origins-of-the-roll · rinzler-seeger1990-american-banjo-scruggs-style

In the rural South, the old African-based style of “rapping”(or “frailing”) the banjo, and possibly some picking styles, were learned from both Black southerners and white minstrel-style musicians. ... In the late 1800s, banjo-playing virtuosos played European style concert music on the banjo as well as ragtime, novelty and black face minstrel songs. Most of this was a finger-picking style of music that then fed back into rural southern tradition in the early 1900s and created a variety of folk styles of either chording or playing melodies within the framework of a two or three finger “roll,” or “arpeggio” ... It was the development of this technique in a unique way in Earl Scruggs' area of southwestern North Carolina that was the basis for his creation of a new banjo picking style. The stylistic element shared by the 15 banjo pickers on this recording is that they play an arpeggiated three finger style using their thumb, index and middle fingers.