Berber Banjo

While walking in the central market of the medina of Marrakech I was surprised to find two different groups of Berber musicans playing their music with a banjo! One was even hooked up to an amplifier. I have never seen a banjo outside of the US and when I bought mine to China many years ago I got lots of curious inquiries.

It would be interesting to learn the history of these instruments in Morocco and how and why they have made their way into these two musical groups. I didn’t see them sold in music stores.

In both cases the banjo players didn’t pick and played in a finger-plucking style that seemed similar to local music. I made a few short clips on my camera of the groups to give a sense of how they were used. This sounds like a job for an ethnomusicologist!