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| Moderated by: Richard Hefner |
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| Guitar to Banjo - Beginner Questions - Banjo - Banjo - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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Mike_CFl Approved
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Hello Everyone - first post for me. I've been playing guitar for about 40 years (not a professional); my interests are blues with some jazz thrown in, but I'm a general music lover. Lately, I've been listening to flatpicking guitar players which led me to an interest in banjo. I'm convinced I've been bitten by the Bluegrass bug. I love the picking and the melodies. I done quite a bit of fingerpicking over the years (on guitar) but I've never really used a thumb pick and I've never used metal finger picks. I'm very strong on theory/harmony and I can read music enough to work out what I want to play - tab is no problem. I'm just wondering, is making the transition from guitar to banjo very difficult? I'm really hoping to hear "it will be easy" if that is the truth, but I'm guessing it could be like learning quitar - easy to play but hard to play well. Any thoughts? Mike/Central Florida
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Philj200 Approved 
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Not difficult. But certainly different. The instruments work on different principles. Playing guitar gives you a leg up on ear training, maybe music reading skills, songs, chord progressions (but not fingering). Assuming your play right handed, it means your left is better developed than a raw beginner. Your right hand will need to learn new patterns. Bluegrass picking is very different from the way Merle Travis or Chet Atkins, or Doc Watson fingerpick guitar. Do you have a banjo?
____________________ My MP3 Section: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1143/ My Myspace area: http://myspace.com/philj200 |
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Mike_CFl Approved
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No - no banjo at this point. But I'm looking. I own an Epiphone Brydland electric hollow-body (for Jazz) that I dearly love so my first thought was to see what Epiphone had for sale. Their Masterbuilt banjo (top-end for them I think) is priced at $600 but after reading the various threads I see no one is mentioning Epiphone. I guess I'll start looking at Deering or Goldtone. I thought I'd buy the Epi to get started. Maybe not. I'm definitely interested in BG, that is known. And I like the Scruggs style. So far I'm looking at a 5-string banjo with a resonator. I'll do more reading.
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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Hey Mike... If you're used to 3-finger picking (Thumb, Index, and Middle finger) a la Chet Atkins then there are actually a lot of similarities -- at least you use the same three fingers. That helps a lot in playing both styles. The patterns are different though for bluegrass banjo.
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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| ezFolk Forums > Banjo > Beginner Questions - Banjo > Guitar to Banjo | |
