Joel Sweeneyとは 意味・読み方・使い方

Joel Walker Sweeney (1810 – October 29, 1860), also known as Joe Sweeney, was a musician and early blackface minstrel performer. Born to a farming family in Buckingham County, Virginia, (now Appomattox) he claimed to have learned to play the banjo from local African-Americans and is the earliest documented white banjo player. In addition, he is the earliest known person to have played the banjo on stage. Aside from his important role in popularizing the instrument, he has often been credited with advancing the physical development of the modern five-string banjo. Whereas the instrument's resonating chamber had formerly been constructed from a gourd (like the banjo's African ancestors and cousins), Sweeney popularized the use of a drum-like resonating chamber (legend has it that he adapted a cheese box for this purpose). He has also been credited with adding the banjo's fifth string, which according to legend he created for his niece between 1831 and 1840. He supposedly added the fifth string because he was "allegedly unhappy with the limited rhythm and melodic variation of the four-string banjos popularly in use." In fact, there is no proof that Sweeney introduced either innovation. The high-pitched, thumb or drone string (the fifth on a modern banjo) can be seen on surviving 18th-century four-string banjos and in banjo illustrations that long pre-date Sweeney's heyday. The fifth string gives the banjo a reentrant tuning, a technique that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks.