Banjo, a true American folk art

Banjo lessons coming from a classical, rock, and jazz background

"Why would you want to learn to play like me when there are so many other good ways to play?" -- Comment made to novice banjo player by expert player at a banjo festival

For those of you who may be wondering why in the world anyone would want to learn how to play 5 string banjo, I suggest that you pick up some recordings by Bela Fleck and Allison Krauss and Union Station.  Those were the influences that finally pushed me over the edge to buy one.  I worked for about 7 years in two different bands where another musician in the band doubled on banjo.  This opened the door for what I called "electric bluegrass", which may or may not be a correct term but it is at least descriptive.  Since I doubled on fiddle in those bands, it allowed us to hit all of the bluegrass standards like Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Dueling Banjos, Devil's Dream, Salty Dog Blues, Cripple Creek, and many others.  They were great crowd pleasers and I always admired our banjoists' skills. 

Flash forward 20 years.  I'm a mild-mannered engineering type who loves all kinds of music and I get roped into going to see Allison Krauss at the Cellular Center.  This is truly a show I would not have gone to see on my own, but, well, it was a birthday present. 

Well, I've been around the block a couple of times in "concert world".  I've even played a few of them.  This was simply the best produced pop music show with the highest caliber of musical values I ever saw in my life.  EVERYTHING was perfect.  The mix was perfect, the vocals were perfect, every solo was virtuoso quality and there wasn't one NOTE out of place, not even ONE.  Besides Allison's voice, the two things that interested me the most were Jerry Douglas' slide playing and Ron Block on 5 string.  "Hmmm.  Maybe I should get me one of those," I began to think. 

To make a long story short, I bought a copy of their double live album and started living it on a daily basis as I had a project going in Des Moines, which is just long enough of a drive to listen to one of the two CDs.  That sealed it, I had to have a 5 string.  Life is short, sometimes you just have to...

When I bought my Washburn B-14, I got a couple of DVDs from Amazon to learn from.  One of them was pretty good, the other more or less worthless.  I did learn right away that a metronome is your friend while you're learning right hand technique and you can plan on spending a few dozen hours (maybe more) practicing that way.

To me, the banjo presents a passle of exciting harmonic and tonal possibilities.  I put a 5th string capo on mine, which allows you to turn it from a diatonic into a modal instrument instantly.  There are other tuning and fingering tricks to create temporary modal effects, which you can turn on and off as easily as posting a finger on a string an playing around it.  with your other three fingers. You can detune and retune.  Having a drone string gives you almost endless pedal point possibilites and you can really do some cool things with banjos that you would never think of if all you ever play is guitar.

Guitar players who can play finger style should have no major issues with banjo EXCEPT that pesky higher-pitched drone string that's in an unusual place where the lowest-pitched string should be.  I can help you over that hump and a few other ones you will encounter on the way.  I suppose another hassle worth mentioning is that you have to learn to play with picks.  I never liked the way those felt on my cuticles but, well, sometimes you have to suffer for your art.  They feel like old friends, now.

Please be aware that I teach Scruggs style at this point (9/14/08) and am learning frailing although I don't teach it at this time.  Don't worry about which style you should be learning.  You should learn both styles, and learning one will not prevent you from learning to play the other way.

Euphonic Studio music lessons, piano tuning, and  digital recording services

Mount Vernon, Iowa serving Cedar Rapids, Marion, Solon, Mechanicsville, Ely, Springville, Anamosa, Iowa City and surrounding area

For information about music lessons, piano tuning, and digital recording at Euphonic Studio, call Bill at 319.895.8002 or 319.329.4527