#banjo and its inextricable legacy of racism and cultural appropriation
With all the #earlybanjo stuff I post here, One thing I haven't really addressed is its problematic legacy. It's interesting to learn, play and record instrumental songs published in banjo tutor books that were published from 1855-1900 or so, but they are interspersed with *virulently* racist popular tunes of the time period, when #banjo was the star instrument of blackface minstrelsy... 1/
in the age of discovery, there was a tradition that each new sailing vessel should be christened. Of course, a good christening requires at least a little bit of flattering and inspiring oratory. But over time, this oratorical culture became highly self referential, with idiosyncratic conventions of grammar, and an irreverent, outsider sense of humor. But who were the people who gave these unusual speeches in honor of the boats?
They were the Shiptoasters
Film photography is magic!
Just developed my first film rolls at home, in the kitchen sink, with caffenol.
They're still drying, so I haven't scanned them in yet, but there are definitely images on there.
Amazing! 📷 🎞️ ☕
I'm not on Reddit anymore but every once in a while a search result sends me there and it's kind of amazing how, no matter what kind of guitar a thread is about, or what year the thread is from, about 95% of the comments are dudes holding forth about how quality control in [country guitar was made in] sucks and also how they own the same guitar made in [same country] from 10 years ago and the quality is way better
thankfully, I am prevented from shaving this yak any further by not having any momentary switches
...
:opens new tab to look up a source for momentary foot switches:
I managed to get the Funkwhale pod I set up for last #looptober back online, I should try to stabilize it and keep it online
Revisiting the Funkwhale UI and data model has me wanting to tinker with my long-running "federated bandcamp, not federated spotify" idea again. 😬
Anyway, I managed to do 15 tracks last year, we'll see what happens this year.
true to brand, I'm already trying to overthink #looptober
Are there any stable-ish music oriented #peertube instances around these days? I should look again but I'm pretty sure the one where I had put all my old YouTube stuff went away
I have updated the #banjomojis to be screen reader friendly (and less cryptic in general)
I mean, most of them are still pretty cryptic if you're not a 19th century banjo weirdo but
Got sniped
Which is for the best, seeing as I was just posting about not having anywhere to actually work on instruments
I play (mostly) 19th and early 20th-century banjo music. I'd play 4-string early jazz banjo if I could find any musicians to play with. I reserve the right to post non-banjo content, although I aim to keep this account more or less focused on music.
I am not particularly interested in banjo as a good-old-timey-appalachian-country-folk-bluegrass totem.
You should also follow my "official" music account at @magicians.
He/him.