''I wonder how long it will be before someone propounds the theory that the Bandoneon was invented by the Argentinians and the bouzouki by the Irish...'' Tee - hee ! That's a good one, that is ! :-)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Folks, Compared with the banjo, the Portuguese guitarra is relatively harmless in this respect! The opinions, evidence, argumentation and generation of heat rather than light that centre around the banjo are compacted by the sensitive nature of the relationships between Black and White in North America. Did the Aftrican slaves bring the banjo with them when thy were were abducted to the New World? Or did they develop the banjo there on the basis of their recollections of African instruments? Would the modern banjo have come into being without the contribution of Anglo-American luthiers? Did the Whites (who now appear to "own" the banjo) steal it from the Blacks, or did the Blacks lose interest in it and relinquish their part its further development? What of the zither-banjo in England - is it a further development from an African root, or did its inception spring from what was already a North American instrument? At least with England and Portugal, we're talking about two Western European countries that were both colonial powers, and had a long history of friendship, with little rivalry between them in other areas. I wonder how long it will be before someone propounds the theory that the Bandoneon was invented by the Argentinians and the bouzouki by the Irish... The chauvinistic heresy that the autoharp was an American invention has at least been refuted (it was the Germans - again!). I think this points to a frequent source of error: just because a particular instrument is prominent in the music of a certain country, and not in others, doesn't mean that the instrument originated there! In the case of the autoharp, the development of the modern form and its music took place in the adopted country, whereas in its homeland it fell into disuse. Is there a parallel with the guitarra here? Cheers, John D. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
