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For me, the essence of traditional folk musics is not about playing _old_ songs, it's about making a _new_ song out of every old song you play, adding in a small piece of yourself and your community just like so many before you. Not recreating an antique tradition but _participating in_ a living tradition.

We have totally different pursuits but you're such a role model. I love the music you play and your "authenticity" as you described, been watching your videos on repeat for the last week. Such good stuff. Story time: I was taught violin classically as part of my schooling, I sort of had to do a music credit (choir, band, orchestra), and I think my mom thought that that was the only way/right way to learn. Thing is, I originally chose the instrument because I really, desperately wanted to learn it (most kids dread being forced to play it) --- and I wanted to learn it so bad from those festivals you mentioned. We used to go to Celtic music festivals every year and watch Riverdance and all that, and that's what I fell in love with. 12 years later and I was that booksmart typewriter you're talking about. Sheet music was my bread and butter and it was simply impossible to learn by ear. I felt like a cripple. I felt totally broken going to those festivals and trying to play along. Why was this happening? I was 1st & 2nd chair in my snobby fancy philharmonic orchestra in high school and even in college, but yet I was getting obliterated by some kids trying the instrument out for 6 months. Obliterated in the one place I was impassioned. Not that it was a competition, but it was profound discovering I was unable to learn by ear and unable to authentically play the music I loved, the music that was the one reason why I chose the instrument. I was defective. I've spent the last 10 years trying to unlearn my education and man, it's really tough teaching an old dog new tricks. After all this time, I think the most important thing for young kids learning an instrument (especially visual learners) is to be instructed to set aside good chunks of time to "feel the instrument." To close their eyes and to feel the instrument out. No visual distractions. To be bold and to make ugly noises and to just feel it out to learn what movements in their body pair with the instrument and what sounds they make. It will be ugly. It might be scary because they're not supposed to do that and to make those noises. And yeah, their parents will hate it. But when a visual learner gets sheet music, they get immersed into the page. Sure, they're making music, but their minds can hardly pay attention to the fluidity of the movements or the pitch of the sound or the rhythm, because the visual page is where the primary connection and attention is. It's a distraction. To this day, surprisingly, I still love sheet music. It's actually addicting because it does all the work for me. I can sight-read anything, but yet, the moment I do, I'm a typewriter and a robot all over again. Inauthentic, just a tool for the composer. It's funny, those kids playing for 6 months learning by ear would tell me they wished they could read sheet music. The grass is always greener, man. P.S. Really small thing, but I liked that you said to seek out "violin" players at those music festivals. It varies all over but I've personally found that outside of Celtic/folk/bluegrass/Appalachia, which for most people is the majority of the time, the term "fiddle" is derogatory/disrespectful, it's kind of used to poke fun at "cheap" or "hillbilly" music as if it was a "lower class" of musical prowess or something like that. It shouldn't be like that, but that won't change anytime soon. And there probably are a bunch of classically-trained violinists at those festivals wanting to be "fiddle" players, but are struggling just like me.

Your words about “typewriter” banjo struck such a chord. Whatever the folk tradition, they have their base in listening and playing by ear. Even many “high traditions” which may have formal theory, like Indian music, are still deeply rooted in oral tradition. Can you imagine trying to notate an Indian classical music performance? I’ve always thought of music notation as a useful tool to remember a tune perhaps, but it’s little more than the skeleton of the music, because music is so much more than the notes in order. When people learn these oral based traditions purely from notation, they may develop fantastic technique and play like robots, but when it comes to real expression through that music...it just has to go further.

Thanks for this insight Clifton!

You are something special. Keep on plucking! Absolutely love your work!

Good video I couldn't play your style because I had my hand operated on but what I figured out was so easy any one could learn in one day . A good place to practice is nursing homes I've done that for 45 years but playing with other people will teach you a lot.

Thank you so much for the advices! The DLA is a wonderful source of Appalachia music, the Library of Congress I have to check out again. And I have ordered now the book, it will take 6-8 weeks because it has to fly across the Antlantic River. Alan Lomax...I've seen the "Appalachian Journey"🙂 Also the ToneWay Project ist not bad, they offer the lyrics and small mp3 examples. Greetings from Germany and God bless you!

The Smithsonian folkways collection is a great resource as well.

I just ordered “Our Singing Country” ... love having words and sheet music. A nice video ... and Library of Congress! Yes! AND LASTLY, what strings would you use to replace a broken string on that banjo you have in this video? It hasn’t happened yet but sooner or later.

How come no comments? ? This guy is bloody marvellous! !

I tried to watch a well-watched banjo guy teaching Wabash Cannonball ... all I could think is so “typewriter banjo” with the two screens and the instructor telling them to “hold the pull off to right here” ... shows the tab ... and then do this. Love listening to you talk about this. I need to bump up my Patreon subscription. Really appreciate your way of approaching this classic instrument. So many options. ❤️🎶〰️

On the subject of the “typewriter” sound, it brought to my mind Mike Seeger’s rendition of Josh Thomas’ Roustabout. Technically it’s astounding, you can hear every note perfectly in time etc, but comparing it to the original it doesn’t have nearly the same emotional impact - not to take anything away from Seeger’s incredible performance.

Former typist here. I learned a lot of tunes from books (on banjo and other melody instruments). And they never sounded right. Real stilted. I hadn't heard "typewriter banjo" before, but I guess that fits. For me it was like the difference between a guy reciting a speech from a piece of paper and a guy having a natural conversation. Now I still use books, but only as a way to get me started. I get an idea for a basic melody and then I try to find recordings of the tune and try to learn from that, or best of all, a live person who knows the tune--like really knows it. The other thing I have found is that transcriptions of a tune (if you read music) are just what some guy thought he heard. He could be wrong, or maybe he hears it different than you do. Source material is always best!

West NC is my fav

The easiest way to maintain "authenticity" is to steep yourself in the tradition. Not just the musical tradition, but traditional life and culture in general. You must listen to the music, not just to learn a song but every day as a hobby. If you spend all day listening to modern music, electronic stuff, hip-hop, and hard rock, you're not going to be able to play a nice traditional banjo tune after listening to a lesson for 30 minutes.

Hey Clifton. I have been reading the book you mention in this piece. Really enjoying it. I noticed no one seems to elaborate on SS Stewart's untimely death. I was trying to find information on how he died. Coming up with nothing. Have you heard anything on that score? Just curious.

I think there is something to be said for not learning hundreds of songs. If you think of field recordings, most traditional singers and musicians didn’t have a hundred different songs in their repertoire. More likely, a traditional musician would play 20 to 30 tunes with any frequency.

wanted to plug this local radio station that has had an old time radio show every sunday for the last 30-40 years as a potential resource. have to listen to it live, sundays 3-6 EST, but its better than most of the digital radio old time since this is curated by two dj's that know their stuff. great old, obscure recordings and new recordings by modern stringbands, etc. www.wncw.org/programs/old-porch

I having trouble cataloging authentic banjo playing or song writing from unauthentic. I will say a word or two about my process and please feel free to relate or chime in. Most of my songs come from harry smiths anthology of American folk music/ Alan Lomax field recordings/ or revised fiddle tunes. I’ve been listening to those collections for about 4 years and now it seems 2-3 times a week I will stumble (by accident) on another song taken from the anthology. Weather it be on guitar transposed to the banjo or the latter. All my learning is done by ear, repetive listening, appreciation of song and research into background and history. There is so much history in the song! I could use some textbook, typewriter type ways of learning, I really want to speed up or supplement the way I learn, it’s hard learning songs one at a time by ear!

i wanna know your opp about ragtime played in your style

I think you meant Surry County NC right? Not Surry County VA.

I think the term you where struggling for is "Generic". I met allot of them in Nashville in my day. Can't tell Bill from Bob unless your looking at them.

Authentic means that you've played it with some originality, not that you played it the way some banjo player in the past played it. After all, if the well known banjoists of the past were any good they played creatively, not how they were taught.

It's complicated because not everyone has access to authentic sources from which they can learn. Luckily in our day, we have KZfaq, so people can learn mimetically, imitating what the instructor is doing, which more closely resembles the "folk" way of learning, the "So you put your finger there, and then you go like this," kind of approach, as captured in the lovely Tanner painting "the Banjo Lesson." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banjo_Lesson. Ironically, even as the Internet is swallowing literary and book-related material culture whole, it may allow a window for some into a more authentic experience of folk culture than publications like Pete Seeger's banjo book were ever going to be able to. Ultimately though, I think the most important thing is for the learner to have a certain kind of humility before the tradition and its practitioners. Whatever portal one enters the engagement with the tradition through, submitting to the sounds and ethos of the tradition *first*, and only after full absorption allowing one's individuality to emerge will produce something closer to authenticity. People who want to immediately "improve" what they are hearing as they are learning, aren't likely to get there. They'll get somewhere, and possibly somewhere good, but it's not likely to earn the label "authentic."