A few thoughts on banjo lessons

With the prevelance of banjo instructional material on the market today, is it really necessary to consider shelling out the dollars for some one-on-one, private lesson time? After all, what would you do if one of your friends saw you doing such a thing? You’d never live it down. Well, once you’ve made the decision to withstand the public ridicule and the therapy sessions involved with being a banjo player, then you may just want to consider private lessons. There can be real benefits to finding a Banjo Jedi and absorbing their knowledge and wisdom. Just beware if the teacher blindfolds you and asks you to levitate while using the banjo to fight off the little flying laser shooting droid by harnessing the mystical force of Earl Scruggs…

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“Revealed, your geekiness is…”

Umm, yeah, never mind the wise crack from Yoda there. (I think I am the only twisted mind in America that can somehow tie banjo playing to Star Wars.) Geek or not, you’ve decided to take up banjo. How you going to go about getting the instrument learned? Should you seek out an instructor? In my never-to-be-humble-opinion: yes.

Having said that, there is so much good material out there for learning that it would be no wonder that you might consider going it alone. While I am a proponent of seeking out an instructor, at the same time don’t hesitate to capitalize on all of the instructional material you can find! You don’t want to stick with one method only; instructional books and DVD’s can go along great with what a teacher might be teaching you.

Why bano lessons? Why not just buy books and DVD’s and/or play by ear?

Alright, here’s the main problem, as so eloquently spoken by one of my current students, Steve Roberts: you can’t ask the book a question. That’s a huge consideration! I have dozens of instructional books that I bought as I was coming along on the banjo, and with most of them they weren’t much more than just tablature books. There were instructional points in each one, but I found it tough to connect the dots, fill in the blanks, and to become a well-rounded player from the books alone. Too many holes in the knowledge base. Or, maybe some of the material was fairly complete, but I could not connect the dots between working with my banjo  in a real live setting and what I was reading in the books. Now, that wasn’t the case with every bit of what was in the books, but it was still hard. From the author’s standpoint, it’s too easy to gloss over something that needs further explanation because it’s super-tough to remember what it was like as he/she was learning. I’ve seen too many assumptions made by too many authors.

The Earl Scruggs instructional book: loved it and hated it

The absolute bible for taking up the banjo was Earl Scruggs And The 5 String Banjo. I bought my edition in the mid 80′s. I learned a few basic tunes out of it, but promptly shelved it. I found it impossible to work from as a beginner. The tablature was not written in an easily understandable way, and the instructional points in the book had no bearing on reality because I had no reality! No experience jamming with people, performing on my banjo, or even really knowing much about bluegrass. So many of these books would be great if we would take a year and just stand in jam session settings, without playing, right next to the banjo players. If we spent many weeks or months  just observing, absorbing the music, listening right up close to the banjo player, getting a feel for how the mandolin figured into the group, understanding the dynamic of picking with live bodies, letting that bass rattle our sternums, hearing the harmonies, watching and feeling the guitar, seeing/hearing/feeling how the banjo moved in and out of the music, and then sitting down to work with the instructional books…eureka!! We’d be shocked how much knowledge is in these books!

I had just that type of experience with Earl’s book. After shelving the book for many years while I pursued the banjo bug using various sources, I came back to the book one day. I could not believe my eyes on what I was reading. It was all there in black and white! Gollee-bob-howdy why didn’t I get all of this before?! The answer: I had no reality to compare it to. And, I couldn’t ask the book any questions.

I guess Banjo Paul probably just sucked

That’s a theme that has been repeated many times since I took up the banjo I’m sure. And to be fair, many of my own weaknesses probably did factor in to not being able to work with this or that piece of instructional material. For every guy like me that says the books are hard to learn from, you can almost always find 10 others who say I’m nuts and that all they used was Earl’s book or Tom’s book or Jim’s book. Good for them. You know, if you gather any group of people together in a classroom setting to begin the study of an endeavor, there will always be a small percentage of the bodies in that room who run with the information, grasp it, and excel. Then there will be the 80% of the rest of us “regular” people who are human and struggling some, plodding along and maintaining, disbelieving that it’s even possible for the top percentage people to be understanding the material like they are. Of course there’ll be another small percentage who come nowhere near to even beginning to grasp the information and the concepts; these bottom percentile people often flunk out or give up. So for the people who say that learning from…*fill in the blank with favorite instructional book here*…worked really well for them, I say great and congratulations. How about considering becoming a teacher and helping the rest of us who are struggling?

You may be disagreeing with my thesis here, but I can tell you that after more than 15 years of teaching the banjo, I find that “not understanding or not getting value out of the various forms of self study on the banjo” is a surprisingly common theme amongst those who try to take up banjo.

Having someone show you technique and application is invaluable

I am a mostly self taught banjo picker, and I shudder to think how many wasted years I had as I tried to figure this thing out. I love it when the light bulbs appear above my student’s heads and they get some value out of understanding how the techniques/tricks/methods are applied, and how what I am showing them fits right in to what they are hearing on the CD’s and in the jam sessions. I encourage all of my students to grab external learning sources outside of my own material and to work with that along with my material, but I can do a better job of giving them neck knowledge and music theory as applied to everyday picking than the books can. An author simply can’t print a big enough book to contain what should be shown to a beginner in an affordable manner. Much great info is contained in these books, no doubt, but until you build a reality in which to apply what you are being shown, it’s tough.

If you can find a banjo teacher in your area, you are lucky, because we’re few and far between. Go to him or her, young grasshopper, and utilize their knowledge and experience. Buy the books, the DVD’s, the instructional material of all sorts, but let the instructor fill in the gaps for you and help you to hit the ground running with the material. I think you’ll find it’s money well spent.

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Please comment

As always, those are my lousy opinions. And, as always, I welcome your feedback. I’d love it if you would take a few minutes to write your reactions to what you read in the comment area at the bottom of this post. I welcome interaction and conversation with my blog visitors! Take care and until next time: pick ‘em if ya got ‘em!

Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
www.banjosrule.com (main site)
www.mybanjolife.com (blog)