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 BanjoYou 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