Banjo

**Banjo** adalah alat musik petik yang dikembangkan oleh budak Afrika di Amerika Serikat, dan merupakan gabungan beberapa alat musik Afrika. Nama *banjo* umumnya dianggap berasal dari istilah Kimbundu, *mbanza*. Meski demikian, penelitian menyatakan bahwa istilah ini mungkin berasal dari istilah Senegambia yang menunjuk pada tongkat bambu yang digunakan untuk leher alat musik ini.

## Sejarah

Banjo modern berasal dari instrumen yang telah tercatat digunakan di Amerika Utara dan Karibia sejak abad ke-17 oleh orang-orang yang diperbudak yang dibawa dari Afrika Barat dan Tengah, seperti kora. Instrumen gaya Afrika mereka dibuat dari gourd yang dibelah dengan kulit binatang direntangkan di atasnya. Senar, dari usus atau serat tumbuhan, dipasang pada leher kayu.&lt;ref name=banjojstor>&lt;/ref> Referensi tertulis tentang banjo di Amerika Utara dan Caribbean muncul pada abad ke-17 dan ke-18.&lt;ref name=banjojstor/>

The earliest written indication of an instrument akin to the banjo is in the 17th&nbsp;century: Richard Jobson (1621) in describing The Gambia, wrote about an instrument which some consider to be similar to the banjo.

They have little varietie of instruments, that which is most common in use, is made of a great gourd, and a necke thereunto fastned, resembling, in some sort, our Bandora; but they have no manner of fret, and the strings they are either such as the place yeeldes or their invention can attaine to make, being very unapt to yeeld a sweete and musicall sound, notwithstanding with pinnes they winde and bring to agree in tunable notes, having not above sixe strings upon their greatest instrument.

The term *banjo* has several etymological origins. One theory links it to the Mandinka language which gives the name of Banjul, capital of The Gambia. Another claim is a connection to the West African *[[akonting]]*: it is made with a long bamboo neck called a *bangoe*. The material for the neck, called *ban julo* in the Mandinka language, again gives *banjul*. In this interpretation, *banjul* became a sort of eponym for the akonting as it crossed the Atlantic. The instrument's name might also derive from the Kimbundu word *mbanza*, which is a loan word to the Portuguese language resulting in the term *banza*, which was used by early French travelers in the Americas. Its earliest recorded use was in 1678 by the Sovereign Council of Martinique which reinstated a 1654 decree that placed prohibitions and restrictions on "dances and assemblies of negroes" deemed to be *[[calinda|kalenda]]*, which was defined as the gathering of enslaved Africans who danced to the sound of a drum and an instrument called the banza.

The OED claims that the term *banjo* comes from a dialectal pronunciation of Portuguese *bandore* or from an early anglicisation of Spanish *[[bandurria]]*. Contrary evidence shows that the terms *bandore* and *bandurria* were used when Europeans encountered the instrument or its kin varieties in use by people of African descent, who used  names for the instrument such as *banza*, as it was called in places such as Haiti, varieties that were built around a gourd body with a wooden plank for the neck. François Richard de Tussac, a former planter from Saint-Domingue, details its construction in the book *Le Cri des Colons*, published in 1810, stating:

As for the guitars, which the negroes call *banzas*, this is what they consist of: they cut lengthwise, through the middle, a fresh calabash [the fruit of a tree called the callebassier]. This fruit is sometimes eight inches or more in diameter. The stretch across it the skin of a goat, which they attach on the edges with little nails; they put two or three little holes on this surface, and then a kind of plank or piece of wood that is rudely flattened makes the neck of the instrument; they stretch three strings made of pitre [a kind of string taken from the agave plant, commonly known as pitre] across it; and so the instrument is built. On this instrument they play airs composed of three or four notes, which they repeat constantly.

Michel Étienne Descourtilz, a naturalist who visited Haiti in the early 1800s, described it as *banzas*, a Negro instrument, that the natives prepare by sawing one of the calabashes or a large gourd lengthwise, to which they attach a neck and sonorous strings made from the filament" of aloe plants. It was played during any occasion, from boredom to joyous parties and calendas to funeral ceremonies. It was the custom to also combine this sound with the more noisy *[[bamboula]]*, a type of drum made from a stick of bamboo covered on both sides with a skin that was played with fingers and knuckles while sitting astride.

Various instruments in Africa, chief among them the ''kora'', feature a skin drumhead and gourd (or similar shell) body. These instruments differ from early African-American banjos in that the necks do not possess a Western-style fingerboard and tuning pegs; instead they have stick necks, with strings attached to the neck with loops for tuning.

Another likely relative of the banjo is the aforementioned *akonting*, a spike folk lute which is constructed using a gourd body, a long wooden neck, and three strings played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the *ubaw-akwala* of the Igbo. Similar instruments include the *[[xalam]]* of Senegal and the *[[Ngoni (instrument)|ngoni]]* of the Wassoulou region that includes parts of Mali, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, as well as a larger variation of the *ngoni*,  known as the *gimbri*, developed in Morocco by sub-Saharan Africans (Gnawa or Haratin).

Banjo-like instruments seem to have been independently invented in several different places, in addition to the many African instruments mentioned above, since instruments similar to the banjo are known from a diverse array of distant countries. For example, the Chinese *[[sanxian]]*, the Japanese *[[shamisen]]*, the Persian *[[Tar (lute)|tar]]*, and the Moroccan *[[sintir]]*.

Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th&nbsp;century. Some 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as *bangie*, *banza*, *bonjaw*, *banjer* and *banjar*.

The instrument became increasingly available commercially from around the second quarter of the 19th century due to minstrel show performances.

### Minstrel era, 1830s–1870s

In the antebellum South, many enslaved Africans played the banjo, spreading it to the rest of the population. In his memoir *With Sabre and Scalpel: The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon*, the Confederate veteran and surgeon John Allan Wyeth recalls learning to play the banjo as a child from an enslaved person on his family plantation. Another man who learned to play from African-Americans, probably in the 1820s, was Joel Walker Sweeney, a minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Sweeney has been credited with adding a string to the four-string African-American banjo, and popularizing the five-string banjo. Although Robert McAlpin Williamson is the first documented white banjoist, in the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage. Sweeney's musical performances occurred at the beginning of the minstrel era, as banjos shifted away from being exclusively homemade folk instruments to instruments of a more modern style. Sweeney participated in this transition by encouraging drum maker William Boucher of Baltimore to make banjos commercially for him to sell.

In 1949, Arthur Woodward credited Sweeney with replacing the gourd with a wooden sound box covered in skin, and adding a short fifth string around 1831. However, modern scholar Gene Bluestein pointed out in 1964 that Sweeney may not have originated either the 5th string or sound box. This new banjo was at first tuned d'Gdf♯a, though by the 1890s, this had been transposed up to g'cgbd'. Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeney's group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls.

The instrument grew in popularity during the 1840s after Sweeney began his traveling minstrel show. By the end of the 1840s the instrument had expanded from Caribbean possession to take root in places across America and across the Atlantic in England. It was estimated in 1866 that there were probably 10,000 banjos in New York City, up from only a handful in 1844. People were exposed to banjos not only at minstrel shows, but also medicine shows, Wild-West shows, variety shows, and traveling vaudeville shows. The banjo's popularity also was given a boost by the Civil War, as servicemen on both sides in the Army or Navy were exposed to the banjo played in minstrel shows and by other servicemen. A popular movement of aspiring banjoists began as early as 1861. The enthusiasm for the instrument was labeled a "banjo craze" or "banjo mania."

By the 1850s, aspiring banjo players had options to help them learn their instrument. There were more teachers teaching banjo basics in the 1850s than there had been in the 1840s. There were also instruction manuals and, for those who could read it, printed music in the manuals. The first book of notated music was *The Complete Preceptor* by Elias Howe, published under the pseudonym *Gumbo Chaff*, consisting mainly of Christy's Minstrels tunes. The first banjo method was the *Briggs' Banjo instructor* (1855) by Tom Briggs. Other methods included *Howe's New American Banjo School* (1857), and *Phil Rice's Method for the Banjo, With or Without a Master* (1858). These books taught the "stroke style" or "banjo style", similar to modern "frailing" or "clawhammer" styles.

By 1868, music for the banjo was available printed in a magazine, when J. K. Buckley wrote and arranged popular music for *Buckley's Monthly Banjoist*. Frank B. Converse also published his entire collection of compositions in *The Complete Banjoist* in 1868, which included "polkas, waltzes, marches, and clog hornpipes."

In the 1840s, opportunities for work were found not only in minstrel companies and circuses, but also in floating theaters and variety theaters, which served as precursors to the variety show and vaudeville.

### Classic era, 1880s–1910s

The term *classic banjo* is used today to talk about a bare-finger "guitar style" that was widely in use among banjo players of the late 19th to early 20th century. It is still used by banjoists today. The term also differentiates that style of playing from the fingerpicking bluegrass banjo styles, such as the Scruggs style and Keith style.

The *Briggs Banjo Method*, considered to be the first banjo method and which taught the *stroke style* of playing, also mentioned the existence of another way of playing, the *guitar style.* Alternatively known as "finger style", the new way of playing the banjo displaced the stroke method, until by 1870 it was the dominant style. Although mentioned by Briggs, it wasn't taught. The first banjo method to teach the technique was *Frank B. Converse's New and Complete Method for the Banjo with or without a Master*, published in 1865.

To play in guitar style, players use the thumb and two or three fingers on their right hand to pick the notes. Samuel Swaim Stewart summarized the style in 1888, saying,

The banjo, although popular, carried low-class associations from its role in blackface minstrel shows, medicine shows, tent shows, and variety shows or vaudeville. There was a push in the 19th century to bring the instrument into "respectability." Musicians such as William A. Huntley made an effort to "elevate" the instrument or make it more "artistic," by "bringing it to a more sophisticated level of technique and repertoire based on European standards." Huntley may have been the first white performer to successfully make the transition from performing in blackface to being himself on stage, noted by the Boston Herald in November 1884. He was supported by another former blackface performer, Samuel Swaim Stewart, in his corporate magazine that popularized highly talented professionals.

As the "raucous" imitations of plantation life decreased in minstrelsy, the banjo became more acceptable as an instrument of fashionable society, even to be accepted into women's parlors. Part of that change was a switch from the stroke style to the guitar playing style. An 1888 newspaper said, "All the maidens and a good many of the women also strum the instrument, banjo classes abound on every side and banjo recitals are among the newest diversions of fashion...Youths and elderly men too have caught the fever...the star strummers among men are in demand at the smartest parties and have the choosing of the society of the most charming girls."

Some of those entertainers, such as Alfred A. Farland, specialized in classical music. However, musicians who wanted to entertain their audiences, and make a living, mixed it in with the popular music that audiences wanted. Farland's pupil Frederick J. Bacon was one of these. A former medicine show entertainer, Bacon performed classical music along with popular songs such as *Massa's in de cold, cold ground*, a *Medley of Scotch Airs*, a *Medley of Southern Airs*, and Thomas Glynn’s *West Lawn Polka*.

Banjo innovation which began in the minstrel age continued, with increased use of metal parts, exotic wood, raised metal frets and a tone-ring that improved the sound. Instruments were designed in a variety of sizes and pitch ranges, to play different parts in banjo orchestras. Examples on display in the museum include banjorines and piccolo banjos.

New styles of playing, a new look, instruments in a variety of pitch ranges to take the place of different sections in an orchestra – all helped to separate the instrument from the rough minstrel image of the previous 50–60 years. The instrument was modern now, a bright new thing, with polished metal sides.

### Ragtime era (1895–1919) and Jazz Age era (1910s–1930s)
In the early 1900s, new banjos began to spread, four-string models, played with a plectrum rather than with the minstrel-banjo clawhammer stroke or the classic-banjo fingerpicking style. The new banjos were a result of changing musical tastes. New music spurred the creation of "evolutionary variations" of the banjo, from the five-string model current since the 1830s to newer four-string plectrum and tenor banjos.

The instruments became ornately decorated in the 1920s to be visually dynamic to a theater audience. The instruments were increasingly modified or made in a new style – necks that were shortened to handle the four steel (not fiber as before) strings, strings that were sounded with a pick instead of fingers, four strings instead of five and tuned differently. The changes reflected the nature of post-World-War-I music. The country was turning away from European classics, preferring the "upbeat and carefree feel" of jazz, and American soldiers returning from the war helped to drive this change.

The change in tastes toward dance music and the need for louder instruments began a few years before the war, however, with ragtime. That music encouraged musicians to alter their 5-string banjos to four, add the louder steel strings and use a pick or plectrum, all in an effort to be heard over the brass and reed instruments that were current in dance-halls. The four string plectrum and tenor banjos did not eliminate the five-string variety. They were products of their times and musical purposes—ragtime and jazz dance music and theater music.

The Great Depression is a visible line to mark the end of the Jazz Age. The economic downturn cut into the sales of both four- and five-stringed banjos, and by World War 2, banjos were in sharp decline, the market for them dead.

### Modern era

In the years after World War II, the banjo experienced a resurgence, played by music stars such as Earl Scruggs (bluegrass), Bela Fleck (jazz, rock, world music), Gerry O'Connor (Celtic and Irish music), Perry Bechtel (jazz, big band), Pete Seeger (folk), and Otis Taylor (African-American roots, blues, jazz).

Pete Seeger "was a major force behind a new national interest in folk music." Learning to play a fingerstyle in the Appalachians from musicians who never stopped playing the banjo, he wrote the book, *How to Play the Five-String Banjo*, which was the only banjo method on the market for years. He was followed by a movement of folk musicians, such as Dave Guard of The Kingston Trio and Erik Darling of the Weavers and Tarriers.

Earl Scruggs was seen both as a legend and a "contemporary musical innovator" who gave his name to his style of playing, the *Scruggs Style*. Scruggs played the banjo "with heretofore unheard of speed and dexterity," using a picking technique for the 5-string banjo that he perfected from 2-finger and 3-finger picking techniques in rural North Carolina. His playing reached Americans through the Grand Ole Opry and into the living rooms of Americans who didn't listen to country or bluegrass music, through the theme music of *[[The Beverly Hillbillies]]* TV sitcom.

For the last one hundred years, the tenor banjo has become an intrinsic part of the world of Irish traditional music. It is a relative newcomer to the genre.

The banjo has also been used more recently in the hardcore punk scene, most notably by Show Me the Body on their debut album, *[[Body War (album)|Body War]]*.

## Referensi