Everybody sitting down?Bill, you can play a banjo, can't you?You told me once it was the first instrument you ever played.Well, I tried it. My uncle had one.Yeah, I tried it, but it didn't...Wasn't enough strings on it.Do you ever play a French harp? Harmonica?No, I played one of them things you saw across like this.What do you call that thing?Fiddle.That's the thing, yeah.But the one I played, we didn't have but one string on it.On stock fiddle and a shoestring bow.I can stand you and listen to that, yeah.I mean, I'll sit down and listen.Well, no, the reason I just brought that up is thatsome people think that you can't have folk musicunless you have guitars and banjos, and that's really not true.You've got so many different kinds of musical instruments in our country.You've got these crazy little dulcimers that go twang, twang on them.Only got about one note.You've got washtub basses made out of a broomstick and a washtub.What do you call this?Well, some people call it tootin' cane,but the man who made it,called it a chalil.Well, they still make music to them.Well, I'm not anything like an expert on it.If anybody here has heard Hillel and Aviva play,they know how beautiful this can sound.But it's a lot of fun for a lonesome time.Actually, I'm going around the country crying to convert peopleto the idea of homemade, hand-rolled music,no matter what kind.I think it'd be a sad day for Americaif the only music came out of a loudspeaker.And so I tell people,you don't have to play a banjo or guitar.You can play whistles.As a matter of fact, I've got an instrument hereyou never heard before, Bill.Maybe some of them have heard it before,but you never did, so I'm going to show it to you.You got it in your pocket?Oh, yeah.You got it in your pocket?You got it in your pocket?You got it in your pocket?You got it in your pocket?About ten years ago,down on the little island of Trinidad,that's where the home of calypso music is,there was a law passed down there against drums.It's made out of an oil barrel.Oh, yeah.A 55-gallon oil drum.Well, the reason this instrument was invented isthere was a law passed there against regular drums.I don't need to go into exactly the reason.I think the official church wanted to discoveror it's the religious groups that use drumsas part of the ritual.But the young people of the islandwere faced with a terrible situation.Carnival time was coming.That's like Mardi Gras.Two days, everybody dances in the streetsand they hadn't any rhythm.How can you celebrate carnival with no rhythm?They went down to the junkyard.They got garbage can covers, break drums.Clang, clang, clang.They called them the first steel bands.Then some genius found you make a dentin the bottom of a garbage canand you can get a musical note out of it.And within a couple of years,they'd worked it out to a regular system.I know about two and a half tunes on it.Well, three and a half.I learned one since last April, May.And I just thought I'd show you how it sounds.Thank you. I like that.You see, each section gives off a different note.Big section gives a low note.Small section gives a high note.And in between are grooves.It used to be flat here, you know.I went down there last January to learn how to make themand I sat in this guy's backyard.He's a very nice young manand he showed me how you cut off the end of the barrel,you heat it on a bond,fire, and you hammer and hammer and hammerfor a whole day long.Well, you know, I've got a very subversive plot of foot.I've promised any young person I meet,I'll show them how to make these if they want.I've mimeographed the plans.We're going to destroy the peace and quietof American neighborhoods from the...Of course, you know, I'm going to get letters next year.There are going to be people saying,Mr. Seeger, will you please take those steel drums backwhere you got them?You can give us back juvenile delinquency,but take away the steel drums.Well, do you know one thing,if you take this,the noise you're making there now,with all these letters here,I see all that on music,the same thing as you.That's right.A, B, C, D, E, F, G.Well, ain't no more on music as it is on here,the same thing.That's right.F sharp.Well, that's a sharp,but it's still F.That's F, that's still F.You can make it flat or sharp,but it's still F.You can play any kind of tune you want to.Thank you.Or if you happen to be a progressive jazz fiend.When the saints go marching on,is that what you sing?That's right.Hey, Bill, I got one for you.You've been over in Europe?Once.I don't know their songs.Do they dig this kind of music?Or maybe they're square dance fans.I heard, I heard,a lot of them play that on xylophones, too.No fool.A lot of them.Yeah, play that on xylophones.Oh, I won't try and be around when he's there.Did you ever hear a fiddler playing this tune?Yeah.That sounded like that to my home.I've been playing it.Yeah.I've been playing it.That's right.I got to remember that.I can't forget that.Oh, Mark.You know, I think music is something just like clothes, you know?I think it's the same material that I got my grandfather wore,the same material, but it wasn't built up like this.You know, it was made in a different shape.So I think you can take music, old music,and you can put some new stuff to it, and it's new music.Huh?That's right.I know some of the big bands that's doing that with our blues that we got now.That I've been singing with.Elvis Presley.Yeah, well, a lot of them before I was, before they was born, I was singing the same thing,but now the way they got it rhymed up, it don't look like it come from me.Well, anybody, if you know, if you know anybody wants to make one of these,you tell them to write me a letter.I sure will, and I'll give them your address.All right.Actually, you have to have all together.They got bass one.Boom, boom, boom, boom.And they got tenors.Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.Altos.Maybe I'll have you make one for my daughter.And then they got the shakers.And the sticks.And you put them all together.It's like a seven-layer cake.None of them for my kid.She makes enough noise, but that would be all right.But you come to Beacon where I'm, we got the Duchess Junction Steel Band.My daughter, she's eight, and the son's ten, and the neighbor's kids.And we're planning to alarm the townspeople come Halloween.Actually, you should hear all the different rhythms going on together.Supposing you were to clap your hands in a special way like this.And a haircut.Try it.Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.with a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentwith a little accentWe'll see you next time.