Everything in New Orleans was competitive. People would always be betting on who was the best and greatest in everything. That's where the battles of music came in. Lots of the bands couldn't read too much music. So they used a fiddle to play the lead--a fiddle player could read--and that was to give them some protection. The banjo then was strictly a rhythm instrument. Buddy Bolden would say, "Simmer down, let me hear the sound of them feet". The New Orleans bands, you see, didn't play with a flat sound. They'd shade the music. After the band had played with two or three horns blowing, they'd let the rhythm have it. That's what Buddy Bolden meant when he said that. The rhythm then often would play that mixture of African and Spanish syncopation--with a beat--and with just the rhythm going. They'd let the people use their imagination for the other sounds.