Helpful advice, humor, fun…

This blog serves several purposes: a little humor, some conversation, maybe a little news; a veritable hodge-podge of banjo goodness. Whenever I can, I like to pass on little tips to help beginners with their playing, and that’s what I’m doing today.

It’s mind over matter

I was having some conversations with my blog reader and student Bill Greenwood recently, and he lamented the fact that he was having an issue with one of his fingers. It’s a common issue that I see a lot, and so it occurred to me that it might be good to pass along some thoughts on the topic so that others can get some help.

Remember, the first step to getting any help is to admit you have a problem. It’s tough to do, but you can do it. Just like this: “Hi. My name is Paul, and I’m a banjo player…” (The class responds “Hi, Paul…”) There now, doesn’t that feel better? You admitted to your problem. Just getting that off your chest will help you deal with people’s abject horror at hearing you admit that problem right out loud.

Bill writes: “I’m having a problem keeping my ring finger on the fret board when I switch from F-form to D-form chords, but not vice-versa.” Ah yes, the old fingering problem. Actually, to say “fingering problem” implies that there is only one kind of fingering problem on the banjo. There are hundreds of finger problems that people run up against. This one may be one of the more easily curable.

My first suggestion is that you could deal with this like ancient civilizations used to…and even some modern-day civilizations…when someone committed an offense: put your hand on the counter, get out your meat cleaver, and chop off the offending digit. (Man, I lose more banjo students that way. Can’t quite figure that out…)

What’s wrong Bill? Didn’t like that suggestion? Oh, alright. Then my next suggestion is probably much easier to swallow: it’s simply mind over matter.

What’s the answer? Just don’t do that.

There are so many things that a beginner struggles with when it comes to trying to get the hands and the fingers to behave and act right, and I get asked what to do about many of them. If a student says to me: “Paul, when I play the banjo, my hand does this…*insert annoying hand or finger problem here*…and it’s driving me crazy; what should I do?” My answer back to them: “just don’t do that.” Is that a frustrating answer? Hear me out.

There are almost no easy directions for learning to work our hands or our fingers. It would be simple if you could turn a lever, push a button, flip a switch, or make an adjustment to get our pinkies/ring fingers/left hands/right hands/etc. etc. to magically do what we need them to do. At the same time, whatever annoying thing is happening with your fingers or hands, it’s really just a matter of making a concerted effort “not to do that”. Finger coming up? Don’t let it. Pushing more than one string down with the middle finger when making a C chord? Don’t do that. Putting your middle finger on the wrong string when making an F-form chord? Don’t do that. Catch my drift there?

Click me! Click me!

”Well gollee-bob-howdy but that’s useless information Banjo Paul!!” …yes, that’s how my students talk…”How do I keep my finger down?!” What so many of the problems you might be having comes down to is focusing on the issue, slowly and methodically taking the time to do it correctly, and getting real used to how it looks and feels to play without the problem occurring.

So you can play some hot banjo instrumental, but at measure 17, right in the middle of a flurry of melodic notes, you discover that your middle finger lands on the wrong fret of a string. You can play the song wonderfully; it’s a complex piece that shows you are coming along nicely as a picker; but that darn measure 17!! You can’t get your middle finger onto the right fret!! What should you do? Take a deep breath, slow down, and focus on just this one note.

Don’t look at the forest…put your nose up against the tree

I think that too many beginners glance over a weakness in their picking and don’t give that weakness the proper focus. Peter Wernick has a great phrase that I love to quote:

An amateur picker practices until he gets it right. A professional picker practices until he can’t get it wrong.”

Remember to take your picking down to its most basic level. That problem you are having, you know: *insert problem here*…have you ever sat and drilled just that problem section, over and over, for 20 minutes straight? 30 minutes? I once played a one measure section of a song for 45 minutes straight. What if you just can’t get one note of the song to come out right? Have the courage and the tenacity to sit down with a metronome, and play it. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. Doesn’t matter if it’s just one measure. One roll. Heck, even just one note. Hit it hard, focus on it. If you have to play one string at a time, painfully slowly, so that it has no flow or musicality to it, then so be it. Play that one note. Then play it again. Then play it again. Then play it again. Look at it so that you can get a visual frame of reference. When you have it on the neck correctly, stop and hold it in place. Feel what it feels like to do it correctly. Train your eyes, your ears, your arms, your hands to all work together to make that note correctly. Use a metronome to force the timing in. Think about. Visualize it. Do it painfully slowly, then try slowly adding speed and a few of the surrounding notes.

Hey Bill…your pinky is coming up? Well…don’t do that!

In Bill’s case, he should stop playing the song as a whole, and focus on just that problem area. Make an F-form chord, and then slowly, carefully, switch up to a D-form chord. Watch the hand; when the pinky starts coming up, stop where you are and drop it again. Re-establish that brain/hand connection. Will that finger back down. Stop picking and just slide your fretting hand around the neck. Pick up the “feeling” of having the pinky down. Don’t add any picking or flow to the song until you can get this problem solved at its most basic level. As you get better and better at not letting the pinky come back up, start trying to tackle that transition from F-form to D-form within a song or a phrase of picking. I think you get the idea. In the end…when we see Bill playing Carnegie Hall with his band of Nashville all-stars, we’ll say “hey Bill! I remember you used to have an issue with your pinky coming up when switching chord forms! How’d you fix it?” And Bill can say “well, I just don’t do that anymore.”

My readers and I could sure learn from your experiences

What issues have you struggled with? What did you do to correct them? How is your picking coming along? Do you have other advice to help pickers get over the problems they might be encountering? I always learn a lot from your comments and I know that my readers do too, so I hope you’ll consider leaving some comments below.

Until next time, keep the faith, work hard at correcting those issues, and pick ‘em if ya got em!

Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
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