Anyone play Banjo?

axisus

I always wanted to try one. A chance conversation with a guy I see at swimming in the mornings has led to him lending me his! Having just picked it up today and looked at it I can tell that it needs a proper setup and sort out.

Anyone got any tips for a beginner? Any good tutorials or web sites? Useful set up info?

EricTheWeary

What kind of banjo is it? I don't know much about them but you have the 4 string type ones for trad jazz and the ones with the additional drone string for more country styles. Then banjoleles and 6 string guitar style ones.
Edit : there are two types of 4 string. The tenor is the dixieland type one and the plectrum banjo is like the country style one but minus the drone string.

axisus

EricTheWeary said:

What kind of banjo is it? I don't know much about them but you have the 4 string type ones for trad jazz and the ones with the additional drone string for more country styles. Then banjoleles and 6 string guitar style ones.
Edit : there are two types of 4 string. The tenor is the dixieland type one and the plectrum banjo is like the country style one but minus the drone string.

It's a 5 string.

Sambostar

Trying, I have a circa 1910 one that was originally a 6 string but is converted to 5.  Gorgeous it is.  MOP inlays, aged, mahogany neck, ebony board.  Thing is the forward rolls are really difficult to get down.  For some reason  always want to play backward rolls, as I do on acoustic, which comes naturally as you wrap your strumming fingers from right to left easily.  I can play some stuff on it, as I can turn my hand to anything, but to really play it well with those forward rolls requires a few years of self discipline and practice.  I would practice the common forward rolls until they become second nature.  There are loads of videos out there.  All the country and bluegrass stuff is forward rolls on a five string.

axisus

Sambostar said:

Trying, I have a circa 1910 one that was originally a 6 string but is converted to 5.  Gorgeous it is.  MOP inlays, aged, mahogany neck, ebony board.  Thing is the forward rolls are really difficult to get down.  For some reason  always want to play backward rolls, as I do on acoustic, which comes naturally as you wrap your strumming fingers from right to left easily.  I can play some stuff on it, as I can turn my hand to anything, but to really play it well with those forward rolls requires a few years of self discipline and practice.  I would practice the common forward rolls until they become second nature.  There are loads of videos out there.  All the country and bluegrass stuff is forward rolls on a five string.

OK, thanks for the advice. I'll check out forward rolls.

Does one need those finger pick things to play?

Sambostar

Not really.  It's more about teaching your fingers to move the right way.  It's all about the right hand, the left doesn't really do much at all.

crunchman

Just saw this thread.

You could cheat and use a guitar pick.  It's not "correct" but it's a lot easier.  I saw a Mumford and Sons performance on TV where the banjo player was using a pick.  There was someone on one of those "Country at the BBC" things on BBC4 the other week who was using a pick as well.

Gassage

My useless piece of info- Lindsey Buckingham is first and foremost a banjo player- hence his whacky picking style.

Sambostar

I get that actually, with a banjo that pattern would work ace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdd_fv0xrSo

axisus

The thing that I'm finding tricky is anchoring a couple of fingers on the body. Feels much harder than havin a floating hand and using all fingers.

Sambostar

My problems is all my rolls are backwards, or unison and backwards with a little forwards bit afterwards, from playing guitar really.  Never was great at decent forward fingerpicking. 

Ran the forward rolls fast and non rhythmically last night as fast as I could, rather than starting slow and trying to increase my speed and it's basically the jist of the sound of it I think.  I might try that approach and try and bring rhythm into it, rather than the other way around, getting the timing right and bringing speed into it, although I'm sure it's bad way to learn.

english_bob

Gassage said:

My useless piece of info- Lindsey Buckingham is first and foremost a banjo player- hence his whacky picking style.

I can see that. There's a certain amount of common ground, but @Sambostar's experience is familiar.

I've got a banjo at home at the moment- it's an old (early 20th century) UK made J E Dallas 5 string that was donated to my kids' school in a somewhat shabby state. As I know the headteacher I'm kind of like the school's unofficial stringed instrument technician. Spent last night stringing it up, giving it a bit of a fettle and noodling around to see if I could get a tune out of it.

It's quite addictive. I play electric guitar with a sort of homebrew hybrid picking style sometimes, and a little bit of Travis picking, so it's not a completely new thing, but having the highest pitched string where the lowest pitched string should be is confusing, as is playing in the low register and having only four strings under your left hand and five under the right. Still, once you get anything like a roll going it immediately sounds right, and as though badass bluegrass banjo virtuosity is only a hair's breadth away...

It really isn't.

ICBM

crunchman said:

I saw a Mumford and Sons performance on TV where the banjo player was using a pick.

All the proof you need that you need to avoid that approach at all costs.

fretmeister