Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?

Subject: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Gulliver
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 04:18 PM

I play in sessions where we start off playing tunes and then go on to
sing songs. Recently I've started finger-picking chords on my tenor
banjo (Irish tuning) to accompany myself singing, rather than switch to guitar.
I've never seen this being done anywhere, but I was wondering whether any 'Catters employ this technique.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 04:36 PM

I recently went to an Old Time/Bluegrass session in Paul, Cornwall where one of the women played a tenor banjo in a fingery style that went realy well with the music - it had a real swing to it. I don't believe she was tuned in fifths, though.
Ray

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 04:45 PM

GOOGLE Patek finger picking,he does it in dg dg,its interesting.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 05:05 PM

I tune my tenor banjo in fifths C G D A but have dropped it down to B F# C# Ab and finger pick the chords with one finger pick and a thumb pick.
I'll use it, usually about twice on any given night, for about fifteen minutes at a time and find that it really helps to add a little variety.
I dropped the tuning because I was tired of breaking "A" strings.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:29 PM

I believe fingerpicking was the normal way to play tenor banjo back in the 19th century in England.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:41 PM

They had tenor banjos in England in the 19th century?

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 06:55 PM

I think I'm wrong on that point - this interesting Irish site I just found gives 1915 as the date the tenor banjo was invented. But it also says that "Up to the turn of the 19th century, banjos were plucked and strummed by the fingers," and pictures from that time confirm that to have been the case.

Banjos were extremely popular in England around that time - as evidenced by Kipling's "Song of the Banjo"

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Jim Lad
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 10:19 PM

I think Buddy was talking about finger picking chords on the banjo as opposed to picking tunes. I had a whole bunch of banjo quips to sling at you, back there but I restrained myself.
Cheers!
Jim

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Gulliver
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:22 PM

I took a look at the Patek technique which is interesting, but I don't want to retune. I'd like to develop a bluegrassy banjo sound, just playing chords with occasional runs, if that's possible, so I've been reading up on 3-finger picking. As several have pointed out the banjo makes a nice variation, and there's no banjo in any of the several sessions I attend each week.

I've wanted to fingerpick guitar for years but the sessions were always too loud and drowned it out--that doesn't happen with the old Framus with resonator!

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Songster Bob
Date: 14 Mar 07 - 11:57 PM

[But it also says that "Up to the turn of the 19th century, banjos were plucked and strummed by the fingers," and pictures from that time confirm that to have been the case.]

The 19th C. banjo styles were two in number (roughly speaking), both played with fingers ("guitar style") or the fingernail (down-picking, aka rapping, clawhammer, knocking, etc.) -- sometimes with a thimble (basically a fingerpick turned backwards).

The use of a plectrum (flat-pick) didn't come about till around 1910 or so. One instruction book from 1912 (I think) suggested removing the 5th string from a standard banjo and using a plectrum on the remaining strings (thereby inventing the plectrum banjo, the little-known 4-string melody instrument used in conjunction with the chord-oriented tenor banjo, which was invented a few years later).

The use of the tenor banjo in Irish music came about in the 1960s or so; Tommy Makem of the Clancy-Bros.-and- played a 5-string, but session musicians took up the tenor, playing melody instead of chords (which is what the tenor was used for in jass bands back in the day) sometime around that same time.

That's about all I know about it, I'm afraid.

Bob

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: GUEST,Johnmc
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:38 AM

There seems to be something about the number of strings and the string spacing, perhaps even the fifths tuning, which makes it hard to get a good fingerpicking pattern going. I like JIM LAD's idea and will give it a go. However, I find just creating a pattern with a fast plectrum technique works quite well behind songs.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Rasener
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 06:57 AM

Not sure if this is the same, but Derek Brimstone is a banjo player.
An excerpt from his website
The huge entertainment factor of his shows often causes the audience to overlook the fact that Derek is also a superb and highly respected guitarist with, as Melody Maker once put it, "one of the most precise claw-picking techniques in the business". He is also highly regarded as a clawhammer banjo player, and has published excellent and successful tutors for both instruments.



Website address Derek Brimstone

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: GUEST,Banjo Barney from Donnycarney
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 07:53 AM

By jasus you're a quare ould lot on the Mudcat, wanting to play the worlds best instrument wrongly.

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Gulliver
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 02:35 PM

Well Barney, I do play tunes on it as well--that's the reason I have it with me! Regards, Banjo Don from Portobello

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Scrump
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 03:22 PM

I play tunes with a pick on mine (it is strung/tuned for Irish dance music), but I do finger pick to accompany some songs. Other songs I use the pick to play the tune along with the song (as with Barney McKenna).

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Gulliver
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 09:46 PM

Scrump we'll have to meet up for an oul session--where do you play?

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Scrump
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:29 AM

Mainly Beds/Herts UK (unless travelling to other parts of the country) - you?

Subject: RE: Does anyone finger-pick tenor banjo?
From: Gulliver
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 04:03 PM

Dublin at the moment, but I don't know where I'm going to end up. When the house is sold--hopefully later this year--I want to see a bit of the UK. A friend of mine is coming up from South Africa, looking for a place to live in the UK, and I was thinking of combining her house-hunting with a visit to some folk clubs/sessions there.