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25-532: The banjeaurine was invented by Samuel Swaim Stewart , owner of the S.S. Stewart Banjo Company in Philadelphia . The new instrument first hit the music scene in 1885, played before the public by William A. Huntley . A higher pitched version of the conventional 5-string banjo , the banjeaurine soon became an essential part of banjo orchestras, where it was responsible for the majority of the solos in musical pieces. There were normally two of these instruments in

50-413: A patent medicine . His family was well off and pushed Stewart toward a music career. He began training on the violin when he was 12 under Professor Carl Gaertner. Stewart was inspired to play the banjo by hearing banjoist Lew Simmons play at a concert, when Stewart was a boy. He purchased a tack-head banjo (banjo with skin sound-table nailed to the instrument's head with tacks) to learn to play and

75-485: A base metal for silver-plated cutlery and other silverware , notably the electroplated wares called EPNS (electroplated nickel silver). It is used in zippers , costume jewelry , for making musical instruments (e.g., flutes , clarinets ), and is preferred for the track in electric model railway layouts, as its oxide is conductive . Better quality keys and lock cylinder pins are made of nickel silver for durability under heavy use. The alloy has been widely used in

100-486: A bright and powerful sound quality; an additional benefit is that the metal is harder and more corrosion resistant than brass. Because of its hardness, it is used for most clarinet, flute, oboe and similar wind instrument keys, normally silver-plated. It is used to produce the tubes (called staples) onto which oboe reeds are tied. Many parts of brass instruments are made of nickel silver, such as tubes, braces or valve mechanism. Trombone slides of many manufacturers offer

125-677: A form of German silver was also developed in Birmingham, England . After the modern process for the production of electroplated nickel silver was patented in 1840 by George Richards Elkington and his cousin Henry Elkington in Birmingham, the development of electroplating caused nickel silver to become widely used. It formed an ideal, strong and bright substrate for the plating process. It was also used unplated in applications such as cutlery. Nickel silver first became popular as

150-691: A quality to surpass his. His company became a major manufacturer, competing with Lyon and Healy , A. C. Fairbanks and William A. Cole. These men and their companies were producing some of the highest quality banjos of the Classic Era (1880s-1910s). Stewart and his company were part of a larger movement to create the banjo into an instrument of concert halls. Others participating in this movement included Fred Van Eps , Vess Ossman , Frederick J. Bacon , Alfred A. Farland and George W. Gregory . These players were to take on European works by Beethoven, Paganini and Mendelssohn. He associated with some of

175-436: A simplified way of teaching people to play. Dobson's method didn't teach students to read sheet music, and Stewart felt they would be struck at the level of picking out simple songs. He felt students should learn to read sheet music from the beginning so that they could progress into more complex and satisfying songs. Alongside teaching, he began making banjos. His banjo rims were made of a layer of German silver outside of

200-642: A subset of brass . Nickel silver was first used in China , where it was smelted from readily available unprocessed ore. During the Qing dynasty , it was "smuggled into various parts of the East Indies ", despite a government ban on the export of nickel silver. It became known in the West from imported wares called baitong ( Mandarin ) or paktong ( Cantonese ) ( 白 銅 , literally "white copper"), for which

225-746: A top made out of skin, real or synthetic, and usually an open back without a resonator. The banjeaurine has five strings, one of which is shorter than the others and is called the fifth string or thumb string. The banjeaurine is tuned a fourth higher than the standard banjo (or like a Standard Banjo w/ a Capo on the 5th Fret), at open C major. Most notably constructed by Stewart, banjeaurines were also offered by other major banjo manufacturers, including Washburn , Fairbanks, Fairbanks & Cole , Cole , Vega , Weyman, Schall , Thompson & Odell , Kraske, and Lyon & Healy . Gold Tone, Vangoa, and several other banjo companies currently make these instruments as mini banjos. This article relating to lutes

250-399: A typical banjo orchestra. The banjeaurine has a shorter neck than traditional banjos, with a scale between 19" and 20", a fretboard extension that is cantilevered over the head, and either 17 or 19 frets. Most banjeaurines, especially early ones, have 12"- to 12-1/2"-diameter rims. Later models may have 11" rims, a size that became a standard banjo rim size during the late 1920s. The body has

275-535: A wide range of accessories and also horse gear. Presently, Plains metalsmiths use German silver for pendants, pectorals, bracelets, armbands, hair plates, conchas (oval decorative plates for belts), earrings, belt buckles, necktie slides, stickpins, dush-tuhs , and tiaras . Nickel silver is the metal of choice among contemporary Kiowa and Pawnee in Oklahoma . Many of the metal fittings on modern higher-end equine harness and tack are of nickel silver. Early in

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300-444: A wooden layer. The silver folded over a wire on top of the wooden rim, and the silver and wire were sandwiched between the wood rim and the skin. Stewart felt that the silver-and-wood combination would produce the best tone, a combination of the silver ring of metal with pure tones from wood. Having arrived at this conclusion, he committed to it, while his competition continued to develop their banjos, which eventually may have reached

325-417: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Samuel Swaim Stewart Samuel Swaim Stewart (January 8, 1855—April 6, 1898), also known as S. S. Stewart , was a musician, composer, publisher, and manufacturer of banjos . He owned the S. S. Stewart Banjo Company, which was one of the largest banjo manufacturers in the 1890s, manufacturing tens-of-thousands of banjos annually. He also published

350-634: Is named for its silvery appearance, which can make it attractive as a cheaper and more durable substitute. It is also well suited for being plated with silver. A naturally occurring ore composition in China was smelted into the alloy known as paktong or báitóng ( 白銅 ) ('white copper' or cupronickel ). The name German Silver refers to the artificial recreation of the natural ore composition by German metallurgists. All modern, commercially important, nickel silvers (such as those standardized under ASTM B122) contain zinc and are sometimes considered

375-402: The 1870 U.S. census and US Patent number US355896A. German silver Nickel silver , maillechort , German silver , argentan , new silver , nickel brass , albata , or alpacca is a cupronickel ( copper with nickel ) alloy with the addition of zinc . The usual formulation is 60% copper, 20% nickel and 20% zinc. Nickel silver does not contain the element silver . It

400-436: The S. S. Stewart Banjo and Guitar Journal from 1882 to 1902. He is known today for his efforts to remake the banjo into an instrument of cultural sophistication and for his high-quality banjos. For Stewart, that sophistication included learning to properly sight-read music, so as to be able to play the "proper repertoire" for middle-class citizens. Stewart's father was a physician and "medical director" for Swaim's Panacea ,

425-418: The banjo, the instrument was embedded in an era of the blackface - minstrel and variety shows. Initially, he taught what was standard for banjo performing repertoire, organizing a minstrel show. Then he took a step away from the minstrel music that was the popular music of its day, embracing European music and society culture and envisioning the banjo in that setting. He pushed European music as proper for

450-560: The banjo, to make it the equivalent of the violin. In his efforts to change the banjo's image, he was facing an established culture which he considered "vulgar", the banjo frequently being the instrument of the "variety parlors and drinking saloons" and dance halls instead of in middle class homes with ladies and gentlemen. Using his S.S. Stewart's Banjo and Guitar Journal he promoted performances and recitals. As he began selling his banjos and publishing, Stewart began competing to with his former teacher George Dobson, who had come out with

475-581: The better banjo players of his time, including E. M. Hall, Horace Weston , John H. Lee and William A. Huntley , promoting them in his journal and printing their endorsements of his products. His full name has been written as: Swain appears on his obituary, on 8 April 1898 in the Philadelphia Times and in the 1860 U.S. census. Swaim appears on his tombstone, on city directories from his lifetime (including 1879, 1880, 1889, ), 1890, 1891, 1892, 1895 ), his church admission record in 1868,

500-582: The closest visual similarity to silver. The brothers Henniger in Berlin and Ernst August Geitner in Schneeberg independently achieved this goal. The manufacturer Berndorf named the trademark brand Alpacca , which became widely known in northern Europe for nickel silver. In 1830, the German process of manufacture was introduced into England, while exports of paktong from China gradually stopped. In 1832,

525-477: The end of the eighteenth century there are references to it as having been exported from Canton to Europe. German artificial recreation of the natural paktong ore composition, however, began to appear from about 1750 onward. In 1770, the Suhl metalworks were able to produce a similar alloy. In 1823, a German competition was held to perfect the production process: the goal was to develop an alloy that possessed

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550-442: The production of coins (e.g. Portuguese escudo and the former GDR marks ). Its industrial and technical uses include marine fittings and plumbing fixtures for its corrosion resistance, and heating coils for its high electrical resistance. In the nineteenth century, particularly after 1868, North American Plains Indian metalsmiths were able to easily acquire sheets of German silver. They used them to cut, stamp, and cold hammer

575-471: The silvery metal colour was used to imitate sterling silver . According to Berthold Laufer , it was identical to khar sini , one of the seven metals recognized by Jābir ibn Hayyān . In Europe, consequently, it was at first called paktong , which is about the way baitong is pronounced in the Cantonese dialect. The earliest European mention of paktong occurs in the year 1597. From then until

600-936: The twentieth century, German silver was used by automobile manufacturers before the advent of steel sheet metal. For example, the famous Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of 1907. After about 1920, it became widely used for pocketknife bolsters , due to its machinability and corrosion resistance. Prior to this, the most common metal was iron . Musical instruments, including the flute , saxophone, trumpet , and French horn , string instrument frets, and electric guitar pickup parts, can be made of nickel silver. Many professional-level French horns are entirely made of nickel silver. Some saxophone manufacturers, such as Keilwerth , offer saxophones made of nickel silver (Shadow model); these are far rarer than traditional lacquered brass saxophones. Student-level flutes and piccolos are also made of silver-plated nickel silver, although upper-level models are likely to use sterling silver . Nickel silver produces

625-493: Was disappointed with the instrument's quality, especially when comparing it to his violin. Although discouraged by his initial banjo experience, he got instruction in 1872 from George C. Dobson of Boston and Joseph Ricket of Philadelphia. With his earlier training toward a classical-violin career, he didn't need much musical instruction; he became a good enough player, that after "several lessons, " he himself began teaching others to play. When Stewart began learning and teaching

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