Explain Clawhammer, please?

Subject: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: GUEST,Dumb Blonde
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 10:49 AM

My boyfriend plays banjo, and has mentioned the term Clawhammer (and I noticed that Galax had a Clawhammer Banjo competition as well as just a Banjo competition). Can someone please explain the difference?

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:24 AM

Clawhammer would be the best implement with which to play the banjo.. if you don't happen to have a chainsaw handy...

Cheers

SD

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Oversoul
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:29 AM

Playing without fingerpicks, usually on open-back instruments, but not always. Lots of drone happening against various string approaches: hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slurs. Lots of different tunings, sometimes. Hell, maybe it is really just a slower, more "worldly" approach. A sound that harkens back to relaxed wonder, simple but not simplistic...I hear all kinds of instruments in my banjos, have I said enough? Probably too much, eh?

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: GUEST,fretless (at work)
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 11:31 AM

Alternative explanations, which may be more pleasing to the boyfriend, may be found here [http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=6392#302744]* and in lots of other threads if you search clawhammer or frailing in the Forum. Which is not to deprecate SD's astute observation.

*Apologies -- no blue clickies from this station.

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 01:58 PM

Actually, clawhammer (also known as frailing, rapping the banjo, down-picking, and even "that club-fisted way", is like this:

Instead of picking the strings either with a flatpick (as in tenor or plectrum banjo) or by the palmar surface of the finger picking the string, in clawhammer (and other names) it is the nail side of the finger (usually index or middle) that strikes the string. This is done without flexing the finger. Rather, the whole hand (sometimes the whole forearm) moves up and down, to bring the picking finger into contact with the string. By the same motion, the thumb is brought in contact, alongside the shorter string called, surprisingly enough "the thumb string." The thumb does not flex to pick the thumb string, but the upward return movement of the hand brushes the thumb against the thumbstring (also called the chanterelle), sounding it on the off-stroke.

There are further string-sounding techniques, such as hammering-on, pulling-off, double-thumbing, and drop-thumb, but the previous description really tells the basis of clawhammer.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 07:12 PM

The right hand, esp. thumb and either index or middle finger, is basically hooked into a claw shape. The downbeat, referred to as "knocking down" (as in "Ham, he knocked down on that song, the best tune you heard ever," from the song "Banjo and the Possum") consists in doing just that--knocking the strings with that clawed hand. Then you pull up with a little roll of the wrist that results in striking the thumb string and the other outside string separately. Rhythm is therefore BUM ditty, BUM ditty, BUM ditty and so on, to insanity or the end of the song, whichever occurs first. AKA "two-finger" because that's all you need for the basics. As opposed to three-finger, which lets you do all kinds of syncopated, calibrated, fenestrated, inebriated patterns known as "rolls" which are probably wasted on an instrument like the banjo, but which provide mountaineers who would otherwise be bored with days and days of entertainment. Banjo lovers of the world, relax. I'm kidding; I own two of the silly things myself.

CC

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: GUEST,Pete M at work
Date: 20 Aug 01 - 08:26 PM

Is it because the sound produced is similar, though not as musical, as that made when a rusty nail is being extracted from a bit of timber?

Pete M

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:27 AM

Sure, Charlie, and they're open-back, so you can use them to serve popcorn.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: GUEST,fretless (at work)
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 12:34 PM

OK, from Banjo-L...

Is it Frailing or is it Clawhammer?.

by Donald ZEPP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One frequently asked question about the 5-string banjo concerns the differences between "frailing" and "clawhammer." This is not easily resolved, simply because it would appear to be largely a matter of opinion. Read on...

Perhaps a word about the style in general is in order. Despite the myriad things one can do to--and with--a banjo, the most common techniques for producing what those of us who love the instrument call "music" are: striking the strings with a flat pick (also called a "plectrum"); picking upward on the strings with the finger tips, i.e., pulling the fingers into the hand (which may be aided by the wearing of special finger picks); and striking downward on the strings with the back of the fingers or nails . It is this last, 5-string banjo technique that is generically called "frailing."

In its basic form, then, frailing consists of striking downward on a string (or several strings) with a nail (the player's choice, although the index and middle fingers are the most commonly used), then--on the next beat--repeating the motion, and finally --on the off beat--plucking the fifth, or drone, string. In 4/4 time (simplist to explain the rhythm; in fact, it's usually 2/4), this pattern is repeated in each measure, leading to the following (in which "X"=either a down-struck quarter- or eighth note played on the beat, and "+"=an eighth note played off the beat): X X+X X+, or a rhythm count of 1 2+3 4+. This produces what Pete SEEGER called a "bumm-titty bumm-titty" rhythm in his book/record How to Play the 5-String Banjo.

To hear this style, the RealAudio-equipped browser is strongly advised to visit our Banjo Sampler and Primer, where links to several examples of this style are to be found.

Additional eighth notes can be squeezed into those conveniently open half beats after the 1st and third quarter notes by bringing the thumb in to pick a string other than the 5th. This is called a number of things, including "double-thumb frailing," "drop-thumb," and "clawhammer." It is here that we get into trouble, for some people argue that that it's "frailing" if you don't "double-thumb," and "clawhammer" if you do. Others consider the terms to be completely synonymous.

In his "Introduction to Styles in Old-Time Music" (The New Lost City Ramblers Songbook. 1964. Oak Publications.), John COHEN wrote: "In the oldest technique, the picking is done entirely with a downward motion of the hand and fingers. The strings are struck with the back of the fingernail, rather than plucked up. There is no consistent name for this; it is variously called frailing , claw-hammer (C. Ashley), clubbing (Roscoe Holcomb), rapping (Hobart Smith), flailing, thrashing, knock-down, drop-thumb, and downpicking."

In his book, Pete SEEGER says, "Double thumbing can also be done in this (frailing) system..." and he never mentions the word "clawhammer" in this context* although he does say that the style is "...variously called 'beating' a banjo, 'frailing,' 'rapping,' (and) ' framing' the banjo."

Cecelia Conway, writing in her book African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia (1995. The University of Tennessee Press) wrote: "Downstroking has evoked a number of local names: 'beating' (Tross), 'thumping' (Odell Thompson, Burl Hammons),...'knocking' and 'knockdown' (Dock and John Boggs), 'rapping' (Hobart Smith), 'racking,' 'rocking,' 'whomping' (Dave Macon), 'fisted' clawhammer (Elizabeth 'Babe' Reid), 'that-club-fisted-way' (unidentified white man from Hiltons, Virginia), 'gun-hammer' (Arnold Watson), 'clawhammer,' and 'frailing.'"

So what is the difference between "frailing" and "clawhammer?" Depending on your point of view, there either is none, or "clawhammer" describes a "double-thumb" technique while "frailing" precludes it unless otherwise noted. What is clear is that if one uses any of these terms in a restrictive sense, he should make that clear, for there are others who will interpret the term in its broadest sense.

Remember, if you will, Lewis Carroll's writings:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."

Donald ZEPP Dec. 1996; July 1997 * SEEGER does contribute a bit to the confusion regarding "clawhammer" style, because he refers to it in his chapter on "Three Finger Picking and Bluegrass Banjo," where he states about Earl SCRUGGS, "...when he was a teen-ager he had worked out a syncopated variation on the old 'clawhammer' fingerpicking style."

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: GUEST,fretless (at work)
Date: 21 Aug 01 - 12:38 PM

I think my server was visited by Yossarian's man who saw everything twice. In any case, apologies for the duplication of the previous message.

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From:
Date: 22 Aug 01 - 06:42 AM

could you repeat that last message. Thankyou. I play ukulele banjo in any style I can duplicate. An old boy showed me how to do a split stroke, which breaks up the plonk of 2/4 or 4/4. A few weeks later he said "OH. You're still doing it that way?" I thought I was doing what he'd shown me. In fact I was. Only it took me a while to realise what he'd actually shown me. Practice. Practice. And if you don't like the sound.. Play quietly. Yours Fragrantly, Smiffy

Subject: RE: Explain Clawhammer, please?
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 24 Aug 01 - 11:57 PM

Snide remarks to the contrary, clawhammer or cla-whammer banjo is REAL banjo. Much more creative than Blue Grass banjo. More tunings, more "attacks". Ah yes, it is a much more sophisticated style, also older, also more peaceful, also more fun to play!

But seriously, Ms DB, It is the more traditional style of playing and is flexible enough to allow a great degree of very personal development for the banjoist. I doubt that any two banjoists play within the clawhammer style in the same way. Those of us who have been playing for a while usually have a dozen (thereabouts) tunings and probably a half-dozen different "styles" of clawhammer. These both will change from tune to tune. John Brown's Dream is played differently than "Marching Through Georgia" and "Country Blues" from "Cluck Old Hen" or "Ducks on the Millpond"

Check out MIKE Seeger's CD "Southern Banjo Sounds" for a real nice sampling of older style banjo.