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I've finally done it. Always wanted one. It's an old un too. Hopefully set out on Monday. Final persuasion was doing banjo like fingerstyle on the acoustic more and more and it coming naturally to me and importantly me loving the sound. It's kind of a bit like early '80's metal but the pedal tones are in reverse.
Any tips?
I guess I need some finger thingies?
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Well, it arrived, in one piece too. My place is too dark to take pics so probably best just put up the listing. They don't seem to sell for much, I fell in love with it though, what can I say and it matches the Washburn R314KK I got from Babones from this very parish.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/361424302177?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
There are loads of them about and 100 something year old Mandolins. Nobody wants them. £100 - £150 tops. Nuts.
I just love the mahogany neck and MOP inlays and rear inlay work. Easy to play too.
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Picking patterns are the hardest thing, I mean apart from the ones I already know and to know how they sound. Especially picking down with your thumb on the high 5th G low string.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7MoWPTeYS4
Finger picking. It's OK, I kind of got it to improve my fingerpicking on guitar, which was coming on as well. I actually get on well with the 5th string where a low E would be on a guitar and the tuning overall.
Just the rolls and patterns are a bit tedious to lock in. However, although it is a struggle, once you have mastered simple patterns, you basically have hyperspeed bluegrass as there ain't much doing with the left hand. Although it looks much easier than it is, the roll pattern above for example is fairly awkward.
Still I love that sound so much, it gives me the motivation to get there eh!
I don't know about open backed banjos, but my closed back one sustains like a Les Paul. Seriously. Maybe it's the 100 year old mahogany, lol.
There are a few old Windsors on Ebay for £100.
It takes patience, I am crap, but I am starting to make banjo noises. Hardest for me is picking thumb 1st 2nd, rather than thumb 2nd third finger, mind that has nothing to do with the banjo. I think it might be haunted, makes you wonder what the people who played it in the past must think of me right now. Also because it's a six string converted to 5, the strings are nicely apart, not as much as a classical but like a finger picking steel string say.
Regards picking though, it's just repetition though and muscle memory I guess, took me ages to get my fretting fingers to do patterns up scales on electric, although I could always go down, then one day it clicked. Now I don't think about it.