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Banjo

The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, in modern forms usually made of plastic, originally of animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans and had African antecedents. In the 19th century, interest in the instrument was spread across the United States and United Kingdom by traveling shows of the 19th-century minstrel show fad, followed by mass-production and mail-order sales, including instruction method books. The inexpensive or home-made banjo remained part of rural folk culture, but 5-string and 4-string banjos also became popular for home parlor music entertainment, college music clubs, and early 20th century jazz bands. By the early 21st century, the banjo was most frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, but was also used in some rock, pop and even hip-hop music. Among rock bands, the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Some famous pickers of the banjo are Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs.

Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and rural folk culture before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like biguine, calypso, mento and troubadour.

Early origins

The modern banjo derives from instruments that have been recorded to be in use in North America and the Caribbean since the 17th century by enslaved people taken from West and Central Africa. Their African-style instruments were crafted from split gourds with animal skins stretched across them. Strings, from gut or vegetable fibers, were attached to a wooden neck. Written references to the banjo in North America and the Caribbean appear in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The earliest written indication of an instrument akin to the banjo is in the 17th century: Richard Jobson (1621) in describing The Gambia, wrote about an instrument like the banjo, which he called a bandore.

The term banjo has several etymological claims, one being from the Mandinka language which gives the name of Banjul, capital of The Gambia. Another claim is a connection to the West African akonting: it is made with a long bamboo neck called a bangoe. The material for the neck, called ban julo in the Mandinka language, again gives Banjul. In this interpretation, Banjul became a sort of eponym for the Akonting as it crossed the Atlantic. The instrument's name might also derive from the Kimbundu word mbanza, which is a loan word to the Portuguese language resulting in the term banza, which was used by early French travelers in the Americas. Its earliest recorded use was in 1678 by the Sovereign Council of Martinique which reinstated a 1654 decree that placed prohibitions and restrictions on "dances and assemblies of negroes" deemed to be kalenda, which was defined as the gathering of enslaved Africans who danced to the sound of a drum and an instrument called the banza.

The OED claims that the term banjo comes from a dialectal pronunciation of Portuguese bandore or from an early anglicisation of Spanish bandurria. Contrary evidence shows that the terms bandore and bandurria were used when Europeans encountered the instrument or its kin varieties in use by people of African descent, who used names for the instrument such as banza, as it was called in places such as Haiti, varieties that were built around a gourd body with a wooden plank for the neck. François Richard de Tussac, a former planter from Saint-Domingue, details its construction in the book Le Cri des Colons, published in 1810, stating:

"As for the guitars, which the negroes call banzas, this is what they consist of: they cut lengthwise, through the middle, a fresh calabash [the fruit of a tree called the callebassier]. This fruit is sometimes eight inches or more in diameter. The stretch across it the skin of a goat, which they attach on the edges with little nails; they put two or three little holes on this surface, and then a kind of plank or piece of wood that is rudely flattened makes the neck of the instrument; they stretch three strings made of pitre [a kind of string taken from the agave plant, commonly known as pitre] across it; and so the instrument is built. On this instrument they play airs composed of three or four notes, which they repeat constantly."

Michel Étienne Descourtilz, a naturalist who visited Haiti in the early 1800s, described it as banzas, a Negro instrument, that the natives prepare by sawing one of the calabashes or a large gourd lengthwise, to which they attach a neck and sonorous strings made from the filament" of aloe plants. It was played during any occasion, from boredom to joyous parties and calendas to funeral ceremonies. It was the custom to also combine this sound with the more noisy bamboula, a type of drum made from a stick of bamboo covered on both sides with a skin that was played with fingers and knuckles while sitting astride.

Various instruments in Africa, chief among them the kora, feature a skin drumhead and gourd (or similar shell) body. These instruments differ from early African-American banjos in that the necks do not possess a Western-style fingerboard and tuning pegs; instead they have stick necks, with strings attached to the neck with loops for tuning.

Another likely relative of the banjo is the aforementioned akonting, a spike folk lute which is constructed using a gourd body, a long wooden neck, and three strings played by the Jola tribe of Senegambia, and the ubaw-akwala of the Igbo. Similar instruments include the xalam of Senegal and the ngoni of the Wassoulou region that includes parts of Mali, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, as well as a larger variation of the ngoni, known as the gimbri, developed in Morocco by sub-Saharan Africans (Gnawa or Haratin).

Banjo-like instruments seem to have been independently invented in several different places, in addition to the many African instruments mentioned above, since instruments similar to the banjo are known from a diverse array of distant countries. For example, the Chinese sanxian, the Japanese shamisen, the Persian tar, and the Moroccan sintir.

Banjos with fingerboards and tuning pegs are known from the Caribbean as early as the 17th century. Some 18th- and early 19th-century writers transcribed the name of these instruments variously as bangie, banza, bonjaw, banjer and banjar.

The instrument became increasingly available commercially from around the second quarter of the 19th century due to minstrel show performances.

Minstrel era, 1830s–1870s
In the antebellum South, many enslaved Africans played the banjo, spreading it to the rest of the population. In his memoir With Sabre and Scalpel: The Autobiography of a Soldier and Surgeon, the Confederate veteran and surgeon John Allan Wyeth recalls learning to play the banjo as a child from an enslaved person on his family plantation. Another man who learned to play from African-Americans, probably in the 1820s, was Joel Walker Sweeney, a minstrel performer from Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Sweeney has been credited with adding a string to the four-string African-American banjo, and popularizing the five-string banjo. Although Robert McAlpin Williamson is the first documented white banjoist, in the 1830s Sweeney became the first white performer to play the banjo on stage. Sweeney's musical performances occurred at the beginning of the minstrel era, as banjos shifted away from being exclusively homemade folk instruments to instruments of a more modern style. Sweeney participated in this transition by encouraging drum maker William Boucher of Baltimore to make banjos commercially for him to sell.

According to Arthur Woodward in 1949, Sweeney replaced the gourd with a sound box made of wood and covered with skin, and added a short fifth string about 1831. However, modern scholar Gene Bluestein pointed out in 1964 that Sweeney may not have originated either the 5th string or sound box. This new banjo was at first tuned d'Gdf♯a, though by the 1890s, this had been transposed up to g'cgbd'. Banjos were introduced in Britain by Sweeney's group, the American Virginia Minstrels, in the 1840s, and became very popular in music halls.

The instrument grew in popularity during the 1840s after Sweeney began his traveling minstrel show. By the end of the 1840s the instrument had expanded from Caribbean possession to take root in places across America and across the Atlantic in England. It was estimated in 1866 that there were probably 10,000 banjos in New York City, up from only a handful in 1844. People were exposed to banjos not only at minstrel shows, but also medicine shows, Wild-West shows, variety shows, and traveling vaudeville shows. The banjo's popularity also was given a boost by the Civil War, as servicemen on both sides in the Army or Navy were exposed to the banjo played in minstrel shows and by other servicemen. A popular movement of aspiring banjoists began as early as 1861. The enthusiasm for the instrument was labeled a "banjo craze" or "banjo mania."

By the 1850s, aspiring banjo players had options to help them learn their instrument. There were more teachers teaching banjo basics in the 1850s than there had been in the 1840s. There were also instruction manuals and, for those who could read it, printed music in the manuals. The first book of notated music was The Complete Preceptor by Elias Howe, published under the pseudonym Gumbo Chaff, consisting mainly of Christy's Minstrels tunes. The first banjo method was the Briggs' Banjo instructor (1855) by Tom Briggs. Other methods included Howe's New American Banjo School (1857), and Phil Rice's Method for the Banjo, With or Without a Master (1858). These books taught the "stroke style" or "banjo style", similar to modern "frailing" or "clawhammer" styles.

By 1868, music for the banjo was available printed in a magazine, when J. K. Buckley wrote and arranged popular music for Buckley's Monthly Banjoist. Frank B. Converse also published his entire collection of compositions in The Complete Banjoist in 1868, which included "polkas, waltzes, marches, and clog hornpipes."

Opportunities to work included the minstrel companies and circuses present in the 1840s, but also floating theaters and variety theaters, forerunners of the variety show and vaudeville.

Classic era, 1880s–1910s
The term classic banjo is used today to talk about a bare-finger "guitar style" that was widely in use among banjo players of the late 19th to early 20th century. It is still used by banjoists today. The term also differentiates that style of playing from the fingerpicking bluegrass banjo styles, such as the Scruggs style and Keith style.

The Briggs Banjo Method, considered to be the first banjo method and which taught the stroke style of playing, also mentioned the existence of another way of playing, the guitar style. Alternatively known as "finger style", the new way of playing the banjo displaced the stroke method, until by 1870 it was the dominant style. Although mentioned by Briggs, it wasn't taught. The first banjo method to teach the technique was Frank B. Converse's New and Complete Method for the Banjo with or without a Master, published in 1865.

To play in guitar style, players use the thumb and two or three fingers on their right hand to pick the notes. Samuel Swaim Stewart summarized the style in 1888, saying,

"In the guitar style of Banjo-playing...the little finger of the right hand is rested upon the head near the bridge...[and] serves as a rest to the hand and a resistance to the movement of picking the strings...In the beginning it is best to acquire a knowledge of picking the strings with the use of the first and second fingers and thumb only, allowing the third finger to remain idle until the other fingers have become thoroughly accustomed to their work...the three fingers are almost invariably used in playing chords and accompaniments to songs.'"

The banjo, although popular, carried low-class associations from its role in blackface minstrel shows, medicine shows, tent shows, and variety shows or vaudeville. There was a push in the 19th century to bring the instrument into "respectability." Musicians such as William A. Huntley made an effort to "elevate" the instrument or make it more "artistic," by "bringing it to a more sophisticated level of technique and repertoire based on European standards." Huntley may have been the first white performer to successfully make the transition from performing in blackface to being himself on stage, noted by the Boston Herald in November 1884. He was supported by another former blackface performer, Samuel Swaim Stewart, in his corporate magazine that popularized highly talented professionals.

As the "raucous" imitations of plantation life decreased in minstrelsy, the banjo became more acceptable as an instrument of fashionable society, even to be accepted into women's parlors. Part of that change was a switch from the stroke style to the guitar playing style. An 1888 newspaper said, "All the maidens and a good many of the women also strum the instrument, banjo classes abound on every side and banjo recitals are among the newest diversions of fashion...Youths and elderly men too have caught the fever...the star strummers among men are in demand at the smartest parties and have the choosing of the society of the most charming girls."

Some of those entertainers, such as Alfred A. Farland, specialized in classical music. However, musicians who wanted to entertain their audiences, and make a living, mixed it in with the popular music that audiences wanted. Farland's pupil Frederick J. Bacon was one of these. A former medicine show entertainer, Bacon performed classical music along with popular songs such as Massa's in de cold, cold ground, a Medley of Scotch Airs, a Medley of Southern Airs, and Thomas Glynn’s West Lawn Polka.

Banjo innovation which began in the minstrel age continued, with increased use of metal parts, exotic wood, raised metal frets and a tone-ring that improved the sound. Instruments were designed in a variety of sizes and pitch ranges, to play different parts in banjo orchestras. Examples on display in the museum include banjorines and piccolo banjos.

New styles of playing, a new look, instruments in a variety of pitch ranges to take the place of different sections in an orchestra – all helped to separate the instrument from the rough minstrel image of the previous 50–60 years. The instrument was modern now, a bright new thing, with polished metal sides.

Ragtime era (1895–1919) and Jazz Age era (1910s–1930s)
In the early 1900s, new banjos began to spread, four-string models, played with a plectrum rather than with the minstrel-banjo clawhammer stroke or the classic-banjo fingerpicking style. The new banjos were a result of changing musical tastes. New music spurred the creation of "evolutionary variations" of the banjo, from the five-string model current since the 1830s to newer four-string plectrum and tenor banjos.

The instruments became ornately decorated in the 1920s to be visually dynamic to a theater audience. The instruments were increasingly modified or made in a new style – necks that were shortened to handle the four steel (not fiber as before) strings, strings that were sounded with a pick instead of fingers, four strings instead of five and tuned differently. The changes reflected the nature of post-World-War-I music. The country was turning away from European classics, preferring the "upbeat and carefree feel" of jazz, and American soldiers returning from the war helped to drive this change.

The change in tastes toward dance music and the need for louder instruments began a few years before the war, however, with ragtime. That music encouraged musicians to alter their 5-string banjos to four, add the louder steel strings and use a pick or plectrum, all in an effort to be heard over the brass and reed instruments that were current in dance-halls. The four string plectrum and tenor banjos did not eliminate the five-string variety. They were products of their times and musical purposes—ragtime and jazz dance music and theater music.

The Great Depression is a visible line to mark the end of the Jazz Age. The economic downturn cut into the sales of both four- and five-stringed banjos, and by World War 2, banjos were in sharp decline, the market for them dead.

Modern era

In the years after World War II, the banjo experienced a resurgence, played by music stars such as Earl Scruggs (bluegrass), Bela Fleck (jazz, rock, world music), Gerry O'Connor (Celtic and Irish music), Perry Bechtel (jazz, big band), Pete Seeger (folk), and Otis Taylor (African-American roots, blues, jazz).

Pete Seeger "was a major force behind a new national interest in folk music." Learning to play a fingerstyle in the Appalachians from musicians who never stopped playing the banjo, he wrote the book, How to Play the Five-String Banjo, which was the only banjo method on the market for years. He was followed by a movement of folk musicians, such as Dave Guard of The Kingston Trio and Erik Darling of the Weavers and Tarriers.

Earl Scruggs was seen both as a legend and a "contemporary musical innovator" who gave his name to his style of playing, the Scruggs Style. Scruggs played the banjo "with heretofore unheard of speed and dexterity," using a picking technique for the 5-string banjo that he perfected from 2-finger and 3-finger picking techniques in rural North Carolina. His playing reached Americans through the Grand Ole Opry and into the living rooms of Americans who didn't listen to country or bluegrass music, through the theme music of  The Beverly Hillbillies.

For the last one hundred years, the tenor banjo has become an intrinsic part of the world of Irish traditional music. It is a relative newcomer to the genre.

The banjo has also been used more recently in the hardcore punk scene, most notably by Show Me the Body on their debut album, Body War.

Technique

Two techniques closely associated with the five-string banjo are rolls and drones. Rolls are right hand accompanimental fingering patterns that consist of eight (eighth) notes that subdivide each measure. Drone notes are quick little notes [typically eighth notes], usually played on the 5th (short) string to fill in around the melody notes [typically eighth notes]. These techniques are both idiomatic to the banjo in all styles, and their sound is characteristic of bluegrass.

Historically, the banjo was played in the claw-hammer style by the Africans who brought their version of the banjo with them. Several other styles of play were developed from this. Clawhammer consists of downward striking of one or more of the four main strings with the index, middle or both fingers while the drone or fifth string is played with a 'lifting' (as opposed to downward pluck) motion of the thumb. The notes typically sounded by the thumb in this fashion are, usually, on the off beat. Melodies can be quite intricate adding techniques such as double thumbing and drop thumb. In old time Appalachian Mountain music, a style called two-finger up-pick is also used, and a three-finger version that Earl Scruggs developed into the "Scruggs" style picking was nationally aired in 1945 on the Grand Ole Opry. In this style the instrument is played by plucking individual notes. Modern fingerstyle is usually played using fingerpicks, though early players and some modern players play either with nails or with a technique known as on the flesh. In this style the strings are played directly with the fingers, rather than any pick or intermediary.

While five-string banjos are traditionally played with either fingerpicks or the fingers themselves, tenor banjos and plectrum banjos are played with a pick, either to strum full chords, or most commonly in Irish traditional music, play single-note melodies.

Modern forms
The modern banjo comes in a variety of forms, including four- and five-string versions. A six-string version, tuned and played similarly to a guitar, has gained popularity. In almost all of its forms, banjo playing is characterized by a fast arpeggiated plucking, though many different playing styles exist.

The body, or "pot", of a modern banjo typically consists of a circular rim (generally made of wood, though metal was also common on older banjos) and a tensioned head, similar to a drum head. Traditionally, the head was made from animal skin, but today is often made of various synthetic materials. Most modern banjos also have a metal "tone ring" assembly that helps further clarify and project the sound, but many older banjos do not include a tone ring.

The banjo is usually tuned with friction tuning pegs or planetary gear tuners, rather than the worm gear machine head used on guitars. Frets have become standard since the late 19th century, though fretless banjos are still manufactured and played by those wishing to execute glissando, play quarter tones, or otherwise achieve the sound and feeling of early playing styles.

Modern banjos are typically strung with metal strings. Usually, the fourth string is wound with either steel or bronze-phosphor alloy. Some players may string their banjos with nylon or gut strings to achieve a more mellow, old-time tone.

Some banjos have a separate resonator plate on the back of the pot to project the sound forward and give the instrument more volume. This type of banjo is usually used in bluegrass music, though resonator banjos are played by players of all styles, and are also used in old-time, sometimes as a substitute for electric amplification when playing in large venues.

Open-back banjos generally have a mellower tone and weigh less than resonator banjos. They usually have a different setup than a resonator banjo, often with a higher string action.

Five-string banjo
The modern five-string banjo is a variation on Sweeney's original design. The fifth string is usually the same gauge as the first, but starts from the fifth fret, three-quarters the length of the other strings. This lets the string be tuned to a higher open pitch than possible for the full-length strings. Because of the short fifth string, the five-string banjo uses a reentrant tuning – the string pitches do not proceed lowest to highest across the fingerboard. Instead, the fourth string is lowest, then third, second, first, and the fifth string is highest.

The short fifth string presents special problems for a capo. For small changes (going up or down one or two semitones, for example), simply retuning the fifth string is possible. Otherwise, various devices called "fifth-string capos" effectively shorten the vibrating part of the string. Many banjo players use model-railroad spikes or titanium spikes (usually installed at the seventh fret and sometimes at others), under which they hook the string to press it down on the fret.

Five-string banjo players use many tunings. (Tunings are given in left-to-right order, as viewed from the front of the instrument with the neck pointing up for a right-handed instrument. Left handed instruments reverse the order of the strings.) Probably the most common, particularly in bluegrass, is the Open-G tuning G4 D3 G3 B3 D4. In earlier times, the tuning G4 C3 G3 B3 D4 was commonly used instead, and this is still the preferred tuning for some types of folk music and for classic banjo. Other tunings found in old-time music include double C (G4 C3 G3 C4 D4), "sawmill" (G4 D3 G3 C4 D4) also called "mountain modal" and open D (F#4 D3 F#3 A3 D4). These tunings are often taken up a tone, either by tuning up or using a capo. For example, "double-D" tuning (A4 D3 A3 D4 E4) – commonly reached by tuning up from double C – is often played to accompany fiddle tunes in the key of D, and Open-A (A4 E3 A3 C#4 E4) is usually used for playing tunes in the key of A. Dozens of other banjo tunings are used, mostly in old-time music. These tunings are used to make playing specific tunes easier, usually fiddle tunes or groups of fiddle tunes.

The size of the five-string banjo is largely standardized, with a scale length of 26.25 in, but smaller and larger sizes exist, including the long-neck or "Seeger neck" variation designed by Pete Seeger. Petite variations on the five-string banjo have been available since the 1890s. S.S. Stewart introduced the banjeaurine, tuned one fourth above a standard five-string. Piccolo banjos are smaller, and tuned one octave above a standard banjo. Between these sizes and standard lies the A-scale banjo, which is two frets shorter and usually tuned one full step above standard tunings. Many makers have produced banjos of other scale lengths, and with various innovations.

American old-time music typically uses the five-string, open-back banjo. It is played in a number of different styles, the most common being clawhammer or frailing, characterized by the use of a downward rather than upward stroke when striking the strings with a fingernail. Frailing techniques use the thumb to catch the fifth string for a drone after most strums or after each stroke ("double thumbing"), or to pick out additional melody notes in what is known as drop-thumb. Pete Seeger popularized a folk style by combining clawhammer with up picking, usually without the use of fingerpicks. Another common style of old-time banjo playing is fingerpicking banjo or classic banjo. This style is based upon parlor-style guitar.

Bluegrass music, which uses the five-string resonator banjo almost exclusively, is played in several common styles. These include Scruggs style, named after Earl Scruggs; melodic, or Keith style, named for Bill Keith; and three-finger style with single-string work, also called Reno style after Don Reno. In these styles, the emphasis is on arpeggiated figures played in a continuous eighth-note rhythm, known as rolls. All of these styles are typically played with fingerpicks.

The first five-string, electric, solid-body banjo was developed by Charles Wilburn (Buck) Trent, Harold "Shot" Jackson, and David Jackson in 1960.

The five-string banjo has been used in classical music since before the turn of the 20th century. Contemporary and modern works have been written or arranged for the instrument by Don Vappie, Jerry Garcia, Buck Trent, Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, Ralph Stanley, George Gibson, Steve Martin, Clifton Hicks, George Crumb, Tim Lake, Modest Mouse, Jo Kondo, Paul Elwood, Hans Werner Henze (notably in his Sixth Symphony), Daniel Mason, Beck, the Water Tower Bucket Boys, Todd Taylor, J.P. Pickens, Peggy Honeywell, Norfolk & Western, Putnam Smith, Iron & Wine, The Avett Brothers, The Well Pennies, Punch Brothers, Julian Koster, Sufjan Stevens, and Sarah Jarosz.

George Gershwin includes a banjo in his opera Porgy and Bess

Frederick Delius wrote for a banjo in his opera Koanga.

Ernst Krenek includes two banjos in his Kleine Symphonie (Little Symphony).

Kurt Weill has a banjo in his opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

Viktor Ullmann included a tenor banjo part in his Piano Concerto (op. 25).

Virgil Thomson includes a banjo in his orchestral music to accompany the film The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936).

Four-string banjos

The four-string plectrum banjo is a standard banjo without the short drone string. It usually has 22 frets on the neck and a scale length of 26 to 28 inches, and was originally tuned C3 G3 B3 D4. It can also be tuned like the top four strings of a guitar, which is known as "Chicago tuning". As the name suggests, it is usually played with a guitar-style pick (that is, a single one held between thumb and forefinger), unlike the five-string banjo, which is either played with a thumbpick and two fingerpicks, or with bare fingers. The plectrum banjo evolved out of the five-string banjo, to cater to styles of music involving strummed chords. The plectrum is also featured in many early jazz recordings and arrangements.

Four-string banjos can be used for chordal accompaniment (as in early jazz), for single-string melody playing (as in Irish traditional music), in "chord melody" style (a succession of chords in which the highest notes carry the melody), in tremolo style (both on chords and single strings), and a mixed technique called duo style that combines single-string tremolo and rhythm chords.

Four-string banjos are used from time to time in musical theater. Examples include: Hello, Dolly!, Mame, Chicago, Cabaret, Oklahoma!, Half a Sixpence, Annie, Barnum, The Threepenny Opera, Monty Python's Spamalot, and countless others. Joe Raposo had used it variably in the imaginative seven-piece orchestration for the long-running TV show Sesame Street, and has sometimes had it overdubbed with itself or an electric guitar. The banjo is still (albeit rarely) in use in the show's arrangement currently.

Tenor banjo
The shorter-necked, tenor banjo, with 17 ("short scale") or 19 frets, is also typically played with a plectrum. It became a popular instrument after about 1910. Early models used for melodic picking typically had 17 frets on the neck and a scale length of 19$1/undefined$ to 21$1/undefined$ inches. By the mid-1920s, when the instrument was used primarily for strummed chordal accompaniment, 19-fret necks with a scale length of 21$3/4$ to 23 inches became standard. The usual tuning is the all-fifths tuning C3 G3 D4 A4, in which exactly seven semitones (a perfect fifth) occur between the open notes of consecutive strings; this is identical to the tuning of a viola. Other players (particularly in Irish traditional music) tune the banjo G2 D3 A3 E4 like an octave mandolin, which lets the banjoist duplicate fiddle and mandolin fingering. The popularization of this tuning is usually attributed to the late Barney McKenna, banjoist with The Dubliners.

The tenor banjo was a common rhythm instrument in early 20th-century dance bands. Its volume and timbre suited early jazz (and jazz-influenced popular music styles) and could both compete with other instruments (such as brass instruments and saxophones) and be heard clearly on acoustic recordings. George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, in Ferde Grofe's original jazz-orchestra arrangement, includes tenor banjo, with widely spaced chords not easily playable on plectrum banjo in its conventional tunings. With development of the archtop and electric guitar, the tenor banjo largely disappeared from jazz and popular music, though keeping its place in traditional "Dixieland" jazz.

Some 1920s Irish banjo players picked out the melodies of jigs, reels, and hornpipes on tenor banjos, decorating the tunes with snappy triplet ornaments. The most important Irish banjo player of this era was Mike Flanagan of the New York-based Flanagan Brothers, one of the most popular Irish-American groups of the day. Other pre-WWII Irish banjo players included Neil Nolan, who recorded with Dan Sullivan's Shamrock Band in Boston, and Jimmy McDade, who recorded with the Four Provinces Orchestra in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, in Ireland, the rise of ceili bands provided a new market for a loud instrument like the tenor banjo. Use of the tenor banjo in Irish music has increased greatly since the folk revival of the 1960s.

Six-string banjos
The six-string banjo began as a British innovation by William Temlett, one of England's earliest banjo makers. He opened a shop in London in 1846, and sold seven-string banjos which he marketed as "zither" banjos from his 1869 patent. A zither banjo usually has a closed back and sides with the drum body and skin tensioning system suspended inside the wooden rim, the neck and string tailpiece mounted on the outside of the rim, and the drone string led through a tube in the neck so that the tuning peg can be mounted on the head. They were often made by builders who used guitar tuners that came in banks of three, so five-stringed instruments had a redundant tuner; these banjos could be somewhat easily converted over to a six-string banjo.

American Alfred Davis Cammeyer (1862–1949), a young violinist turned concert banjo player, devised the six-string zither banjo around 1880. British opera diva Adelina Patti advised Cammeyer that the zither banjo might be popular with English audiences as it had been invented there, and Cammeyer went to London in 1888. With his virtuoso playing, he helped show that banjos could make more sophisticated music than normally played by blackface minstrels. He was soon performing for London society, where he met Sir Arthur Sullivan, who recommended that Cammeyer progress from arranging the music of others for banjo to composing his own music.

Modern six-string bluegrass banjos have been made. These add a bass string between the lowest string and the drone string on a five-string banjo, and are usually tuned G4 G2 D3 G3 B3 D4. Sonny Osborne played one of these instruments for several years. It was modified by luthier Rual Yarbrough from a Vega five-string model. A picture of Sonny with this banjo appears in Pete Wernick's Bluegrass Banjo method book.

Six-string banjos known as banjo guitars basically consist of a six-string guitar neck attached to a bluegrass or plectrum banjo body, which allows players who have learned the guitar to play a banjo sound without having to relearn fingerings. This was the instrument of the early jazz great Johnny St. Cyr, jazzmen Django Reinhardt, Danny Barker, Papa Charlie Jackson and Clancy Hayes, as well as the blues and gospel singer Reverend Gary Davis. Today, musicians as diverse as Keith Urban, Rod Stewart, Taj Mahal, Joe Satriani, David Hidalgo, Larry Lalonde and Doc Watson play the six-string guitar banjo. They have become increasingly popular since the mid-1990s.

Low banjos
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in vogue in plucked-string instrument ensembles – guitar orchestras, mandolin orchestras, banjo orchestras – was when the instrumentation was made to parallel that of the string section in symphony orchestras. Thus, "violin, viola, 'cello, bass" became "mandolin, mandola, mandocello, mandobass", or in the case of banjos, "banjolin, banjola, banjo cello, bass banjo". Because the range of pluck-stringed instrument generally is not as great as that of comparably sized bowed-string instruments, other instruments were often added to these plucked orchestras to extend the range of the ensemble upwards and downwards.

The banjo cello was normally tuned C2-G2-D3-A3, one octave below the tenor banjo like the cello and mandocello. A five-string cello banjo, set up like a bluegrass banjo (with the short fifth string), but tuned one octave lower, has been produced by the Goldtone company.

Bass banjos have been produced in both upright bass formats and with standard, horizontally carried banjo bodies. Contrabass banjos with either three or four strings have also been made; some of these had headstocks similar to those of bass violins. Tuning varies on these large instruments, with four-string models sometimes being tuned in 4ths like a bass violin (E1-A1-D2-G2) and sometimes in 5ths, like a four-string cello banjo, one octave lower (C1-G1-D2-A2).

Banjo hybrids and variants
A number of hybrid instruments exist, crossing the banjo with other stringed instruments. Most of these use the body of a banjo, often with a resonator, and the neck of the other instrument. Examples include the banjo mandolin (first patented in 1882) and the banjo ukulele, most famously played by the English comedian George Formby. These were especially popular in the early decades of the 20th century, and were probably a result of a desire either to allow players of other instruments to jump on the banjo bandwagon at the height of its popularity, or to get the natural amplification benefits of the banjo resonator in an age before electric amplification.

Conversely, the tenor and plectrum guitars use the respective banjo necks on guitar bodies. They arose in the early 20th century as a way for banjo players to double on guitar without having to relearn the instrument entirely.

Instruments that have a five-string banjo neck on a wooden body (for example, a guitar, bouzouki, or dobro body) have also been made, such as the banjola. A 20th-century Turkish instrument similar to the banjo is called the cümbüş, which combines a banjo-like resonator with a neck derived from an oud. At the end of the 20th century, a development of the five-string banjo was the BanSitar. This features a bone bridge, giving the instrument a sitar-like resonance.

The Brazilian samba banjo is basically a cavaquinho neck on a banjo body, thereby producing a louder sound than the cavaquinho. It is tuned the same as the top 4 strings of a 5-string banjo up an octave (or any cavaquinho tuning).

Noted banjoists

 * Joel Sweeney (1810–1860), also known as Joe Sweeney, was a musician and early blackface minstrel performer. He is known for popularizing the playing of the banjo and has often been credited with advancing the physical development of the modern five-string banjo.
 * Vess Ossman (1868–1923) was a leading five-string banjoist who started playing banjo at age 12. He was a popular recording artist, and in fact one of the first recording artists ever, when audio recording first became commercially available. He formed various recording groups, his most popular being the Ossman-Dudley trio.
 * Clifford Essex (1869–1946), a British banjoist, who was also a musical instrument manufacturer
 * Uncle Dave Macon (1870–1952) was a banjo player and comedian from Tennessee known for his "plug hat, gold teeth, chin whiskers, gates ajar collar and that million dollar Tennessee smile".
 * Fred Van Eps (1878–1960) was a noted five-string player and banjo maker who learned to play from listening to cylinder recordings of Vess Ossman. He recorded for Edison's company, producing some of the earliest disk recordings, and also the earliest ragtime recordings in any medium other than player piano.
 * Frank Lawes (1894–1970), of the United Kingdom, developed a unique fingerstyle technique on the four-string plectrum instrument, and was a prolific composer of four-string banjo music, much of which is still performed and recorded today.
 * Pasquale Troise (1895-1957), Italian emigrant to the UK in the 1920s. Formed Troise and his Banjoliers in 1933, which recorded with Decca and performed regularly on the BBC's long-running series Music While You Work.
 * Harry Reser (1896–1965), plectrum and tenor banjo, was regarded by some as the best tenor banjoist of the 1920s. He wrote a large number of works for tenor banjo, as well as instructional material including numerous banjo method books, over a dozen other instrumental method books (for guitar, ukulele, mandolin etc.), and was well known in the banjo community. Reser's accomplished single string and "chord melody" technique set a "high mark" that many subsequent tenor players still endeavor to attain.
 * Eddie Peabody (1902–1970) was a great proponent of the plectrum banjo who performed for nearly five decades (1920–1968) and left a considerable legacy of recordings. An early reviewer dubbed him "King of the Banjo", and his was a household name for decades. He went on to develop new instruments, produce records, and appear in movies.
 * Ola Belle Reed (1916–2002) was an American folk singer, songwriter and banjo player.
 * Pete Seeger (1919–2014), a singer-songwriter who performed solo as well as with folk group the Weavers, included five-string banjo among his instruments. His 1948 method book How to Play the Five-String Banjo has been credited by thousands of banjoists, including prominent professionals, with sparking their interest in the instrument. He is also credited with inventing the long-neck banjo (also known as the "Seeger Banjo"), which adds three lower frets to the five-string banjo's neck, and tunes the four main strings down by a minor third, to facilitate playing in singing keys more comfortable for some folk guitarists.
 * Earl Scruggs (1924–2012), whose career ranged from the end of World War II into the 21st century, is widely regarded as the father of the bluegrass style of banjo playing. The three-finger style of playing he developed while playing with Bill Monroe's band is known by his name: Scruggs Style.
 * Ralph Stanley (1927–2016) had a long career, both with his brother as the Stanley Brothers and with his band the Clinch Mountain Boys. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of music by Lincoln Memorial University, is a member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. He won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
 * Roy Clark (1933–2018)
 * John Hartford (1937–2001)
 * Sonny Osborne (1937-2021)
 * Ben Eldridge (b. 1938)
 * Barney McKenna (1939–2012) was an Irish musician and a founding member of The Dubliners. He played the tenor banjo, violin, mandolin, and melodeon. He was most renowned as a banjo player. Barney used GDAE tuning on a 19-fret tenor banjo, an octave below fiddle/mandolin and, according to musician Mick Moloney, was single-handedly responsible for making the GDAE-tuned tenor banjo the standard banjo in Irish music. Due to his skill level on the banjo, fans all around the world and other members of The Dubliners nicknamed him "Banjo Barney".
 * Bill Keith (1939–2015)
 * Pete Wernick (b. 1946)
 * Tony Trischka (b. 1949)
 * Béla Fleck (b. 1958) is widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players. His work spans many styles and genres, including jazz, bluegrass, classical, R&B, avant garde, and "world music", and he has produced a substantial discography and videography. He works extensively in both acoustic and electric media. Fleck has been nominated for Grammy Awards in more categories than any other artist, and has received 13.
 * Noam Pikelny (b. 1981) is an American banjoist who plays eclectic styles including traditional bluegrass, classical, rock, and jazz music. He has won the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass in 2010. He has been nominated for eight Grammy Nominations and has been awarded one with his band, the Punch Brothers, in 2018.
 * Other important four-string performers were Mike Pingitore, who played tenor for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra through 1948, and Roy Smeck, early radio and recording pioneer, author of many instructional books, and whose influential performances on many fretted instruments earned him the nickname "Wizard of the Strings", during his active years (1922–1950). Prominent tenor players of more recent vintage include Narvin Kimball (d. 2006) (left-handed banjoist of Preservation Hall Jazz Band fame).
 * Noted four-string players currently active include ragtime and dixieland stylists Charlie Tagawa (1935–2017) and Bill Lowrey (b. 1963). Jazz guitarist Howard Alden (b. 1958) began his career on tenor banjo and still plays it at traditional jazz events. Cynthia Sayer (b. 1962) is regarded as one of the top jazz plectrum banjoists. Rock and country performer Winston Marshall (b. 1988) plays banjo (among other instruments) for the British folk rock group Mumford and Sons, a band that won the 2013 Grammy Award for "Best Album of the Year".

Banjo history

 * Castelnero, Gordon and Russell, David L. Earl Scruggs: Banjo Icon. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017

 * Conway, Cecelia (1995). African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia: A Study of Folk Traditions, University of Tennessee Press. Paper: ISBN 0-87049-893-2; cloth: ISBN 0-87049-892-4. A study of the influence of African Americans on banjo playing throughout U.S. history.
 * De Smaele G. (1983). "Banjo a cinq cordes". Brussels: Musée Instrumental (MIM), Brussels. D 1983-2170-1
 * De Smaele G. (2015). "Banjo Attitudes." Paris: L'Harmattan, 2015.
 * De Smaele G. (2019). "A Five-String Banjo Sourcebook." Paris: L'Harmattan, 2019.
 * Dubois, Laurent (2016). The Banjo: America's African Instrument. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.
 * Epstein, Dena (1977). Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Winner of the Simkins Prize of the Southern Historical Association, 1979. Winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize. The anniversary edition of a classic study of black slave music in America.
 * Gaddy, Kristina (2022). Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History. W. W. Norton & Company, 2022. ISBN 978-0393866803. The author uncovers the banjo's key role in Black spirituality, ritual, and rebellion.
 * Gibson, George R. (2018). "Black Banjo, Fiddle and Dance in Kentucky and the Amalgamation of African American and Anglo-American Folk Music." Banjo Roots and Branches(Winans, 2018). University of Illinois Press, 2018. Gibson's historiographic chapter uncovers much new information about black banjo and fiddle players, and dance, in Kentucky, and their influence on white musicians, from the 1780s.
 * Gura, Philip F. and James F. Bollman (1999). America's Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth Century. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2484-4. The definitive history of the banjo, focusing on the instrument's development in the 1800s.
 * Katonah Museum of Art (2003). The Birth of the Banjo. Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York. ISBN 0-915171-64-3.
 * Linn, Karen (1994). That Half-Barbaric Twang: The Banjo in American Popular Culture. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06433-X. Scholarly cultural history of the banjo, focusing on how its image has evolved over the years.
 * Tsumura, Akira (1984). Banjos: The Tsumura Collection. Kodansha International Ltd. ISBN 0-87011-605-3. An illustrated history of the banjo featuring the world's premier collection.
 * Webb, Robert Lloyd (1996). Ring the Banjar!. 2nd edition. Centerstream Publishing. ISBN 1-57424-016-1. A short history of the banjo, with pictures from an exhibition at the MIT Museum.
 * Winans, Robert (2018). Banjo Roots and Branches. University of Illinois Press, 2018. The story of the banjo's journey from Africa to the western hemisphere blends music, history, and a union of cultures. In Banjo Roots and Branches, Robert B. Winans presents cutting-edge scholarship that covers the instrument's West African origins and its adaptations and circulation in the Caribbean and United States.

title: Banjo


text:
Talk:Basic taste

General comments
I'm not trying to be facetious, but what about celery? That's a taste that seems completely unique to me. And so I guess one couldn't argue that it's a factor in other tastes, but now I'm curious as to what it is about celery that makes it taste the way it does.

Along the same lines, it would be nice if this article included something about wasabi/horseradish in the location about false heat. It's quite a different sensation from capsaicin. 68.123.71.25 18:39, 11 June 2006 (UTC)lws

''My understanding is that only the basic tastes are sensed with the taste buds. Other tastes are really smells. I'm no chemist, but I remember reading somewhere that some smells (like chocolate) are associated with a single chemical, while others (like strawberry) are quite complicated. -- Janet Davis''

What we colloquially call the "taste" of a food is indeed a very complex mixture of taste, smell, and texture. With smell supressed, one generally can't tell the difference between an apple and a pear, for example. I don't know what it is about celery that you find unique, but you could do an experiment: find something that will puree to a similar texture (like lettuce ribs or jicama), and adjust the puree to have the same sugar content, acidity, and salt content as an equal amount of celery. (Celery should not jave significant glutamates or alkaloids, but I suppose you could adjust with MSG and parsley too). Clip your nose shut, close your eyes, and have someone randomly select one of the purees for you to taste and see if you can tell the difference. These are the kinds of experiments that led to what we now know about taste. --LDC

And clipping your nose may not even be enough if you've a good sense of smell. The sinuses have intimate connection with the throat, and as foods are masticated, their essential oils and other aromatic molecules can easily reach their vapor point in the mouth, and backwash into anterior nasal cavity as they're swallowed.

At any rate, I argue that the Chinese classification of spicy as a distinct flavor is correct, along with mintiness, or as I've read, peppermint. The heat sensation caused by eating hot foods is caused by chemoreceptors in heat-sensitive nerves. These are chemically and neurologically distinct from the others in this article's list. If you're experiencing chemical heat on the tongue, who's to say that's not a taste?

Also, I distinctly recall peppermint being a flavor. This was high school biology, and though the diagram of the peppermint molecule slotting into its own chemoreceptor is pretty distinct in my mind, it was some time ago I may have forgotten something, or the material may now be obsolete. I'll do more research and come back to this page when I'm sure.

Also, there's a taste for PCBs, which is a recessive hereditary trait. Only a minority of the population can taste them (and it's very much a tongue taste: orderless to me, and very bitter).

--Clarknova 01:05, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Basic taste box
Does anyone find it funny that all of the basic tastes listed in the box at the bottom of the page redirect to here? And that there's only one article in the category Basic tastes? — Shoecream 07:52, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

I concur. I've removed the template from this page and listed both the template and the category for deletion. —Caesura 20:36, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What is bitter detecting? From the article it is stated that:
 * Sweet = Sugars
 * Salty = Salt (NaCl)
 * Sour = Acids
 * Umami = Glutamates

What about bitter? Alkaloids are mentioned, but it is a bit vague compared to the other 'tastes'. Ashmoo 01:17, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

sour is acidic things and bitter alkaline things. So acids=sour and bases=bitter (this is just general I am not sure how far this goes, but it is the basic idea) say1988 02:23, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * Say1988: That's not true, basicity has nothing whatsoever to do with bitterness. Sweet, bitter, and umami taste receptors can detect a wide range of chemically diverse compounds, simply because there are many different receptors for the same taste. Sweet can also detect many l-amino acids, even lead acetate, umami detects certain nucleotides in addition to glutamate, and bitter detects a broad range of compounds like certain d-amino acids, certain alkaloids like quinine and caffeine, as well as many non-alkaloid natural products. Cacycle 09:54, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

- It is not correct definition: "acids=sour and bases=bitter". In common life we don't use bases products with pH>7,1 (why - I don't know... may be human cell membrane with fat compounds very unstable in high pH). We use only neutral (pH=7) and acidic (pH<7) products, but it is simple to taste bases taste: it is taste of natural (fat-based) soap, we can also taste Na2CO3 solution (sult+bases taste together) dilution of NaOH ~0.001M... So bitter is no bases! Alexandrov 11:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sour
So the whole reason I am here in the first place and have commented on this page at all stems from a BBC television piece whicvh was shown on the science channel about why humans have evolved to like and dislike certain things, in the first 20 minute sor so they begin to talk about tastes and smells, and they touch on the 4 basic sences (I was surprised they didn't mention Umami actually) debunk the myth about the taste-map, mention under-tasters and super-tasters, and what have you.

But what struck me as odd, was most of my life growing up, my favorite flavor sensation has been Sour, however they give a relatively detailed explinatio of the 'four' basic flavors except for sour, they explain sweet = carbs = energy, that salty = our need for salt to retain water and w/e, and that bitter = help us not eat/drink poisons (They actually go as far as to try and feed babies completely harmless vegetables known for their bitter taste to try ti illustrate that it is instinctual for us to avoid them).

That being said this is my rememberance of what they had to say about Sour after mentioning the other four: "Sour is a bit more tricky." That is all. The flavor I was hoping their flavor expert woudl explain the instinctual craving for most was glossed over as a bit too tricky to explain at that time.

So I thought well you knwo what now I'm really curious, Wikipedia will help me out. However... all this artical had to say about sour boiled down to "Sour is an acidic taste", which is tantamount to saying the sky is blue, both in it's vagery and truthyness. I am hoping someone can update the sour section which seems to be the vaguest of the 5 basic sences in this artical, and has not off-shoot references unlike all the other basic sences, with more informatio abotu what sour is and why we might be attracted to sour or repellled from it. 67.87.164.190 02:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Q 2006-12-13 21:55 (GMT-5)

 * I agree, the extreme shortness of the sour section dissapointed me. There are whole foods and candies based on sourness, yet only a stub of a section about it. Sabar 06:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I think it should have its own article eventually - a single paragraph is a bit of a joke when sweetness is 11kb. I imagine our repulsion by strong sourness evolved to protect us from highly acidic substances that would damage our digestive tissue, however I quite like sour fruits myself - as long as they are not too sour there is a certain appeal to them. Being able to eat unripe fruits before another organism gets them is probably advantageous as well. I guess we'll just have to wait for someone to work on it though, I certainly haven't got the time right now. Richard001 07:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Umami
Where would the umami taste buds be on a taste map of the tongue? It strikes me that no taste map that I've seen has the umami-sensitive area on it! Scorpionman 01:57, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

I've been reading that the traditional "map" of taste buds is probably less than accurate or even completely bogus. I also think that the taste buds are more intermixed on the tongue. I can certianly taste saltiness with the tip of my tongue (the "sweet zone"). --Millard73 04:28, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

So, umami isn't an officially recognized taste, its name is of recent origin (around the same time MSG was discovered), yet it is presented in this page as a well-known taste. Personally, i had never heard of umami before checking out this page. I had, however, heard of savory. I've heard it on cooking shows, on the radio, cooking classes, and so forth. I think savory is a far more pervasive term for this flavor, and should be used in place of umami as it has a far greater history behind it from a culinary perspective and clearly refers to the same thing. To say that there is no word in the western world that is equivalent to umami is really false. Should this be changed, and perhaps emphasize umami the same way "moreish" (a word i've certainly never heard of) is, and link the word to a new page that describes umami and it's ties to the discovery of MSG?

I mean, if you ask me, umami seems more of a word used to market MSG or used to make an individual seem more asio-centric and "cultured". A simple google search seems to support this, with the top result (Aside from this page) being a site that seems to propagadize glutamate/MSG, and almost none providing actual scientific research that refers to meaty, salty flavor as "umami".

So why not just use savory instead, with a side note that mentions umami? Sp0rk 18:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * You've heard of savory because it means something else.  — Gulliver ✉  00:29, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments regarding umami and savoury, and so have changed the article to reflect the more commonly used term. I also removed the short sidetrack into the spelling of the term umami, to keep the article on taste rather than translation. --KexpWatch 02:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I dissagree with the above comments; a google search for savoury taste gives results which refer to umami as the taste, and describe it as savoury. Also if you do a crossref search you get 9470 for 'umami taste', 509 for 'savoury OR savory taste', which indicates that umami is what scientists call the taste, not just a word used to market MSG. As Gulliver said, savoury refers to something else - at least when I use the word it does. --PhiJ 11:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I'll change it back to umami, for the reasons given above. I don't think the change saying that taste scientists use the term umami covers the issue, as when other people say savoury we mean more of a range of tastes or even flavours. Answers describes it as 'Piquant, pungent, or salty to the taste; not sweet.' Which is a bit more than just umami. --PhiJ 15:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody objected, not even KexpWatch, so I've changed it back. Hope I haven't started an edit war! --PhiJ 13:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Evolution?
In recent years, I've become amazed at the number of edibles whose discovery as such could only have been a consequence of adding a LOT of sugar to things otherwise entirely bitter and unappetizing. Only the most obvious of these is cocoa. If it's true that we evolved disdain for bitterness (i.e., this trait was selected for as a consequence of bitterness-indifferent or bitterness-loving people either dying from poisons or not being selected as mates ["eeew! he likes quinine! gross!" {"just a chaw o' willah bark between cheek and gum, ethel . . . "}]), it seems this development didn't rescue us from eating bitter things. Our weirdness merely impelled us to add sugars to these bitter things, thus discovering all kinds of wonders we still enjoy.

How on EARTH did anyone ever taste bitter cocoa, and think "hey, if I add a lot of sugar to this it'll be GREAT," but on the other hand taste some bitter toxic plant and not have a similar thought?

Personally, it seems much more likely to me that our ancestors were pretty capable of -- hello? -- recognizing plants that were poison by sight, and taught their children to avoid them. Bitterness doesn't compel us to avoid foods -- it compels us to add sugar and still eat them!

 * My experience is that sugar has been extremely overemphasized in the western diet; consider that according to Economic Botany, cocoa was originally served as a drink with chilli pepper (and often thickened with cornmeal). It wasn't until 1600's that Europeans got rid of the chilli and added sugar to make it more palitable to their tastes.  So the original role for cocoa would probably have been for its stimulant properties and a little bit for its flavor (think of it a bit like a spice).  Added sugar is not the norm for human evolution, it is the recent exception (the desire was always there, as well as for fats, because they are hard to find in nature).  If you give up foods with added sugar for a week or two, you'll really start to notice how good some things taste. -- Limulus 06:25, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * "How on EARTH did anyone ever taste bitter cocoa, and think..." - I can't claim it as a fact, but I imagine it's the caffeine and theobromine in cocoa that kept people drinking it. Like coffee and alcohol, we're often willing to eat something with an unpleasant taste if a pleasant effect follows. Once people tasted cocoa and felt good afterward, I expect they would have gone to work trying to find someway to make it taste better without losing the caffeine. 128.197.81.194 18:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Bitterness
Anosmia only refers to loss of the sense of smell, not to the loss of taste. Perhaps agustate would be more appropriate although I'm not convinced that it is a real word. It should be though.

I changed "food poisoning" to "accidental poisoning" in the bitterness section since food poisoning is actually a term for (microbial) food-borne illness, and is not usually preventable by taste.

I removed "Bitterness is the taste which detects bases" because it is untrue. Although many bases taste bitter, not all bitter compounds are bases. I also removed some of the details on denatonium because they are readily available at that wiki entry and not particularly relevant to this one. I also added in some about PROP because it is now used in human studies instead of PTC and is closely related to the compound. Smirkster 23:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Mint or Cold?
Shouldn't mintiness be described as another taste sensation? And as I recall reading, the cause of mintiness was recently isolated and made available for other products. Citizen Premier 06:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

 * - Yes, some substances activate heat and cold receptors - menthol, camphor (cold); ethanol, dichlorethane, piperine(warm).

Is it taste? - what do you think?

 * I just added "cold" (unsure if there's a better name for this sensation), and made that and "pungent" subsections to a new section "other sensations", as I believe neither are called "tastes" in word of mouth, although they *are* sensations felt. I also noticed other parts of the article referred to the recent "fat receptor" research as the possibly sixth taste, which would conflict with us listing "pungent" as the sixth already, so I thought that was a decent solution. I also added "fat" under this "other sensations" section to detail a bit of the experiments done here. -- Jugalator 00:18, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Why "cold"? The pungent section doesn't say "hot!" Plus, everyone knows what mint is, but cold sounds like frozen foods. I renamed the section "Mint" but it got reverted. I won't get into edit wars, so someone else please change it to "mint." -Iopq 10:55, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I just correct Mint to Cold because "integral taste" is the form of interference of "pure taste receptors" with trigeminal (cold-hot) component of total sense. Mint is too concret...

May be "hot" taste (from dichlorethane and other) also more perfect than "pungent"? Alexandrov 13:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Styptic or tart
Why you don`t admit taste of tannine / tea? It drawing of mouth - also as black thorn berry (Prunus spinosa) and Zeu's-wheat (ebony persimmon) (Diospyros). Isn't it taste?

And it is not anaesthetic effect - as well some substance (as some bitter cucumber peel and so on). Alexandrov Google give me only 161 documents for "Styptic taste"!!! Who can find this taste in other languages - where this taste is more popular, in what nations / cultures? Alexandrov 14:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * ...in German - only 74 for the "adstringierender Geschmack"...

... but in Russian - 867 (Googly); or 18 728 (in Yandex - search machine) for the words "вяжущий вкус", and 24 400 for the "терпкий вкус" (it is russian synonim for this taste)! Would-be in the Russian culture this taste really more "popular" than in the English-Saxon ones? As Umami - in China culture?!! Alexandrov 15:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

 * I added it. I think tart is a more popular word even though it sometimes describes sour taste, it is not as confusing at styptic. -Iopq 10:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok. My native language is russian, so you can find the best formula. It is interesting to look how (in historical time) humans in different culture can step-by-step add new tastes to "sensual space" of ones. And what chemical mechanisms of tart taste?  Alexandrov 12:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Confusing sentence
"...furthermore, among the tasters, some are so-called "super-tasters" to whom PTC is extremely bitter." huh? please reword this, thanks :)

Kokumi
Since the only people who seem to know what "kokumi" is are advertisers for the Ajinomoto flavoring company, I think reference to it should probably be removed. Meretrix 15:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup
This page really needs to be cleaned up some. The "history" section starts off with a mention of Aristotle, but then devolves into a debate about umami, and touches on the concept of a metallic taste. Umami and metallic should be moved down into that area of "other tastes", or even a new section called "Debate", since, after all, that's what it is. Of course, that would leave the History section gutted, with only a couple sentences left. I don't want to touch it without something to replace it with.

Oh, and this article is currently linked to from the main page. (Through Sour). Appearances are important... --Short Circuit 23:57, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Huh? Umami is considered a main-stream taste. -Iopq 18:05, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Is alcohol flavour orthogonal?
Where does alcohol flavour sit in relation to the other tastes? I know that I can taste alcohol with a blocked nose, and the flavour is a bit like minty or cool or astringent. --njh

 * Ah, it is included in cool flavour. --njh 06:05, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Surely alcohol tastes bitter, but gives a cool sensation owing to its low boiling point?57.66.51.165 11:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't know. It seems a little astringent too. --njh 23:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Ethanol
Why is ethanol listed as both hot and cold? Surely it can't be both, right? DLCinMaine 06:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Why not? Something can be red and green at the same time (we call it yellow). Remember that the cold and hot tastes are only weakly linked to temperature. --njh 07:00, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Mix mint and pepper and you'll get both hot and cold :) -Iopq 08:33, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

 * I agree with DLCinMaine. Perhaps ethanol can produce both false-hot and false-cold tastes. But it will strike the average reader as counterintuitive. If it's true, more information on how/why ethanol produces both false-hot and false-cold tastes is necessary. Is it a single simultaneous hot/cold sensation caused by ethanol activating both the TRP-V1 ion channel and the TRP-M8? Or are there different thresholds: ie a low concentration might only trigger TRP-M8 and taste false-cold while a higher concentration might trigger both ion channels and somehow taste both false-cold and false-hot? Is this a unique property of ethanol or are there other substances that produce both false-cold and false-hot taste sensations? Please cite some external references. DLCinMaine isn't the only one confused by this statement. I'm sure many of us would like to learn more. 66.17.118.207 19:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Some serious reconsidering required about cold/hot
I propose that we get rid of cold/hot. We should have a section on spicy and explain that "spicy" is the feeling of pain on the tongue and it can be achieved with different means. Some people say wasabi is spicy but it doesn't contain the chemical pepper contains. Now instead of hot we should say warm so as not to confuse it with spicy. And instead of cold we should say cool. -Iopq 22:04, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain what yoru talking about Spicey and hot are two very distinctly different taste sensations, although mexican food is generally spicey, it is not always hot. There are different heat catagories for the heat taste, the two major divisions being staying heat and biting heat, foods can have independant proportions of both, and things which are hot are often spicey, HOWEVER things can be quite bland while still bing extrordinarily hot in the biting or staying heat catagories 67.87.164.190 02:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Q 2006-12-13 (GTC-5)

The same receptors (not taste receptors!) which are responsible for the cooling effects of menthol etc are also intrinsically sensitive to cold. In fact, there is cross-sensitization, i.e. when you brush your teeth with a menthol containing toothpaste, the water afterwards does seem colder. This is due to sensitization of the receptors by menthol for cold. (See McKemy et al., Nature 416:52 (2002)). Similarly, the receptor for capsacin, TRPV1, is also directly activated by heat. Here is an excellent review on this subject: Jordt et al., Current Opinion in Neurobiology 13:487 (2003). Therefore the words "false" should be removed from the heat and cold section, since the sensations really go through the same pathway. However, hot and cold are NOT basic tastes, they contribute to the sensation of taste as does consistency, color etc.

Umami dispute and rewrite
Why is this section marked as needing citations? It clearly refers to the main Umami article on Wikipedia, which has the required sources. Do we really need to duplicate all that here? - TomW 9/16/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.88.113 (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done a significant rewrite of the article as it had accumulated many layers of back-and-forth information on umami, becoming disorganized and somewhat meaningless. After doing some research, it seems to me that there is no serious scientific dispute that there is an umami taste, that it is produced by certain glutamates, and that it can be isolated down to certain taste receptors specialized to glutamates. There is only debate about precisely how it is produced. Additionally, as umami was identified in 1907, there does not seem to be any credible backing to the claim that umami is a big conspiracy of the additive companies. However, the concept of "4 basic tastes" doesn't seem to be scientific, therefore the concept of "5 basic tastes" doesn't seem any more legitimate. I've tried to rewrite to reflect this and organize what has been accumulated so far. 68.211.27.46 01:43, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the bulk of the article should be about the "4 basic tastes" which are more generally accepted, even if they are rather unscientific (which is already noted in the article). Then Umami should be listed under its own section (or maybe even in the other tastes section) with comments about who specifically thinks it should be listed as the 5th flavor. It just doesn't seem generally accepted enough to warrant the article assuming there are 5 basics. Pulsemeat 01:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's what Peter Gray, 4th ed, 2002, says in his text Psychology at p 244; "Taste researchers have recently found strong evidence of separate receptor cells and brain areas responsible for MSG, and now even Western taste specialists write of five rather than four primary tastes and types of taste receptors (Chaudhari & others, 2000; Rolls & others, 1998)." If that is the current scientific view, Wiki should be the place to learn it.Pmjensen 07:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

There are five categories of taste, as now stated correctly in the article. Salt, sour, bitter, sweet and umami. The fact that we can distinguish many more complex combinations should not be too surprising. Consider the eye where there are three basic photoreceptors and we can still detect gazillions of different shades of colors! In addition, there is confusion in this article between basic taste and the complex subject of 'tasting' something. For the latter, many additional senses combine with the basic sense of taste, olfaction (smell) being a major component. However, temperature, consistency, color, expectation and mood undoubtedly also contribute significantly. Imagine thinking that you'll eat a piece of meat, but its actually a cleverly crafted cookie!

Tongue map myth: inconsistency between articles
I noticed that the article on taste buds says this: "Contrary to popular understanding, taste is not experienced on different parts of the tongue. The "tongue map myth" was based on a mistranslation of a German paper that was written in 1901 by a Harvard psychologist. Though there are small differences in sensation, which can be measured with highly specific instruments, all taste buds can respond to all types of taste." Yet this article seems to lend credence to the tongue map. Which is right? Wadsworth 21:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I noticed the very same thing myself. I'll see if I can't find an answer, but it would really be nice if we can get an expert opinion on this one.  Since you brought this up 11 days ago and this is the first response, I'll assume none of this article's watchers have the answer (or at least just missed it).  I'm going to put the conflict flag on this and the taste bud article.  --Reverend Loki 22:12, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Those taste maps are most definitely wrong. They were trying to show that a specific area of the tongue was responsible for a particular taste (salty etc). However, all the modern research that I've seen agrees that there may be differences in the level of sensitivity on different parts of the tongue. For example, Contrary to popular understanding, taste is not experienced on different parts of the tongue. Though there are small differences in sensation, which can be measured with highly specific instruments, all taste buds, essentially clusters of 50 to 100 cells, can respond to all types of taste. Quote from http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?n=69724-sour-taste-flavour-perception - I assume this is what the article is trying to explain when it says that there is some scientific basis. It's not exactly contradicting the other article. But perhaps needs to be expressed more clearly. --Alexxx1 (talk/contribs) 04:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

"It was once believed (primarily by textbook writers and their readers) that the different types of taste receptors are concentrated in different parts of the tongue, with sweet tasted in one part, bitter in another, and so on. In fact, taste researchers have long known that the different types of receptors are quite evenly distributed over the whole tongue (Bartoshuk & Beauchamp, 1994). Spatial separation of different tastes does occur in the brain, however." Italic textPsychologyItalic text, Peter Gray, 4th ed, 2002.Pmjensen 08:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I changed the section in the Taste buds article, and I hope not prematurely, so I'd like any further opinions on this. In an article published in the scientific journal Cell (Zhang Y., et al. (2003) Coding of Sweet, Bitter, and Umami Tastes: Different Receptor Cells Sharing Similar Signaling Pathways. Cell, 112(3): 293-301)which is referenced in the article, the researchers clearly stated that "the cells responsible for taste are not tuned to all taste modalities". They were studying sweet, bitter and umami. They also found that certain cells found on the tongue did not express receptors for certain tastes (bitterness is one that is frequently missing). This doesn't mean that there are areas of the tongue that are not sensitive to tastes (because a taste bud has many cells and an area has many taste buds). But it does allow for the possibility that there are areas that are more or less sensitive to tastes. So I think statements like "receptors are distributed evenly across the tongue" or "sensitivity to taste is distributed across the tongue" are misleading and if are included in an article, should be backed up with a citation.

Also, many statements in both this article and the Taste buds article are not backed up by references. They are usually paraphrasing of some internet reference that was also not necessarily based on scientific research. I think this is really dangerous. Anything you say as statement of scientific fact should be supported with a reference, i.e. a published article in a scientific journal. And by the way, all journals are not created equal (you can look up a journal's "impact factor" here. -Mhsia 15:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

This just in: about taste buds differentiated and supporting the old "taste map" thing. -MJS 25.8.2006

Did you read the article you posted? From the article: "“Taken together, our work has also shown that all taste qualities are found in all areas of the tongue, in contrast with the popular view that different tastes map to different areas of the tongue.”" This clearly rejects the taste map. The Taste bud article seems consistent with this, this article does not. Scott5834 20:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Metallic
"Copper, Iron, blood, etc.. All seem to have a kind of metallic taste to them". I know nothing about this topic, but this is clearly badly written and suspiscious (although they certainly do have a kind of metallic taste). — mæstro t/c, 09:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have removed this section because it's clearly unresearched and uninformed, even though I do agree that there is a "metallic taste" in some form. Except that bloody tastes salty, not metallic. ~ Oni Lukos ct 16:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Though not really important, most people think that blood has a metallic, sometimes described as coppery, taste to it. Likely this is a result of the hemoglobin, which contains iron.  But yeah, the section needs more research to be included.  Oh, and if your blood tastes salty, might want to consider laying off the sodium for a while ;)  --Reverend Loki 17:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * But I like salt :< Oh, and, uh, I'd never heard that before. I've only ever heard of it being described as salty. ~ Oni Lukos ct 22:52, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * ...Interestingly enough, blood sort of tastes meaty to me. Well, it tastes like a mix between savory and metallic. But I find the metal taste sort of interesting, I'd like to see more on that.141.153.73.101 21:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Unsupported Article
This article definitely is in dire need of some more valid references. For instance, where is the claim: "For many years, books on the physiology of human taste contained diagrams of the tongue showing levels of sensitivity to different tastes in different regions. There is some scientific foundation for these 'maps', but they tend to oversimplify certain aspects of taste sensation." supported?? It says "some scientific foundation". . . isn't this screaming for a reference? Also, where is it published that there are seven basic tastes? Every scientific journal article I've found says there are five (where did astringent and pungent come from?). Spiciness from Chili powder is not a taste. It comes from a compound called capsaicin which activates nociceptors (pain receptors) in the mouth (or anywhere else, for that matter).

I think references should be in the form of scientific journal articles or books, not webpages or personal comments. If you've researched an article from an internet resource, you need to make sure that article is referenced in journal articles or books and, if possible, list those as well. --Mhsia 15:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

 * Blood tastes metalic, definitly of coper, I've always heard this was atributable to the iron in the blood (hemoglobin) but it does taste slightly salty too, all blood does contain salt. That being said, I think there needs to be a metalic basic flavor section because I have oft found that metals have flavors I cannot describe except by saying "coppery" or "Like steel" Salt is actually a mineral though and when you really think about it most of our basic tastes revolve around non organic substances such as salt, acid, alkoloids, and perhaps metals liek iron and coper, except for sugar and perhaps protien (which I have heard described as being called Umami or Savory but this artical claims those are not protien flavors but in fact sugars?????  perhaps I am miss-understanding it).  67.87.164.190 02:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)Q 2006-12-13 21:23 (GTC-5)

How many basic tastes are there?
There seems to be conflicting wording here. The third sentence of the Basic taste entry states: "Scientists describe seven basic tastes...", and proceeds to list them. The last basic taste listed is umami, a word I was completely unfamiliar with, so I clicked its link. The Umami entry's first sentence begins " Umami is one of the five basic tastes...". Can we get a definitive number of "basic" tastes? 74.119.51.41 00:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * According to this article there are five. I'll change it.  I'm not sure other people can access this though.  Shall I add it as a referance anyway?  --PhiJ 10:11, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * And also you get about 80 hits on google scholar with "five basic tastes" (in quotes), but only one with "seven basic tastes", and that's talking about Aristotle's theory. --PhiJ 10:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

"Spicy"
I removed the following paragraph:

 * Due to a lack of a specific word for this flavour in English ("hot" properly refers to temperature, and "spicy" to any spice), the French term piquant is occasionally used. Pungent is also employed, especially among people of Anglo-Indian ethnicity. Many other languages are not afflicted by this deficit e.g. Chinese 辣 (là), Finnish tulinen, Hebrew "חריף" (Hariph), Hungarian csípős, Japanese 辛い (karai), Korean 맵다 (maepda), Malay pedas, Russian острый (ostryi), Serbian (љуто), Swedish stark, Thai เผ็ด (phet) and Vietnamese cay.

First of all, in modern American English (at least), "spicy" in a casual culinary context most certainly m eans "causes a characteristic burning sensation in the mouth". "Piquant" is much more likely to be found i n ad copy or restaurant menus as an affectation. "Spicy" to mean "full of spices" has long been obsolete. Thus, English does not have a "deficit" here. Furthermore, some of the examples from other languages were wrong. In Swedish, for instance, stark can mean "spicy" in a culinary context, but simply translates as "strong" and can be used to describe coffee and so forth, or even people. The paragraph is mostly irrelevant and contributes nothing to the discussion of spiciness. Readers interested in the appropriate equivalent of "spicy" in other languages can consult the appropriate dictionary. 24.95.48.112 03:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Basic taste