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Hints and Tricks - Clawhammer Banjo - Banjo - ezFolk Forums

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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 05:40 am

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Cristofski
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Joined:	Wed Oct 17th, 2007
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Instrument Interest:	Clawhammer Banjo, Bluegrass Banjo, Guitar, Harmonica, Mandolin, Fiddle, Keyboards, Other
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So this is my first official thread in this forum. I just want to say that this is great resource that myself and a friend point each other at all the time. Anyways...I'm pretty much a self taught string player. I've taught myself guitar and bass over the past 15-20 years, the Mandolin 5, and over the past 6 months clawhammer banjo. It's been slow, but I think I'm starting to get a grasp of it now. Like I noticed with the mandolin before, you can incorporate a lot of things from guitar playing, but you almost need to forget about the logic behind guitar playing entirely to really get a grasp of the banjo. That being said few things occured to me the other day and I want to make sure I'm correct with this new found logic.

1) You almost never will pick a string with an upward motion

2) the key to clawhammer is understanding the bum ditty/brush stroke first from a chord standpoint. Then fine tune your plucking of individual notes once you have those two ideas down. It's ok to be a little messy at first as long as your fingering the correct strings you can sometimes get away with a sloppy pluck. I was concentrating so much on the individual notes at first that it was holding me back

3) Switching tunings is the key toward unlocking more options. From a guitarists view alternate tunings are nice to have and play around with to add a little color, but in clawhammer banjo they are a necessity. Once you have some of the hammer ons, slides, and finger positions down then incorporating them into each tuning is vital

4) don't over think the bum ditty or brush srokes. When I over thought it initially it was difficult. When I relaxed and allowed myself to play a little sloppy a light bulb went off and I understood it.

Am I on the right path here? If not, please correct me. I don't want to send someone in the wrong direction

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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 09:16 am

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mark
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Joined:	Wed Aug 23rd, 2006
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Posts:	87
Instrument Interest:	Ukulele, Clawhammer Banjo, Bluegrass Banjo, Guitar, Harmonica, Other
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I may be wrong but I was led to believe Clawhammer uses ONLY downward motions.

I accept your thoughts on the bum-ditty though, I am just starting out on the banjo (I have some experience on guitar and also the dulcijo) but the bum-ditty is pretty much an internalised motion for me now (helped in no small part by the dulcijo). This is so apparent that when I tried (for about 30 minutes yesterday) to follow some of Dan Levenson's tab for the first time ("Clawhammer from Scratch") I had some difficulty in double thumbing and I had to fight my right hand which wanted to bum-ditty instead - go figure! :shock:

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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 09:46 pm

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banjo brad
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Joined:	Wed Apr 14th, 2004
Location:	Tucson, Arizona USA
Posts:	2443
Instrument Interest:	Ukulele, Clawhammer Banjo, Guitar, Harmonica, Dulcimer, Fiddle
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Cristofski wrote: So this is my first official thread in this forum. I just want to say that this is great resource that myself and a friend point each other at all the time. Anyways...I'm pretty much a self taught string player. I've taught myself guitar and bass over the past 15-20 years, the Mandolin 5, and over the past 6 months clawhammer banjo. It's been slow, but I think I'm starting to get a grasp of it now. Like I noticed with the mandolin before, you can incorporate a lot of things from guitar playing, but you almost need to forget about the logic behind guitar playing entirely to really get a grasp of the banjo. That being said few things occured to me the other day and I want to make sure I'm correct with this new found logic.

1) You almost never will pick a string with an upward motion"

The Clawhammer stroke is all downward striking. There is the "Seeger Basic Stroke", which is a guitar-like uppicking with the index finger followed by the downward brush and the thumb, but it is not a true "clawhammer" stroke.

"2) the key to clawhammer is understanding the bum ditty/brush stroke first from a chord standpoint. Then fine tune your plucking of individual notes once you have those two ideas down. It's ok to be a little messy at first as long as your fingering the correct strings you can sometimes get away with a sloppy pluck. I was concentrating so much on the individual notes at first that it was holding me back"

That depends on what you want to do with your playing. If you are using the banjo as a vocal accompaniment instrument, then the Bum Ditty is probably the most important thing to understand well. If you are going to be playing OT fiddle tunes, a better way to think of what you will be wanting is the "Bump-A-Dit-ty" stroke, or double/drop-thumbing. If you use the Dan Levenson books, you will get into this even before he introduces the Bum Ditty. The difference is the basic Bum Ditty is a great chording technique, but most of the OT repertoire is not chord-based on the banjo. The OT clawhammerer will be attempting to compliment and accompany the fiddler, who is the leader in most of this music.

"3) Switching tunings is the key toward unlocking more options. From a guitarists view alternate tunings are nice to have and play around with to add a little color, but in clawhammer banjo they are a necessity. Once you have some of the hammer ons, slides, and finger positions down then incorporating them into each tuning is vital"

Different tunings are used to facilitate playing of different tunes. Most were developed to allow a lot of open string notes, which sound much better than fretted notes, and to allow for easier fingerings. The Double-D (aDAC#E) tuning makes playing with most fiddlers much easier. Capoing standard G up two frets makes playing in A easier than trying to use the A Key chords out of G tuning.

"4) don't over think the bum ditty or brush srokes. When I over thought it initially it was difficult. When I relaxed and allowed myself to play a little sloppy a light bulb went off and I understood it."

Exactly! Relax! Playing Clawhammer banjo should be fun, not work! This stuff was developed by the folks who were sitting around on their porches in the evening after a long, hard day of manual labor and wanted to relax! It was used to provide dance music to help people forget the trials and tribulations of hard-scrabble farming. A banjo or a fiddle would assure you of a welcome, a meal, maybe a sip out of the jug, and probably mean you would be up for the next 48 hours or so playing for a dance-around.

"Am I on the right path here? If not, please correct me. I don't want to send someone in the wrong direction

Actually, there is no wrong direction, it's all good!Brad

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ezFolk Forums > Banjo > Clawhammer Banjo > Hints and Tricks