Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?

Subject: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 02:33 PM

Messing about with the banjo and reading a howto, I notice it is very difficult to do the basic licks, so experts how long does it take to be able to play a tune?

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: CRANKY YANKEE
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 03:37 PM

Tom Paley taught me to clawhammer in about ten minutes, I taught Jim Bennet using the same song (Johnny Booker) it took him about ten seconds to catch on

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 04:13 PM

I spent many years trying to teach myself from a book. Someone showed me how in 10 minutes. I taught my brother the basic motion over the phone. NOW>..... Getting a degree of proficiency could take a life time. To get as good as I am? Ten minutes, to get as good as Howie Bursen, two lifetimes and a week. To get as good as Rick Fielding? Not likely :-)

Don

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 08 Apr 03 - 06:32 PM

You either get it or you don't. I've tried to teach a superb finger picking guitarist a few times over the last thirty years and totally failed. I've also taught beginners in half an hour.
Cheers
Ray

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: GUEST,Marco
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 05:24 AM

Hi!

I'm from Italy.
Here (in Italy) is not easy to find a clawhammer banjo teacher, so I found in a old music shop a copy of a the Art Rosembaum's book: "Old Mountain Banjo".
With this book you'll learn soon and easy!

Ciao!

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: GUEST,banjoman
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 07:33 AM

I learned by simply trying for a long time and adapted some of my guitar tecnique. I am usually accused of playing a style that no one can copy although it resembles claw hammer style using only thumb & two fingers. Had to adapt to some loss of hand movement following surgery but it sound OK (to me). The essence of banjo playing is to enjoy it and in effect create a way of playing that you like and find best suits you. No two players play the same anyway, but you can learn from watching and asking.
Good picking

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: GUEST,Gern
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 10:41 AM

A few years of experimentation yielded few results, despite good sources like Pete Seeger's book. but I had an epiphany at a workshop featuring Leroy Troy and John Hermann--they demonstrated a slowed down version of the galloping rhythm needed. I hurried home, afriad the revelation would seep away. It didn't, and today I'm a proud, mediocre practitioner. Of course, getting good is something else altogether.

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 10:58 AM

Banjo Ray has nailed it.

It may be one of the most difficult disciplines in all of acoustic music. To play clawhammer WELL can take a talented and hardworking picker a lonnnng time. To play it badly.....well....most bad players I've met, THINK they're good, ha ha!

I just looked at my student list, and over the last 15 years I've attempted to teach Drop thumb banjo to more than a hundred folks. The vast majority can plunk along musically, to varying degrees, but only three people were willing to spend eight to ten hours a DAY(!) playing and practicing.

Do a Google search on Chris Coole, and find out how you get to be world class. And no...he was by no means the most talented......he simply HAD/HAS to play banjo.

Mudcatter Don is a serious frailer (got HIS own style as well)

If you'd like to hear the most under-rated young frailer....pick up the Pete Seeger CD that has tunes from "Goofing Off Suite" on it. He plays magnificently. Stuff so complex, it's never been duplicated, but because he was Pete Seeger, more people knew about his politics than his immense skills on banjo and guitar.

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: chip a
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 11:13 AM

Get someone whose style you enjoy to sit down with you and (slowly) show you the basics of right hand technique. Work on it till you get it smooth. Don't worry about speed yet. Worry about smooth and fluent. Do the same for the left hand.
If you have nobody to show you, get one of the books which includes a tape or cd. Or get a video tutor.
Art Rosenbaum's book mentioned by Marco was the first tab book I had. I still have it. It was a wonderful help to me. He teaches several styles besides clawhammer. Brad Leftwhich's book is also very good. Take a look at homespuntapes.com and elderly.com for a huge selection of audio, video and printed aids.
Practice!
:-),
Chip

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 03:22 PM

I never could learn from books, the motions are too hard to describe.
I finally arranged to take lessons and was clawhammering within a few minutes. I think it helps to see it being done. (thanks to my teacher, Hank Sapoznik).

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: CraigS
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 06:22 PM

Clawhammer - I find that quite simple, even if my friends say it sounds more like monkey wrench when I do it. Frailing - now, I spell that failing. PUT THE BANJO IN THE DUMPSTER AND BUY A CLARINET, or spend all your life in a state of frustration. You can never really achieve excellence on an instrument which can be played so many different ways. If you get good with your fingers, somebody with a plectrum will shock you into silence. ANd if you spend forty years learning all the styles, arthritis will set in just as you think you could beat Earl Scruggs and Shep's Banjo Boys all at once. A bottle of whisky will do more good. Ask Geoff the Duck ( and he plays Mrs Duck better than the banjo).

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 07:46 PM

What Rick said.

I've learned and relearned to play clawhammer at least three times in my life.

What have I learned?

The best way to learn is from a live human being. If you learn from a book, you'll sound like someone who learned from a book. (Been there.) That's not a criticism by the way.

There are a million ways to clawhammer. You can spend the week at Clifftop watching right hands and you'll not see the same thing twice. These million different ways produce a million different sounds.

So, learn from a live human being who has the sound you want to produce on the banjo.

Be warned that the devil is in the details.

Any player you ask will say something like "It's easy, all you do is...." S/he can then show you and and you can probably pick up the basic gross motions relatively quickly.

However....

Every tiny little thing makes a difference in clawhammer. The finger you use (index, middle, other), the angle at which the finger meets the string, the part of the finger which contacts the string (tip of nail, middle of nail, tip of finger, other), the number of fingers which make the brush, the strings brushed, the relation of the thumb to the 5th string (avoids, plucks, rests on, digs behind, other), etc., etc., etc.

The resulting sound will be a function of every one of these variables. Learning/figuring these out is where things get tricky. Accomplished banjo players aren't always (sometimes never) aware of exactly what they're doing. They find it hard to explain and difficult to demonstrate. You can ask them to slow down, but playing slow and playing a tempo are two very different things. You have to be persistent (not to say nagging) and watch and listening very carefully.

These subtle things can take a very long time to get "right." You'll know it's right when it sounds right. If it sounds right, it is right.

The last time I learned, for example, I spent hours just hitting the 5th string with the thumb until it felt right and sounded right.

But keep at it. It's worth it.

Subject: RE: Tech: OT clawhammer banjo skills how long?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 08:08 PM

Beautifully put, Russ - and spot on.
Ray