Banjo • The banjo was made by African slaves, based on instruments that were indigenous to their parts of Africa. These early "banjos" were spread to the colonies of those countries engaged in the slave trade. Scholars have found that many of these instruments have names that are related to the modern word banjo, such as banjar, banjil, banza, bangoe, bangie, and banshaw.

The first mention of these instruments in the Western Hemisphere is from Martinique in a document dated 1678. It mentions slave gatherings where an instrument called the "banza" is used. Further mentions are fairly frequent and documented. The best known is probably that of Thomas Jefferson in 1781: "The instrument proper to the [slaves] is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa."

Before the American Revolution, the banjo became a prop for black-faced white entertainers. By the early part of the 19th century, minstrelsy became a popular form of entertainment. Joel Walker Sweeney of The Sweeney Minstrels, born 1810, was often credited with the invention of the short fifth string. Scholars know that this is not the case. A painting entitled The Old Plantation painted between 1777 and 1800, shows a black gourd banjo player with a banjo having the fifth string peg half-way up the neck.

It wasn't until after the Civil War that the banjo gained popularity as a parlor instrument. Before then it was considered, as the Boston Daily Evening Voice of 1866 said, as an instrument in "the depth of popular degradation", an instrument fit only for "the jig-dancing lower classes of the community..."

The mountain banjo is a simple, home-made instrument built all over the South and Southeast since the mid-1800s. However, it is more associated with the people of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. It is usually made from whatever materials are at hand, which often consisted of cigar boxes, coffee tins, and wood.

- portions from A Thumbnail History of the Banjo by Bill Reese

Dulcimer • Also known as Appalachian dulcimer, mountain dulcimer, lap dulcimer, and sometimes harmony, harmonium, and hog fiddle. Also spelled dulcimore and dulcymore. It is a fretted zither traditional to the southern Appalachian mountains that has a soundbox with a narrow fingerboard with three stings, one melody string and two drones. Early dulcimers had frets only under the melody string.

It evolved from northern European fretted zithers like the German Scheitholt, French Epinette de Vosges, Norwegian Langliek, and the Swedish Hummel. Early immigrants brought either instruments or the memory of them to the United States, and by the mid-nineteenth century they began building instruments modified to suit the needs of local players. Dulcimers were constructed by rural craftsmen using whatever wood and materials were available around them. Often frets were nothing more than bent nails. The dulcimer gained popularity during the folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s and went from a few rural builders to thousands in a few short years.

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Guitar • A universally popular string instrument played by plucking or strumming. The guitar is the proverbial instrument of chivalrous courtship. Pictures of swains serenading their lady loves under their balconies and accompanying themselves on the guitar are common. The word guitar can be traced to the Greek kithara, but there is no similarity in the structure or sound of the two instruments.

The guitar in its present form originated in Spain in the 16th century and spread all over the world. The standard instrument has six strings and frets along the fingerboard to indicate the position of the notes of the scale. The strings are tuned in fourths, with the exception of the interval between the fourth and fifth strings, which is the major third: E, A, D, G, B, E, the lowest string being an E in the middle register of the bass clef. The notation is an octave higher than the actual sound.

- from Lectionary of Music by Nicolas Slonimsky

Harmony • In some rural communities, a harmony, or harmonium, is a dulcimer with four strings.

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Harmony Company • The Harmony Company was founded by Wilhelm Schultz in 1892. Wilhelm immigrated to America to work for the Knapp Drum Company of Chicago. In 1892 he bought a two room loft on the top floor of the Edison Building, later the site of Chicago's Civic Opera House. In 1915 Harmony was the first large scale ukulele builder. In 1916 Sears wanted to corner the market on ukulele sales (they were extremely popular at the time) so they bought Harmony. In 1938 Harmony returned to violin production after a 19 year hiatus, and in 1939 Harmony bought several brand names from the bankrupt Oscar Schmidt Company. These names included: La Scala, Stella and Sovereign. Harmony instruments carried many other brand names: Valencia, Johnny Marvin, Vogue, Airline, Fender, Kay, and Regal are a few of the more notable names. Silvertone, offered by Sears, is probably the most common. In 1975 the Harmony Guitar Co. in Chicago ceased operations and the name was sold to be used on Asian guitars, which were sold through the J. C. Penny stores until around the year 2000.

Modes • Dulcimer tuning, as well as that of many fretted zithers, early stringed instruments, and early bag pipes, is modal. Simply put, that is like playing only the white keys (naturals) on a piano. Modal tuning is Greek in origin and has changed little since then. The only difference being in that the Greeks used a descending scale, where we now use an ascending scale. The modes still use the Greek names: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The most common modes used with dulcimers is the Ionian (a C major scale beginning on the third fret), Mixolydian (a G major scale starting on the first fret), and Aeolian (an A minor scale starting on the first fret). Tuning the melody string to different pitches can create the different modes. Many books are available explaining how to tune dulcimers to the different modes, including The Dulcimer Book, by Jean Ritchie, and The Appalachian Dulcimer Book, by Michael Murphy. There are also many sources on the internet.

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Presnell, Edd L. • Dulcimer builder, lived in North Carolina, 1917 to 1994. Walnut dulcimer on exhibit at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Rex • The Rex brand of instruments were produced from 1902 through the mid 1930s by the Gretsch Company. Gretsch was started in Brooklyn in 1883 by Friedrich Gretsch, an immigrant from Mannheim, Germany. However, Friedrich died only two years later before he saw his industry succeed. His son, Fred, took over before leaving high school and steered the Gretsch Company into the 20th century and success. By 1905 Fred moved his company into a 10-story building in New York. Rex Instruments were an entry-level series of banjos and mandolins. The banjos were tenor and 5-string with decoratively inlayed resonators. The mandolins were "Neopolitan," lute-back models with angled soundboards. Some had tuners with decorative enclosures mounted into the back of the headstock, and some had plain 4-in-line machine tuners. Many instruments were labeled Rex Professional. Other Gretsch brands were Daynor, Clarophone, and Orchestrekka. Gretsch also made banjos for Wurlitzer. In 1940 they bought the Bacon Banjo Company and began producing banjos under that name. In the 1970s, Baldwin purchased Gretsch and Ode Banjo Company. Baldwin-produced Gretsch instruments were poorly made and did not sell very well. They shut the business down in the 1980s. Around 1985, the Gretsch family bought their company back and are now producing a fine line of electric guitars.

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Ritchie, Jean • Dulcimer and folk music historian and player. Began playing the family J. Edward Thomas dulcimer around 1927 when she was five or six years old. Instrumental in popularizing the dulcimer during the folk music revival years of the 1950s and 1960s. Her "first attempt at playing before a formal New York audience was on November 22, 1947, at a New York University Alumni Tea." [Notes from Jean Ritchie's Dulcimer People.]

Thomas, James Edward • Dulcimer builder, lived in Bath, Kentucky around 1850 to 1933. Instruments on exhibit at the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. According to Jean Ritchie, her family's dulcimer was made by Thomas "who used to travel about with a cart up and down the hollers, selling dulcimers." He is thought to be the first person in that area to make the instrument. [Notes from Jean Ritchie's Dulcimer People.]Photo from 1924 in Ball, Kentucky

Loraine Wyman, holding a Cumberland Mountain dulcimer believed to be made by James Edward Thomas. Photo from Vogue Magazine, May 1, 1917.