Correspondance: Sean Condron

As I continue work on Project #497 (or John Henry and the Patchwork Penitentiaries) I wish to share some of the research threads that evolve from my correspondence with various experts. Sean Condron is a New York City Banjoist and Guitarist Extraordinaire, as well as a music historian. He has graciously agreed to answer some of my folk music queries. Read below for our latest exchange...

Note: My words are in purple text. Sean's responses are indicated with green text.


I am currently reading NEGRO FOLK MUSIC, U.S.A. by Harold Courlander and I thought I might use the text that I've read thus far as a point f depature for a few questions. Each question will reference an excerpt from the book, so you can easily see if I've simply misinterpreted the passage. I hope this is okay with you...

The title of the book gives away a certain particular point of view. 'Folk Music' ('Negro' or otherwise) in general is the construct of left leaning intellectuals and musicologists, predominantly white. People like Alan Lomax (who is not to be confused with his father John who was very much a Southern patrician and for example who presented Leadbelly to the New York intellegentsia in his prison uniform. Leadbelly eventually chafed under his patronage and struck out on his own), Charles Seeger (Pete, Mike and Peggy Seeger's father) and others. They saw folk music as a pure expression of a disenfranchised people without access to other forms of media on the national stage - which is true in a sense, but the scholars used it to advance a socio-political agenda of their own. Anoither book which might skew in a different direction is Leroi Jones "Blues People' although I haven't read it since high school.

"That Negro folk music in the United States is preeminently "American" is all too evident. It could have come into being only in the United States, where element of specific cultures were brought together under conditions that were not exactly duplicated anywhere else."

• Could you identify these unique elements?

i.e.: slavery. It seems he was pussyfooting around. Just as the the newly uprooted and oppressed adopted their master's religion (many times conflating it with their own traditions - Think of Mayan cosmological worship in Catholic churches in Central America or the Black Madonna amongst Gitans) musical traditions were also borrowed and conjoined. The Africans brought with them their polyrhythms and syncopation (perhaps most easily heard in a twelve bar blues where they call it 12/8 time with the drummer's hi hat tapping out one-two-three, one-two-three, for every tap of the foot.), their griot storytelling in song form, the inflections of their singing techniques - what today might be called blue notes - specifically the 'flatted' third, fifth, and seventh - also, melismas, slurs and glissandoes that are difficult to reproduce in western written notation, and of course, the forerunner of today's banjo and the playing techniques involved which are still in use today (Taj Mahal was one sixties star who kept the tradition alive) (incidentally, the reason they had their banjos with them were to play on the slaves ships in order for the crammed in, overcrowded captives to dance, exercise, and stay healthy). You hear this in everything from gospel, to soul, etc. In America, they picked up Western harmony (which is subserviant to rhythm and melody in Africa generally speaking, but at the fore in European classical music), also European instruments and techniques. For example of the reason Jazz developed into a virtuosic instrumental style was that the Creoles, descendants of French and African peoples (who identified as European, but because of Jim Crow laws would soon be in for a nasty surprise) had classical orchestras and the highly demanding classical techniques filtered into the music this way. They also were given the gift of the fiddle. Black music of the nineteenth century had a good deal of banjo-fiddle pairings. The guitar came to preeminence when they became cheaper through the mail order catalogs at the turn of the century. The banjo had also by then been appropriated by both low brow and hi brow white culture.

Although African or slaves of African ancestry had numerous contacts with Indians in various parts of the country (there were a number of Indian slave owners), there is no substantial evidence that Indian musical elements were absorbed by the developing mainstream of Negro folk music. Curiously enough, a study by an outstanding ethnomusicologist, George Herzog, inicated that at least one group of Cherokee Indians took ver elements of African musical style from Negro slaves."

• Is it possible to find audio examples of this?

I'm not sure. It would be interesting to hear field recordings of Indian music and compare to African field recordings.

"In Negro tradition the falsetto has an esthetic value placed upon it."

• What are your thoughts regarding this statement?

Yes, indeed it does, probably a characteristic of African singing. The same could be said for Swiss Yodelling which also became part of the American singing tradition. The two have certainly become mixed up as well. Jimmy Rodgers, arguably the first white Country superstar, had hits in the 1920's with his 'blue yodels' which were variations on black and white traditions. By the by, he was equally popular with black record buyers of the time.

"It is commonplace that Negro church music and secular music not only "swing" but also have much more sophisticated elements of offbeats, retarded beats and anticipated beats."

• How would I investigate an auditory example of offbeats, retarded beast (sic), and anticipated beats?

Throughout a large part of West and Central Africa buzzing and other and other vibrating effects are considered musically desirable. Membranes attached to balafons and tiny metal jingles attached to the keys of the sansa, are devised to produce these effects

You can hear offbeats, and anticipated beats in most modern popular music. In Swing music, listen to any Count Basie record or Benny Goodman record, they're all over. The 'retarded beast' you speak of could probably be best heard by going over tapes of George W. Bush at press conferences (Sorry, couldn't help myself)

• Can you list any other 'buzzing" examples?
• Any speculation on why this element figures so prominently?

For this answer, I give you our very own AJ Rabins:

In fact, my first time in Guatemala, I stayed with a family whose patriarch, Chepe Lepe, was a marimba maker. He took me into his workshop and showed me some instruments he'd made. He played one that sounded exquisite: a pure, sweet tone. "It's almost done," he said, "just one more step." He knelt down and stuck little pieces of what looked like post-it notes on the resonating wood; when he stood up and struck the keys, now the sound was distorted and buzzing. "Done!" he pronounced, smiling.

I was pretty shocked by this--a completely different way of hearing beauty. I told my musician friend Arrington this story a while ago and he pointed out that in some African music and dance, distortion is the divine element. Pure sound is considered to be just human, but when sound is distorted, the spirits can speak through it - the sonic equivalent of a mask. The marimba supposedly has African roots as well, and you can hear the distortion here. Oh, and see some spontaneous dancing!!!

Thanks so much,
Kenya (Robinson)

p.s.
More questions to come.

http://www.musicuganda.com/musical%20instruments.htm