April 2013
doesn’t think that they were supercommon in the old days, and are quite unusual today. Ms. Bryan summed up her thoughts like this, “As far as old-time string band music goes, I think clogging is probably the closest thing to drumming that one hears regularly. Sometimes instrumental musicians record with a clogger as part of the band. In Uncle Dave Macon’s recordings you can often hear his feet clogging (I think he did this while sitting down), and now and then you come across a fiddler who clogs while fiddling—Violet Hensley of Yellville, Arkansas, comes to mind, as well as does John Hartford.” Pete Vigour of the regionally popular, Whitehall, VA based, old-time music group Uncle Henry’s Favorites has been playing old-time music for more than 30 years so I asked him to weigh-in on the subject as well. He began by saying, “That’s a very good question. Nobody I know has ever played drums in old-time music, with the exception of bones and tambourine for minstrel-era songs; washboards in jug bands, often with lots of (literal) bells and whistles added; and an
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occasional spoons player. I have heard snare drum on a few bluegrass songs here and there and there are lots of young crossover
even one (percussion) player who generates enthusiasm among the string players when he or she shows up at a festival jam.” Pete
Pete says, “Lots of people clog to old-time music; some bands have a full-time clogger to provide rhythm. This practice is well-accepted at jam sessions as long as the dancer has good rhythm and is not too loud.”
Where It Came From
Image by Bruce Bloy - 2008 Smoked Country Jam
pop/country/bluegrass/acoustic bands with drums.” Pete went on to mention the fiddle sticks that Sarah Bryan earlier told us about; and he made this observation, “At festivals, percussion instruments are sometimes tolerated by the string players, sometimes not so well tolerated, but I can’t think of
said that Mike Seeger was the only professional old-time musician that he, Pete, ever saw use a percussion instrument. (Seeger had various rattles that he made from soda bottle-caps, and he used them for songs that he had learned from traditional African-American players.). Just as Ms. Bryan mentioned,
Wayne Erbsen of Ashville NC’s Native Ground Books & Music offers the thought that the absence of drums in old-time music might have a two-fold reason. He offers that this music was originally a combination of music from the Scots Irish and from Africa. Building upon this fact, he says that the Scots Irish people didn’t use drums to make music; and further, that drums were sometimes outlawed in the old South because slave-owners feared drums could serve as a way for a group of slaves to plan revolts and revolution. Wayne sums up his theory by saying, “Thus, when black and white musicians gathered to play what would become old-time music, drums weren’t a part of it.” Now, some of you will want to point out that the Bodran (a type