Composer: Samuel Swaim Stewart (1855-1898)

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Stewart was born in Philadelphia, USA. He studied  the violin as a child but became fascinated by the banjo and eventually  "...he set to work adapting and arranging a higher grade of music for the instrument, and in 1878 he opened a banjo school in Philadelphia, and also began to manufacture." (S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal Volume 15, No.2)

 

In 1882 he began publishing the just cited S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal, which came out 6 times a year and featured sheet music, artist profiles, articles about the banjo, and advertisements for music teachers and instrument makers, including the Stewart and Bauer music shop on Chestnut St in Philadelphia.  

 

Stewart died unexpectedly of a stroke in 1898, though the Journal continued  to be published until 1903.

 

He's buried in Downington Friends Burial Ground, in Downington, PA about 40 miles from Philadelphia.  On FindAGrave.com there's two virtual flowers left to him, one from 2019 and one from 2024, in memory of his contributions to the banjo.

 

(Note: he's also referred to as "Swain" rather than "Swaim" but the obituary in his magazine says "Swaim" so I went with that.)​​​

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Date: 1883

 

Original Instrumentation: 2 banjos

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Movements:    

1. American Banjo Waltz

2. Bicycle Waltz​

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Why this one:

 

I was looking to add a new instrument to the Lazarus Music Project and I thought a banjo might be a fun challenge.  I soon discovered there's a lot of American banjo songs from the late 1800s that haven't been recorded (or whose recordings haven't survived).  

 

This kind of music has been termed "Minstrel Banjo" and it didn't use any thumb or finger picks the way modern bluegrass banjo does, which is good because I'm not very good at bluegrass banjo.  Regular pick-less fingerpicking I can do, though. 

 

Theoretically.

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Description:  

 

American Banjo Waltz

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Original Key:  D

Recorded Key: F

Time: 3/4  BPM=115

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This song is structured ABACA.   

 

Banjo 1 takes the melodic lead with banjo 2 just playing accompanying chords.  The most conspicuous feature of the banjo one part is the triplet-swung eighths to 3 quarter note rhythmic pattern that repeats throughout the entire piece, with only slight and occasional variation.  (It's the first thing you hear in banjo 1.)

 

The A section is 32 measures composed of four 8 measure subsections for an overall structure of abac.  

 

The short B section is an 8 measure interlude in B minor, the relative minor to the home key of D.  (That's as written; as recorded the B section is in D minor, the relative minor to the home key of F.)

 

The C "Trio" section is in G major.  (As written; Bb as recorded).  ("Trio" refers to the structure of the piece, which is loosely structured like a classical Minuet and Trio, not the amount of instruments playing.)

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Performance:​

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The banjo 1 wasn't too egregiously difficult, though there were some rather tricky measures.  I recorded banjo 1 first, and did it in sections, meaning, I didn't play it all the way through in 1 take.  I took this bite size approach since I wasn't super comfortable on the banjo, which I can barely play, and I was concerned about the intonation of the instrument itself.  I borrowed the banjo from my friend Barry, and while it's a quality instrument and sounds great, it probably needs a tweak to the setup.  (Intonation issues on fretted instruments manifests as "this open string is in tune.   When I hold down the string on the 5th fret, the note's a little sharp; at the 11th fret it's a little flat.)  

 

This piece covers a lot of the banjo neck so I had a few potential landmines.  The banjo mostly held on to its tuning during the recording, but it really felt like it was always on the verge of going out.  (I tried to compensate for the intonation by putting the open strings, which aren't really played in this piece, in not quite exact tuning so when I fretted up the neck the notes would sound right.)

 

Banjo 2 had some big stretches in it, though it wasn't super difficult to actually play, though finding the optimum fingering took me a while.

 

Errata:

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Stewart's banjo pieces look like they were all written for a banjo tuned AEG#B, rather than the modern banjo's higher DGBD tuning.  I put the banjo I was using in Stewart's tuning and it was a disaster.  The strings were really loose, making the intonation terrible and the tone was pretty crappy.  (I'm also not much of a banjo player)  I abandoned ship for a while before it occurred to me that I could just tune the banjo up a minor third which would put it to the modern banjo tuning except for the lowest string which would be dropped a step from the usual.  

 

After some digging around I found out that banjos from Stewart's day were a good bit larger, and so didn't have trouble with the lower tuning.  

 

I also tabbed out this song (and the next) as the music was in standard notation, which I absolutely didn't want to learn how to read on a banjo.   This had the added effect of making the transposition up a minor third no real issue as I was just looking at the fret placement anyway.   I would have potential been in big, frustrating, and confusing, trouble if I had learned to read the notation in the original key and then tried to transpose it up.  

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Bicycle Waltz

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Original Key:  A

Recorded Key: C

Time: 3/4  BPM=115

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This one is pretty simple.  It's structured AAB, with each section being 16 measures long.  Like American Banjo Waltz, the banjo 1 is handling all the melodic content, and banjo 2 is just playing accompanying chords.

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Performance:

Like American Banjo Waltz, I did banjo 1 first and then banjo 2.  I didn't really have any trouble with either part.  Banjo 1 was deceptively tricky, though I still wouldn't say it was difficult.  I think my issues during prep were mostly because due to my extremely limited banjo experienceI wasn't use to the string spacing with regards to the picking hand.   ​

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Album Art:

 

I got this picture of Stewart from a scan of his S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal.