Here’s a sitar alap improvisation. Tuning is C D E F G A Bb C

Adam Hurt

Adam Hurt, who is without a doubt one of the most ingenious traditional banjo players ever, talks about himself and his music with Paul Roberts.

“What may appear to be rather basic melodies can in fact express unspeakable emotions and evoke the experiences of generations past.”

Adam Hurt

We can celebrate the exquisite tone he pulls out of his banjo. We can shout from the rooftops about his gorgeous musical arrangements. We can wax eloquent about the beauty, innovation and good taste that his music conveys. We can point to a whole lot of things. But, with Adam Hurt, as with other great artists, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. After all the well-deserved accolades and tributes have been credited to this awe-inspiring virtuoso, what we’re left with is simply one of the finest musicians to have ever graced the 5-string banjo.

Marcy Marxer shared her perspective of Adam Hurt’s music with me. Marcy, a pillar of the old-time music scene, is widely regarded as one of the top female flatpickers in the music business. She and her musical partner, clawhammer banjo maestro Cathy Fink, co-produced Adam Hurt’s CD, “Insight.”

Marcy Marxer:
“Adam Hurt is an innovator as much as he is a traditionalist. He’s got his own unique style.”

“I see talented people all the time. But every once in a while, someone is just over the top in terms of talent and what they choose to do with their talent, their intellect and intuition. And they come out with something that is just so remarkable and beautiful that it’s amazing. It leaves me almost speechless. And, that’s the case with Adam Hurt.”

“The only other time I ever heard that, in a young banjo player, was at a party in Boston years ago. There was a kid in the corner who was taking banjo lessons from Tony Trischka and he played so beautifully. I met him after he’d been playing for about an hour, and his name was Bela Fleck. That was before anyone knew who he was and he was phenomenal. I hadn’t seen another young talent like that – who was so amazingly brilliant – until I met Adam Hurt.”

The Interview

Paul Roberts: 
Tell us something about your early musical memories, influences and feelings about music?

Adam Hurt:

My mother was a minister and I remember from an extremely young age, two or three years old, being enraptured by the sound of the enormous pipe organ at her church.

This early fascination was somewhat of an impetus for starting piano lessons. My mom’s organist recommended having that background if I wanted to someday play the organ. Given that my feet could not yet reach the organ’s pedals, I clearly needed to start someplace else!

The piano was never my idea, but I was kept motivated for several years by the thought of someday moving on to the organ.

I sometimes wonder what might have come of this interest had I not discovered folk music.

Was there music happening in your family when you were growing up? Did other members of your family play? Relatives, friends, ancestors?

I grew up in a classical music-focused family. My father made his living playing violin with the Minnesota Orchestra and conducting private violin lessons at home. My mother was an amateur, but dedicated, pianist. I was surrounded by those sounds and by positive attitudes toward “formal” music throughout my childhood. Even though classical music ended up not being for me, I feel fortunate to have been given an appreciation for it early on.

When I began playing folk music it took my parents – my father in particular – some time before they seemed comfortable admitting that this was quality music too.

I think so many musicians who come from formal backgrounds have a hard time fitting “informal” music into their usual boxes. Once it became clear that my interest in this stuff was more than just a passing fixation, my parents slowly but surely came around to liking it themselves. In fact, my mother took me to my first Clifftop festival, and my father to the next two, when I was too young to go on my own. All things considered, their experiences in this center of the old-time universe ended up being positive.

I had no firsthand experience with other musical relatives. My dad remembers, while a child in Southeast Colorado, his maternal grandfather playing the fiddle, a bit. This man was born in South Carolina, probably in the 1870’s, so it seems reasonable to assume that whatever fiddling he did was probably old-time. In spite of my Minnesota origin, both sides of my family came from Southern Appalachia – from colonial times until as recently as the turn of the last century – so I like to think that this music may have shown up somewhere in my family tree.

Your first musical instrument was the piano?

Yes. My parents got me started young with classical piano lessons beginning around age four, and probably would have even if I had not expressed interest in the organ. While music in general clearly made sense to me even back then, this particular music was always somewhat of a struggle. The classical form was not intuitive, and reading music never came easily. Also, the sort of regimented practicing that was expected (and, truth be told, probably necessary for any serious student of classical music) quickly became something that I dreaded and avoided.

Early on, I figured out a trick to make my piano studies go a bit more easily. When my teacher introduced a new piece of music, I asked her to play it through for me a time or two. As she did this, I was able to internalize enough of the sounds to be able to play most new pieces primarily by ear, only referring to the printed page in a pinch when I simply couldn’t remember the sound of a given passage. This strengthened my ability to learn by ear but certainly did nothing for my sight-reading. After many years of this, my teacher caught onto the fact that I had a hard time reading-on-demand.

It was around that time that I was getting seriously into folk music so these lessons were not long for the world anyway. By the time I was thirteen and had been playing the banjo for a couple of years, I convinced my parents to let me discontinue piano lessons.

Tell us about your journey into folk music.

I was first made aware of folk music by Don Paden, my homeroom teacher in a Saint Paul, Minnesota public school. Don played several folk instruments: mandolin was his favorite but he also played fiddle, guitar, autoharp and others. He regularly brought these instruments into his classroom, to show his students an art form that we had likely never known.

While Don’s genre of choice was bluegrass, he wasn’t especially picky, and a lot of the stuff that he played in those years I later came to recognize as the sort of “chestnut” tunes that appear in both bluegrass and old-time, tunes such as “Saint Anne’s Reel,” “Soldier’s Joy,” “Ragtime Annie,” and the like.

There was something about this folk music and these instruments that immediately spoke to me; it seemed more real somehow than the comparatively contrived-sounding piano music with which I had never fallen particularly in love.

Sometime in late 1993, during my fourth-grade year, I asked Don to show me a few things on the mandolin, which I liked the best of all. I took to it pretty quickly, and once I had a cursory understanding of the essential techniques, Don soon had me playing real tunes, the first of which was “Old French.”

After my father bought me a mandolin of my own in April of 1994, I began taking lessons with another teacher, Brian Wicklund, a local bluegrass jack-of-all-instruments. Brian is an exceptional teacher of young people and he taught me, from then until about 1998, when I set the instrument aside to focus entirely on the banjo.

Brian led me through numerous bluegrass standards but periodically he would teach me a fiddle tune, something I immediately recognized as different from – and in my opinion preferable to – the flashier material on which we spent the bulk of our time. Over and over again, I begged for more tunes from this category, and soon Brian clued me in to the related genre of old-time, suggesting that it might be more to my liking than bluegrass.

It was around that time that Brian showed me a new thing that he was tinkering with – a five-string banjo. He was playing not with fingerpicks, as I had thus far always heard it played, but in a manner that he called clawhammer. I was immediately smitten by that sound! This was in late 1994.

In addition to continuing bluegrass mandolin lessons – and asking for as many fiddle tunes as Brian would give me – I started clawhammer banjo lessons with Marianne Kovatch, who was one of very few people in the area playing this style and perhaps the only one in a position to teach.

At the same time, my parents (believe it or not) insisted that I try my hand at bluegrass banjo lessons, with yet another teacher. They were worried that I had inadvertently – and out of inexperience – chosen a style of music, or playing, that would ultimately prove limited, undesirable, or both.

While the clawhammer style immediately made great sense, the bluegrass approach never really did. I was allowed to discontinue those lessons once I had convinced my parents that there really was something to this clawhammer stuff, around the end of 1995. Marianne and I met for weekly lessons for a little over a year and then she sent me off into the wide world of old-time music with lots of recommended listening.

Could you say something about your approach to old-time music and how you evolve your material?

I learn the majority of my material straight from fiddlers. My favorite historic musician is Kentucky/West Virginia fiddler Ed Haley, whose home recordings have yielded some incredible tunes that I have enjoyed making suitable for the banjo while keeping intact as much of Haley’s singular style as possible. I also dip my toes occasionally into the bluegrass and Celtic canons, seeing which tunes might translate well to the clawhammer banjo. The genres aren’t that distantly related, after all!

On the banjo, I continue to define my sound through arranging unusual material from various traditional sources. I have listened to old and new recordings of fiddlers much more than banjo players, and I always enjoy the challenge of adapting the banjo to very fiddle-centric music that other banjo players might tend to avoid.

So, you tend to go straight to the fiddle renditions?

Yes. Long ago, I got tired of listening exclusively to other banjo players both live and on recordings. As the clawhammer banjo can have its limitations, it has been my impression that a tune translated from fiddle to banjo tends to get watered down in the process; we simply cannot capture every note and nuance of the fiddle’s version. Once the tune goes through several banjo players’ filters, it might bear scant resemblance to the original fiddle melody.

You also play fiddle.

Yes. For the past few years, alongside the banjo, I have been learning to play old-time fiddle. This has been much more challenging than I expected, but it’s been loads of fun! I’ve really been getting into the bowing lately. It’s incredible to me, how much subtle changes in bowing can impact the overall sound. And, developing a better understanding of a fiddler’s end of things has definitely affected my banjo playing.

How would you describe your approach to the banjo, and what kinds of experiences are you trying to convey to your listeners?

In a nutshell, I seek to reconcile two seemingly disparate approaches to clawhammer banjo: the Northern melodic style and the more rhythmic

Southern sound. I do my best to combine elements of both – to create something that can stand alone, but also fall in step with a fiddle – something that is melodically intriguing, but also rhythmically exciting, all wrapped up into a package that is aesthetically appealing.

So, you don’t consider yourself strictly as a melodic banjo player.

I have always been amazed by the technical facility of the great melodic players who started making an impact on the old-time scene in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but to me that style alone often lacks the driving rhythm that is so central to more traditional clawhammer, which I also love. But, I enjoy treating the banjo as an instrument that doesn’t always need to be paired with a fiddle.

What draws you to old-time music?

Simply, there is so much more to the form than meets the eye and ear. What may appear to be rather basic melodies can in fact express unspeakable emotions and evoke the experiences of generations past.

Besides performing and teaching, you’re on the faculty of several banjo camps.

For which I am very grateful. I love these programs. I wish that they had been around when I was learning to play! I hope to do a lot more teaching in these situations.

So, what’s on the burner now? Any new projects in the works?

I’ve fallen into a comfortable and diverse routine of performing concerts, playing regularly for contra dances, teaching private lessons and conducting workshops, many of which have turned into annual or twice annual events.

I figured that this time in my life would be the best time to try making my living as a musician, while my expenses are few and I don’t have the responsibilities of a family. I can’t say whether I will be able, or want to, continue down this path indefinitely, but it’s unquestionably enjoyable right now.

I am working on a new CD, which will hopefully be released in the summer

of 2009. It will follow a format similar to “Insight,” with many banjo/guitar duets, some three-piece band numbers, a couple of banjo/fiddle duets, and some solo material. The personnel will be somewhat different this time around and with any luck I will play some fiddle on it myself. I have assembled some uncommon repertoire for this project, perhaps more so than the collection found on “Insight” and now I’m fine-tuning my arrangements.

I played your to CD, “Insight,” to a lady who is far from a banjo aficionado. She was struck by what she described as the “sweetness” you bring out of your instrument; exactly the same response I, and many others had when first hearing your music. There’s something about the tone you are able to pull out of the banjo, which along with your distinctive style is a uniquely defining characteristic of your music. Can you say something about how you arrived at this sound?

The matter of tone is an issue I have some pretty involved feelings about, and one that I am glad you raised.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about and experimenting with tone.

In my experience, many banjo players feel that most of their tone comes from whatever instrument and setup they choose; in other words, a Whyte Laydie or Tubaphone-type banjo with a plastic head and a Kerschner-style tailpiece will produce a bright, focused tone, while a short-scale, 12″ banjo with a skin head and a No-Knot tailpiece will produce a dark, fuzzy tone, with various other types of banjos and setups filling in the spaces between fully bright and fully dark.

While the instrument and its setup are one piece of the tonal puzzle, the manner in which the player’s body interacts with the instrument is another, and is in my opinion has equal, if not greater, significance.

The area of the preferred fingernail that hits the strings may seem like a trivial matter, but it affects tone in a startling way.

I use my index finger nearly all of the time, only wearing a pick if I require extra volume and only switching to my middle finger if I break the index nail. Extending my index finger straight out in front of me – and thinking of its nail as having a left half and a right half – I can identify the upper right half as being the section that actually strikes the strings. This section of the fingernail, for me, produces a warm, round and clear tone with adequate volume. If I rotate my hand while playing so that the upper left half of the nail strikes the strings, my tone becomes increasingly bright – to the point of being almost brittle and riddled with clicking fingernail noise. The volume also seems to decrease as I move my hand in this way.

The right-hand attack which sounds the very best to me, is one that runs neither totally parallel to the surface of the head nor totally perpendicular to it, but halfway in between the two extremes, in a sort of 45-degree angle to the head and strings. The clearest way that I have found to teach this attack involves playing over the base of the fingerboard, whether or not that is where one typically prefers to play (scooped fingerboards can present a problem here, but the point can still be understood). In that position, one should be able to literally feel the preferred fingernail – striking as I described – graze the edge of the fingerboard after hitting the first string. Of course, the same thing cannot be felt, per se, on the other strings, but if the attack remains the same from string to string, the resulting tone will be consistently full and rich.

The manner in which one holds the banjo also affects the tone. Holding the pot in the middle of the lap, as so many people do, can feel secure, but the torso blocks a great deal of the escape route for the sound. Moving the pot over to the top of the right thigh allows some of that sound to get out, and also brings the neck a bit closer to parallel with the floor. This neck angle feels more comfortable to me than holding my left hand well up in the air as I would with the pot cradled in my lap, but more importantly, at least for me, it makes the fingernail-to-string relationship feel more natural. Some might worry that the banjo can slip away too easily in this position; if that is a concern, it would be better for a strap to be worn – yes, while sitting down -than to write off this posture as impossible. But nothing is set in stone; these are merely my preferences and others might feel totally different about their ideal tone, attack and so on.

I periodically conduct a short workshop on the mechanics of tone, in which I go over all of these concepts, all the while demonstrating the different types of tone that I can get out of one banjo simply by adjusting my physical relationship with the instrument. At some point during the session, I ask to borrow a couple of banjos from the participants; ideally, I look for instruments that represent, in and of themselves, the extremes of the bright- to-dark spectrum, and are as different sounding from my banjo as possible. With these banjos, I repeat the same procedure – rotating my right hand, changing my angle of attack and moving the banjo from my right thigh to the middle of my lap – all the while striking the strings. Though the tone is never identical to my banjo, it can be fairly close. It is always amazing to see how much warmth I can bring out of a fundamentally bright banjo, and vice-versa, simply by exploring these basic concepts.

All of that having been said, let’s go back for a moment to instrument and setup choice and how these things relate to tone. Years ago, I heard Richie Stearns of the Horse Flies playing his H.C. Dobson banjo. I knew immediately that the tone of his instrument, regardless of the way in which he played it, was something special and different. It was exactly what I was looking for. I played examples of these banjos whenever I could and found them to possess – by virtue of their patented Silver Bell tone rings – a remarkable combination of warmth and definition, striking a kind of happy medium between the Vega-style instruments and the 12″ banjos. These Dobsons were also rather consistent-sounding and surprisingly responsive, as long as they were properly and similarly set-up.

It took me quite some time to locate an excellent example with the characteristics I was seeking – an 11″ rim, and a build quality substantial enough to handle light-gauge steel strings, with no repercussions – along with the very best tone of this nature. Finally, I was able to trade another banjo for the perfect Dobson Silver Bell: a rare slot head model with a possibly unique double-spun (metal on the outside AND inside) rim and some fancy appointments, which may have been a custom-ordered banjo. While there doesn’t seem to be any one standard Dobson banjo, this instrument is more unusual than some, and a definite cut above most. It has a very light setup, with a thin skin head, a No-Knot tailpiece, and a maple bridge without an ebony top. I also stuff a medium-weight dishtowel inside the back, balling a portion of it fairly tight near the neck attachment and spreading the rest of it throughout the pot. This banjo and set-up, together with my physical interaction with it, combine to create exactly the tone I seek.

Sounds like there’s at least enough material in all that to base on entire course on banjo tone. Thanks for going so far into it, here, from your perspective.

Adam Hurt, it’s wonderful having the opportunity of getting to know you. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of company waiting in line when your next CD comes out.