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Stringed Instruments
In country and bluegrass music, the band plays stringed instruments like the guitar, banjo, fiddle, stand-up bass, and mandolin, but did you know that years ago, a band might play these same instruments made out of gourds? Gourds are hard-shelled, round-shaped fruits. During the Great Depression, people couldn't afford store-bought instruments so they made their own. Although the King family in this photo is playing regular instruments, they also played on home-made gourd instruments, which you can hear in this sound recording. How do these instruments sound different from professionally made instruments?
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CREDIT: Hemmig, Robert, photographer. "King Family Playing Music." Undated photograph. Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941, Library of Congress. AUDIO CREDIT: King family, performers. "Girl I Left Behind Me." September 2, 1941. Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941, Library of Congress.
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