Technique
Some Technical and Musical Aspects of the
Banjo Part 3: Right Hand Technique - 11
Douglas Rogers ARAM
in previous instalments – by
in
its palette of timbres
string as much
possible a vertical (right angles to vellum)
and circumscribed to a great
by the skill of
The piano,and spite ofdesign anddegree both being prescribed – as mentionedasarc of swing, (rememberingimparting to the
component in its
that clarity
the builder
by its
construction, nevertheless
allows the talented pianist some degree of individuality in the
precise manner of operating its hammers. A top performer’s
prestidigitation is developed and honed by many years’
devoted practice, and this can facilitate (when at the service
of profound musical imagination and a discerning ear), subtle
variations in touch. Clever fingerings can produce yet further
layers of colour and expression.
The harpsichord, that noble
precursor of the piano, is an
instrument whose mechanical
plucking action fixes with even greater
ineluctability the attack. Without
recourse to double keyboards and
other ingenious devices (including the
higher reaches of technical cunning),
it is inherently without variety of tone.
It was in boastful acknowledgement
of this limitation that the pianoforte,
which could perform the then
surprising trick of infinite gradation
in volume, was so named when it
was introduced in the early 1700s.
Yet despite the sonic straitjacket of
the harpsichord there was in the
seventeenth century a virtuoso named Jacques Champion
de Chambonnières of such rare talent that it was said if he
and two or three other players struck the identical chord in
succession it was easy to pick him out.
Given the mechanised – one might rudely say soulless
– nature of these keyboard instruments where ordinarily
there is only a remote chance of an individual touch being
identifiable (certainly in the case of the harpsichord), we
might congratulate ourselves on playing a fretted acoustic
instrument such as ‘classic’ fingerstyle banjo which, without
intervention of keys, quills, jacks, hammer-shanks, hoppers,
dampers, butts, mopsticks and other marvels, offers the
enthusiast such uncluttered opportunity to demonstrate his
uniqueness.
But such a freedom and level of responsibility is a doubleedged swor