The Banjo is an instrument created by ensalved Africians imported to the United States. The construction was an animal skin tacked onto a gourd, with the fretless neck going straight through the gourd. The strings were made from animal gut, and the tuners were basic friction tuners, if having tuners at all. It had a floating bridge. The earliest documented use is by ensalved peoples in the Americas. It descends from similar African gourd integuments that were quite similar.

The Banjo was primarily an instrument of the enslaved peoples until Minstrel Shows adopted the banjo as apart of their act. During this period the gourd body was swapped out with a drum head, the tuners were switched to mechanical tuners, and some players added frets to their necks. The modern banjo construction starts to take shape around this period.

With minstrel shows being a popular form of entertainment banjo playing spread widely. The instrument was unique in that women and men played it, and became popular enough that whole banjo orchestras popped up. It was the most popular instrument in America for many years. Folks played massive bass banjos and tiny tenor banjos. During this period many Irish folks picked up the banjo and brought it back to Ireland. Nowadays the 4-string tenor banjo is considered a folk instrument in Ireland, despite it's American roots.

Guitars started to become more popular than banjos in the early 20th century. Commonly cited reasons include guitars were significantly cheaper than the banjo, traditional music (old time/folk) began to wane in popularity, and etc. In the mid 20th century a new style of playing the Banjo was developed by Earl Scruggs. Scruggs used 3 metal fingerpicks to pluck out complex picking patterns (called rolls) at very fast speeds. This sounds is heavily associated with bluegrass music.

The most common flavor of Banjo in the modern period is 5 strings over a fretted neck, mechanical tuners in the head, a floating bridge, and a drum for the body, and synthetic skins for the drumhead. Other popular features include a scooped fretboard near the body of the instrument, brass plates covering sections of the fretboard (for slides), a tonering under the drumhead (for sustain and a more metalic tone), a resonator (for volume, tone, and sustain).

There are many styles of play for the banjo. The most popular two are Scruggs (also known as 3 finger), and Clawhammer (also known as overhand, frailing, classic).

Clawhammer is best because this is what I play, all other styles are for unserious lames.