old-time picking on resonator banjos

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: JedMarum
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 10:34 PM

Thanks Arnie and Jon for some practical suggestions. I'll look into them this week, and let ya know.

I have been developing, what may be bad habits, but it owrks for me ... using a combination of 3 fingered style picking and some thumb picking with brushing. Since I use my nails on fingers and a thumb pick, it seems to work out OK. It also makes it easy fro me to switch back-and-forth from brushing to picking within the same song.

I've even tried using a flat pick for some ... had an interesting sound when plucking out melodies along with the fiddle - plectrum style. I may be wandering a bit in my development, but I'm having fun! Still the comments here can help me from straying too far off the beaten path!

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 11:04 AM

For a good article on the advent of the 5th string on banjos, banjos as a cowboy instrument, clawhammer style and more and for fine open-back instruments go to www.drhorsehair.com. An informative site.

Richard Wright

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: black walnut
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 11:17 AM

agreed about arnie's recommendation of mike seeger's cd. great liner notes and a photo for every banjo played on the album. it's one of my favourite cd's. recommend, recommend. (i got mine for $5 canadian in a second-hand bin....even better!).

~'nut

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Jon W.
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 07:38 PM

I tried to learn 3-finger bluegrass, couldn't stand the finger picks and didn't think I'd ever get fast enough. I picked up Ken Perlman's book "Basic Clawhammer Banjo" but couldn't learn the right hand clawhammer technique. I've grown comfortable with a compromise - I pick up with forefinger, down with thumb, stroke down on chords with forefinger, and relax and enjoy the music. It's not orthodox but it works for me. Someday I'll learn to clawhammer right, when I want to learn a tune that absolutely cries out for it. When I do, it will be by consulting Mudcatter Bob Clayton's book. It has the best description of right hand technique I've read so far. He had some copies he was selling for a very good price. Contact him by personal message (Songster Bob)

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Jed at Work
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 07:46 PM

thanks, Jon. I will contact Bob.

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Jim Krause
Date: 22 Aug 00 - 03:46 PM

I was talking to a frustrated clawhammer banjo player a month ago at the local contradance. He said he just couldn't get it. I told him to break it down. By the time the mics were plugged in and it was time to go to work, he had the basic strum down.

There are three parts to the basic clawhammer, or frailing strum: 1. the index finger note, 2. the brush, & 3. the thumb note on the fifth string. All components of the technique are executed in a downward motion. The only time the hand moves upward is in preparation for the next component. The tricky part is for the brain to convince the hand that there's nothing funny going on down there.

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 22 Aug 00 - 05:13 PM

Soddy, Interesting, I would discribe the thumb note as happening as the hand pulls away from the drum head on(or getting ready for) the upstroke. Is'nt bum chitty bum chitty one way of discribing it or 1,2,& 3,4,& (The & being the pull away on the fith string). 1,2,3,4 being on the waking beat and the &'s being on the off beats...I love frailing!! Thank you Clarence Tom Ashley!!Has everyone heard Dwight Diller's cd something like "1999 all banjo" sorry I'm awfull with names.. All the best Guy

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 07:39 PM

Fascinating stuff. Now I am about to receive a four string banjo recovered from my brother's basement - the only positive thing to come out of his divorce. Any suggestions on getting started? Beginner's books? Instructional CD? Or should I just bang away at it until the co-op has me evicted?

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Feb 01 - 08:56 PM

Jon Freeman wondered about the tonal choice among clear plastic, Fireskyn, and hide heads.

Many old-time players like the "tubby" sound, what I think of as "the tuned drum" sound. For those who want that sort of thing, the hide head is to be preferred. Also, one of the techniques to get this sound is to relax the tension on the head, whatever the material.

For the modern convenience, humidity tolerance, and durability, plus a somewhat clearer sound, Fibreskyn.

Moving further toward the clear penetrating end, the frosted plastic head is the head of choice.

For the clearest, most penetrating sound, the clear plastic is desirable.

If you look at that progression, it makes sense: The greater the mass of the head, the plunkier or tubbier the sound.

DAve Oesterreich

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: GUEST,Blind Desert Pete
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 07:34 PM

I seem to remember Wade Ward, playing a gibson resonator banjo, and they dont come no better than ol' Wade.

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: GUEST,*Carol's Friend Don
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 07:44 PM

I've played an old long neck Vega Folk Ranger for years and for old time music or any waltz it's great. I've used a guitar tuning D-G-B-E with the capo on the third fret and an extra long Shubb 5th string capo also on the third fret of the 5th string. That way when I drop the capo to the 1st fret(G to F) or to the nut (E) I can drop the capo down the same number of frets on the 5th string side, or go up a whole octive (E to E)leaving the rail with just enough to catch the first fret of the 5th string - not the nut of the 5th string - and twelve little frets up, it's Hello Doll(E).

Most people don't use the three frets south of the G/C position, but I do frequently, since I back up a lot of singers, and sometimes you have to read the chords off their guitars in order to get your chops in. Over the years I have also dropped my fifth string into the bridge, so that from the side it is a quarter inch down from the plane of the other strings. It allows a truer set to the string, since it doesn't rise to the bridge as quickly from its capo'd position and allows me to use a tenor banjo strum to add texture to the music without the drone of the fifth. "Drone of the Fifth"...sounds like a lament in the making..., or a song about a useless piper.

As for those who are trying to transition from guitar to banjo, the former tuning works great, or try a six string banjo. Believe it or not, my Goldtone (a GT-500, $550 thru Elderly's) sounds great, when I've had several opportunities to play very expensive six string Deerings, which sucked. Try some Travis picking on one of those babies, while rolling up the E string, and the Bluegrassers will end up picking your bugs off of their windshield.

Or put them sneakers up in a ditch by using a Keyser Drop D Capo two frets up from a regular capo anywhere on the neck. It's "Drop D In Any Key", and instead of a high pitched drone string, you get a bass drone that hurts wooden things at twelve yards. The GT-500 has a pick-up, but it sounds like something from the late sixties Telstars, and is good only for country riffs. Good luck, and don't let the banjo nazis get you down.

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: GUEST,*Carol's Friend Don
Date: 20 Feb 01 - 07:53 PM

I've played an old long neck Vega Folk Ranger for years and for old time music or any waltz it's great. I've used a guitar tuning D-G-B-E with the capo on the third fret and an extra long Shubb 5th string capo also on the third fret of the 5th string. That way when I drop the capo to the 1st fret(G to F) or to the nut (E) I can drop the capo down the same number of frets on the 5th string side, or go up a whole octive (E to E)leaving the rail with just enough to catch the first fret of the 5th string - not the nut of the 5th string - and twelve little frets up, it's Hello Doll(E).

Most people don't use the three frets south of the G/C position, but I do frequently, since I back up a lot of singers, and sometimes you have to read the chords off their guitars in order to get your chops in. Over the years I have also dropped my fifth string into the bridge, so that from the side it is a quarter inch down from the plane of the other strings. It allows a truer set to the string, since it doesn't rise to the bridge as quickly from its capo'd position and allows me to use a tenor banjo strum to add texture to the music without the drone of the fifth. "Drone of the Fifth"...sounds like a lament in the making..., or a song about a useless piper.

As for those who are trying to transition from guitar to banjo, the former tuning works great, or try a six string banjo. Believe it or not, my Goldtone (a GT-500, $550 thru Elderly's) sounds great, when I've had several opportunities to play very expensive six string Deerings, which sucked. Try some Travis picking on one of those babies, while rolling up the E string, and the Bluegrassers will end up picking your bugs off of their windshield.

Or put them sneakers up in a ditch by using a Keyser Drop D Capo two frets up from a regular capo anywhere on the neck. It's "Drop D In Any Key", and instead of a high pitched drone string, you get a bass drone that hurts wooden things at twelve yards. The GT-500 has a pick-up, but it sounds like something from the late sixties Telstars, and is good only for country riffs. Good luck, and don't let the banjo nazis get you down.

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: GUEST,blkbanjoman
Date: 03 Nov 12 - 01:48 AM

Wade Ward. One of the best clawhammer players, period. Resonator banjo.

I went into a local shop a year ago and picked up a resonator banjo and played my take on Ward's Mississippi Sawyer. I saw all kinds of stars and constellations. Never on either of my open back banjos could I have imagined a sound like that. It was so full and robust!

But I can't afford any fancy resonator like that...

Then, just today, I go into another local shop and play this old 1940s low-end resonator banjo from a sub-company of Gibson. I mean this was a basic banjo. It had a plastic head on it! I started picking Tommy Jarrell's John Henry. That banjo sounded amazing!!!! 400 bucks. (Still a pinch for me.. but it ain't a "G" or more.) Some lady in the shop said that when I was playing she didn't think it was a resonator banjo! OMG! That's what I was thinking... Why don't I get a cheap resonator banjo and get to work!

Great posts up here. It's just all about what you like to hear. There ain't no rules on what you can play and can't. Do you, man!

Peace,

BBM

Subject: RE: old-time picking on resonator banjos
From: Henry Krinkle
Date: 03 Nov 12 - 04:29 AM

Good to know all this. I have a Gibson RB-3 and just bought a Deering Boston. I can take the resonator and flanges off of the Deering. And I might one day.
=(:-( ))