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<\/p>\nNora Brown is a celebrated roots musician. She released her debut album, Cinnamon Tree<\/i>, in 2019. That album showcases Brown\u2019s facility on the banjo, as well as her keen understanding of the musical traditions of the Appalachian region. A popular fixture on the festival circuit, Brown gave a TED talk, appeared on NPR\u2019s Tiny Desk Concert<\/i>, and she\u2019s an in-demand instructor. A featured performer at this year\u2019s Mountain Song Festival, Brown appeared on a bill that included Mavis Staples, Steep Canyon Rangers and other critically acclaimed musical acts.<\/p>\n
And if all that isn\u2019t remarkable enough, it\u2019s worth noting that Nora Brown is all of 15 years old. And she\u2019s from Brooklyn, New York, not some holler in West Virginia.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brown does have some familiar roots in Appalachia, but she says that her interest and immersion in old-time music isn\u2019t something foisted upon her by her parents. \u201cI really came upon it by accident,\u201d she explains. When Brown was six, she decided she wanted to learn to play the ukulele. So her parents signed her up for lessons from ethnomusicologist, multi-instrumentalist and instructor Shlomo Pestcoe. \u201cBut I had no idea that he would only teach old time music,\u201d Brown explains. Fortunately for her, she fell in love with the traditional music of the mountains.<\/p>\n
Coupled with Pestcoe\u2019s collection of instruments, that interest brought Brown to the banjo. She recalls lessons at his home. \u201cHe was a collector of sorts, so he had a lot of trinkets. You’d squeeze through this hallway, and it would open up into this room where we would learn our lessons.\u201d In that room, the two would be surrounded by other instruments. As she became proficient on ukulele, Brown decided she wanted to expand her musical horizons. Pestcoe suggested the banjo ukulele as a transitional step, and studies on that hybrid instrument led Brown to the banjo.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Pestcoe passed away shortly after Brown began playing the banjo. \u201cI did continue to learn from other local teachers in the city,\u201d she says. \u201cThen I kind of branched off on my own.\u201d Today she plays both the familiar five-string banjo and a more exotic instrument, the fretless banjo. A traditional instrument with origins in Africa, the fretless banjo would seem to be a far more challenge to master. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to play things without mistakes because it has no frets,\u201d Brown says. But she says that using muscle memory, she eventually found her way around the fretboard.<\/p>\n
And in the hands of a skilled instrumentalist like Brown, the fretless banjo produces a sound distinctly different from its more well-known relative. \u201cThe thing about playing on gut or nylon strings,\u201d Brown observes, \u201cis that it\u2019s so fluid. The movements that you do are so easily translated.\u201d she says that on a fretted, metal-string banjo \u201cit\u2019s very common that you\u2019ll have to change the way you\u2019re playing to get the sound that you\u2019re looking for.\u201d But on the fretless, she says, \u201cthere\u2019s never a need for that. The sound just [comes] out in a way that \u2013 at least for me \u2013 is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 11 songs on Cinnamon Tree<\/i> are all traditional tunes; Brown\u2019s readings of those tunes build on tradition and filter it through her own 21st<\/sup> century sensibility. \u201cI try to get as close as I can to the source,\u201dshe says, \u201cbut it honestly doesn’t matter in the end. Because no matter how well I learn it to somebody else’s version, I end up changing it just by way of playing the song again and again.\u201d She says that the change isn\u2019t something she consciously pursues. \u201cIt just kind of happens,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n Nora Brown doesn\u2019t suffer at the hands of the \u201cstage parent\u201d syndrome. \u201cMy parents support my music, and they also support my involvement in how I spend my time,\u201d she says. Brown observes that some parents are very forceful about their children practicing. \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily agree with that,\u201d she says. \u201cI think that it\u2019s helpful to maintain a balance.\u201d<\/p>\n And by all evidence, Brown is succeeding in that balancing act. While she\u2019s busy with teaching, taking part in competitions, performing and other musical pursuits, this young woman is keeping her options open. \u201cI’m not sure if I want to continue a career in music for my entire adult life,\u201d she admits. \u201cBut I do know that I always want to play music. I don’t really know exactly what I’m going to do, but I do know I want to continue passing on musical traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nora Brown is a celebrated roots musician. She released her debut album, Cinnamon Tree, in 2019. That album showcases Brown\u2019s facility on the banjo, as well as her keen understanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,41],"tags":[4660],"class_list":["post-21768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-interview","tag-nora-brown","cat-6-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21770,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21768\/revisions\/21770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}