4-string banjo

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Four-string banjo

The 4-string banjo is any one of a number of long-necked lute-like stringed instruments with a hollow resonator body and four strings.

The instrument was particularly popular in the United States in the early 20th century, and extensively used in jazz. It was also available as a hybrid banjo-ukelele.[1] It enjoyed a brief renaissance in the late 1940s with Mike Pingatore's hit, a revival of "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover".[2]

In Brazil it is an important instrument also known as "Samba-banjo" or banjo-cavaco, derived from the cavaco, and is especially associated with Samba and its variants. The Brazilian 4-string banjo was first introduced by musician Almir Guineto in the late 1970s and early 1980s, attending on one hand the necessity for a louder instrument similar to the cavaco, and on the other, the drive for innovation.[3]

A four-string banjo has a number of different tunings. Popular ones include DGCE, DGCD and CGCD.[4] The samba banjo has the same tuning and range as the cavaquinho, but its timbre is quite different, sounding like a traditional banjo but pitched higher. It is played with a pick for rhythm accompaniment, with sophisticated strumming beats; thus it is a primarily a rhythmic instrument, and virtuosity is sometimes considered to be based on breaking repetitive patterns and surprising the listener with unexpected and inventive rhythmic figures, while keeping the rhythm steady.[citation needed]

References

  1. ↑ Randel, Don Michael, ed. (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Harvard University Press. p. 83. ISBN 9780674011632. 
  2. ↑ Linn, Karen (1994). That Half-barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture. University of Illinois Press. p. 111. ISBN 9780252064333. 
  3. ↑ McGowan, Chris; Pessanha, Ricardo (1998). The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil. Temple University Press. p. 51. ISBN 9781566395458. 
  4. ↑ Conway, Cecelia (1995). African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia: A Study of Folk Traditions. University of Tennessee Press. p. 234. ISBN 9780870498930. 


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