The All-American Musical Instrument

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

If you were asked to name the quintessential American musical instrument, think banjo. Think of hillbillies enlivening a bluegrass festival or a country folk revival, or the sad background strumming of a PBS video Civil War documentary.  My personal memories include Appalachian backwoods dueling banjos in the classic movie “Deliverance,” and the musical mischief of the Spike Jones band back in the 1950s.  Ask Alexa to play banjo music and fast-tempo country sounds will be launched.  

Historical roots are found in West Africa, and to a later extent in European traditions. The earliest models arrived on 18^th century slave ships often landing in the Caribbean.  Music historians describe primitive types as gourds covered with animal skins and necks made of sticks without any frets.  Modern banjos have four or five steel strings. The older types have a fifth short string called a drone or thumb string which is used to play rhythmic upbeats to accompany the main melody.  

Recently I took a close look at a banjo inherited by my brother-in-law Jim Horky. It is built on a circular frame consisting of a resonator and neck.  The essential element is a hollow rim covered with a membrane.  The resonator amplifies the sound. Many diverse types of wood are used in construction, ranging from maple and walnut to mahogany. Different woods yield brighter or richer sounds.

What intrigues me about the one my brother-in-law inherited is that the entire rim is lined with heavy and sturdy metal. This was added to protect the life of the instrument.  Apparently it needed to be rugged. Along with a mandolin and guitar, the instruments were bequeathed to my brother-in-law by his uncle Gerhard Martis, a multi-talented musician from Nebraska.

Gerhard (1897-1956) was a worldwide musical traveler who played in big and small bands in the 1930s and 40s.  I was told that Phil Harris, a very popular band leader of the era, rewarded Gerhard with a nice plot of land near Hollywood Boulevard, but it went into arrears because he could not be bothered to pay taxes on it.

Gerhard was a handsome fellow who could play about any stringed instrument in an orchestra. A photo suggests that one of his gigs involved the SS Niagara as it cruised from Sidney, Australia to New Jersey. My brother-in-law inherited Gerhard’s banjo partly because he, too, is musically talented. It pleases both of us to think that what Gerhard Martis left behind is American musical history to our ears.  

 

Living the Legacy of Greece

 

Living the Legacy of Greece

Recently I read an amusing account of sixth grade answers on a history test. It gave me a laugh but also reminded me of how strangely we interpret the past when context or background knowledge is missing.

One student wrote, “The Greeks were a highly sculptured people and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.” Another gave Socrates a sparce obituary when he wrote, “Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him.”    

My own superficial views became evident on recent trip my wife and I took to Greece.  We were among the million American tourists who arrive annually to explore the Parthenon and other so-called ruins.  Our bus excursions reminded me of peeling the petals off an artichoke. Each petal’s morsel took us closer to the historical heart of the country.

The Parthenon dominates the skyline of Athens. It sits on a football-field sized platform called an acropolis. Considered the center of religious life in the city-state, the columned main temple, built more than 2,500 years ago, was constructed in honor of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, arts, literature, and war. Numerous sculptured human images, some still bearing original pigments and adorned with still fashionable clothing, are stored in a nearby museum.

We journeyed to Olympia, the birthplace of today’s Olympics. The place features acres of crumbled training facilities, temples, monuments, sanctuaries, and the buried outline of a big stadium. Originally built in 776 BCE, the site was dedicated to the worship of gods and athletic competition. Separate temples were erected for Zeus, the king of all gods, and Hera, the queen of the gods and goddess of women and marriage.

Every four years for centuries, the site drew competitors from dozens of Greek city-states, just as our current Olympics globally attracts athletes. However, back then only men competed; winning an event was a huge political honor (sometimes primed with bribes); athletes competed in the nude; a false start could trigger the death penalty.

A bus trip northward took us to the mountainous Oracle at Delphi. Considered the center of the earth by ancient Greeks, the main purpose of its temples was to honor Apollo, the god of prophesy, music, poetry, and knowledge. One could not communicate with him directly, so to predict the future a bridge between the human and the divine was necessary. The solution was a middle-aged female priestess seer named Pythia. Once a month she would foretell the future by breathing in potent fumes expelled by a fissure in the earth. After falling into a trance, she would scream unintelligible predictions which were translated by attending priests. A number of city-states maintained treasuries on the site because gifts to Apollo were expected for advice, especially in times of war or political upheaval.

Ruins attract thousands of tourists everywhere in Greece. New archeological discoveries appear every week. Why have disintegrated columns, walls, and statues become such magnets?

A little research brings reasons to light. The ruins tell fascinating stories about the country’s culture and values. Greek mythology, with its many legends about gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, warriors and fools, is a vital cultural signature of the country. In the so-called Dark Age of Greece (about 1200 to 800 BCE), there was no written language, so story tellers used myths and legends to give meaning to everyday lives. Today’s ruins retell those stories.

Another reason for the sustained appeal of Greece is not just that it is indeed ancient, but that it still tells us so much about ourselves. It is impossible to identify any aspect of western civilization, and American life in particular, that has not been influenced by the ancient doings of Greece. The implications include our arts and architecture, political and legal institutions (including democracy and trial by jury), language and education, agriculture and philosophy, medicine and health, and (of course) athletics.

The sites we saw were visually awe-inspiring and even entertaining. Tourists support an estimated quarter of Greece’s economy, and we saw crowded evidence of it.  Our bonus in the months afterward has been a deeper understanding from thinking and reading about Greece’s gifts to western civilization.  After thousands of years, often without realizing it, we are living her legacy.