singing was used for personal and group
enjoyment and continuation
of historical narrative.
• Instrumentation was used for
dances and contests