You will be making your own gourd banjos while studying early forms of the banjo and it’s evolution through American history. Using traditional materials and processes, each student will have the opportunity to make a fully functional gourd banjo and be invited to contribute their own interest into the larger investigation of the banjo’s global story. No previous musical or woodworking experience is required. 

We will also explore the instruments transformations from when it first appeared in the Americas in the hands and memories of Africans captured into slavery, and then follow it through centuries of adaptation and reinterpretation by African Americans, as well as Appalachian, Irish, Blue grass, and other folk traditions, industrialization, and commercial marketing.