It’s hard to find artifacts that are genuinely American, but the present’s day banjo may be one of them. Even though its ancestry is African, the modern banjo is nothing like the early instruments first brought by African to the southern plantations. In the nineteenth century the banjo was a standard instrument in minstrel shows, and as it continued to be used, it was changed in various ways. Machined pages were added for precise tuning, frets were added for better intonation, and vellum heads were added to improve the tension. The number of strings also continued to change. Early banjos had four strings, while a later model has as many as nine. In the late 1800s, the five string banjo was developed, a model that had a small unfretted drone string that was played with the thumb. This was the instrument that country singer Earl Scruggs played, and and was the type used to produce that great style of music known as American bluegrass.
In the 1920s, the four _ string tenor banjo made a remarkable comeback, as banjo bands became popular in school and clubs from coast to coast. Again in the 1960s there was a renewed interest in folk and country music that brought the banjo back into the forefront of American music. It is an American instrument that continues to live on.