Deliverance

Devil#20

Thinking of getting a 5 sting banjo. How easy are they to play if you're a guitar player already. I know it requires a whole new world of fancy finger work but who here has gone this route and could give some incite into the learning process?

drofluf

Really depends on whether you still have all your teeth.

Funkfingers

Devil#20 said:

How easy are they to play if you're a guitar player already.

Different head space. 

You could gain some insight by removing the low E string from a guitar and retuning the others. This would force your fretting fingers into some new shapes. Your current scalar fingerboard moves will no longer work. Less tricky than fretless guitar, I reckon.

Devil#20

Funkfingers said:

Devil#20 said:

How easy are they to play if you're a guitar player already.

Different head space. 

You could gain some insight by removing the low E string from a guitar and retuning the others. This would force your fretting fingers into some new shapes. Your current scalar fingerboard moves will no longer work. Less tricky than fretless guitar, I reckon.

So it would be basically starting from scratch then? Like trying to play left handed when you're a right handed guitar player maybe. I think you may have just talked me out of it maybe.  

Danny1969

Chicago tuning on a banjo is the same as the top 4 string tuning on a guitar so all your normal A, D, F shapes will work fine ... really just play the chord shape omitting the strings that aren't there. 

Or stuff a shirt into an acoustic guitar 

ICBM

I found I couldn't get used to the totally different dynamics and feel, rather than the tuning. I tried a 6-string banjo after the 5-string - basically a guitar neck on a banjo body - and that was no better.

If you get it, you get it... if you don't, it will probably just gather dust after the first week.

maltingsaudio

GAD on a five string banjo easy shapes to learn and you’ve got a 3 chord trick , above that I couldn’t get on with picking but strummed away. (Mrs M inherited one or wouldn’t have bothered) 

Prefer mandolins as a second instrument

ICBM

maltingsaudio said:

Prefer mandolins as a second instrument

I can’t get on with mandolins either, but like ukeleles… don’t know why.

Devil#20

maltingsaudio said:

GAD on a five string banjo easy shapes to learn and you’ve got a 3 chord trick , above that I couldn’t get on with picking but strummed away. (Mrs M inherited one or wouldn’t have bothered) 

Prefer mandolins as a second instrument

Interesting because I was in two minds whether to get a mandolin instead. I like the sound of both. 

Devil#20

Danny1969 said:

Chicago tuning on a banjo is the same as the top 4 string tuning on a guitar so all your normal A, D, F shapes will work fine ... really just play the chord shape omitting the strings that aren't there. 

Or stuff a shirt into an acoustic guitar 

I like that. 

Mellish

Which five-string banjo will depend what you Want to play. Do you want to play bluegrass or old style clawhammer? The two styles are quite different and, ideally, need their own type of banjo, though you *can* play both styles on just one  

axisus

I got given one years ago. Found it impossible to play! 

Mellish

I've been playing an openback five-string banjo since 1978. It's my second instrument of choice. FWIW my current one is an OME North Star 

Funkfingers

Devil#20 said:.

So, it would be basically starting from scratch, then?  

Worse. You need to unlearn some of your guitaristic "muscle memory" moves first.

Remember the Fender Alternate Reality Tenor Tele? Playing one in factory tuning, I would keep trying to finger "normal" Standard Tuning chord shapes on its skinny neck, often landing several fingers on the same string. D'oh! Proper fifths tuning would have been a better way to present the instrument.

The bass register half of the Chapman Stick is strung upside down (or, if you prefer, inside out). It is necessary to actively resist the temptation to move away from the floor in search of the lower notes.

Eventually, the playing techniques of bass guitar and Chapman Stick inform each other. The same ought to be true of banjo and guitar.

Ought.

Mellish

Five-string banjos are not difficult to master. They do, however, require more maintenance than guitars. The head has to be evenly tensioned by way of a number of brackets. It isn't easy for a newbie to get right. Then there's bridge position and that *has* to be dialled in or (obviously) intonation is poor. The head tension will alter with humidity/temperature changes. If this seems a pain in the neck, a banjo is not for you  

Sassafras

Listen to a load of banjo music.
It's a different technique to guitar but if you're used to fingerpicking, it becomes a lot easier.