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You can gain speed!
Most people who take up bluegrass banjo do so because of the sound of that banjo zinging along in the music. It’s high energy, fast-paced, and just has a machine-gun-like, jackhammer intensity to it that excites us. When we see a hot-shot picker on stage or in a jam session, one who is “throwing down” on Foggy Mt. Breakdown, we can’t help but want to do that as well. It’s infectious, exciting, and fun. But a few days or weeks into our new banjo endeavor usually gets us feeling like the super good, really fast pickers can’t possibly come from this planet, because it’s hard to go fast! I threw a few thoughts about playing with speed and gaining speed on an audio recording for this blog entry, so click the link to the recording and listen to a few thoughts and pointers.
Building speed on the 5 string bluegrass banjo
Playing fast is fun, but along with this discussion I can’t help but point out that playing fast doesn’t mean you are a great banjo player. Good banjo players can play fast, but great banjo players can play slow.
Here’s that link. It’s about a 13 minute recording or so, so you’ll have to be patient while it opens…it’s a big file. If you want to, you can right click the link and choose “save file as” to save it to your computer for listening later. Here it is:
Audio blogcast: building speed on the 5 string bluegrass banjo (click to listen; right click and choose “save file as” to download)
Note that the drumming you hear in the track is me using all 4 fingers of one hand to drum with, just like when you are bored and you drum your fingers on the table.
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Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
www.banjosrule.com (main site)
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I think the “controlled fall” of the fingers is a good analogy. The muscle memory is the key for the right hand and speed, in my humble opinion. I’ve recently been catching myself focusing on what my left hand is supposed to be doing, and then realizing my right hand has been on autopilot, picking away without any intervention from my brain. That is a cool feeling. Of course, the minute I realize this, the moment passes, and my right hand begins to resemble a spider on crack skittering around on the banjo head.
The audio portion was a nice touch. It’s amazing how an accomplished picker can even make a simple alternating roll sound good.
Tim
A spider on crack….you know, that’s the best description of my picking that I’ve ever heard. Tim, did you dream up that analogy at FallFest?
A spider on Crack…that’s great!
Having listened to your audio blog, I couldn’t agree more about “cranking up the speed” in the privacy of your own space. Speed is built in private. That’s going to be most relaxed environment and that relaxation is very necessary for your muscles and mind to function smoothly. You’ve got to feel unpressured and unjudged and that leads to being unhibited, which is necessary for total concentration applied to maximum effort.
So, go ahead and have those “mad minutes”. Pick out something you’re most familiar with and take off with it. Familiarity is going to be one of the keys to speed.
As Paul mentioned, you’ll notice a funny thing has happened after a “speeding session”. When you go back to the picking techniques you may find them easier to perform. Why this is may take a psychiatrist to explain, but it does happen. Far from being a bad thing, a little applied speed can lead to good things.
So, by the authority granted through the fabulous blog site of Mr. Banjo Paul, consider this to be your ticket to ride. You’ll benefit from it. It works. Don’t know why, but it works. That’s your brain on speed.
-Jesse
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