I Play guitar, and I’m thinking about trying the banjo. Will it be harder for me to learn banjo?
Jeff C asked:
I’m an Intermediate guitar player. I’ve played for many years. I have abosolutly no expericance with a banjo.
I’m an Intermediate guitar player. I’ve played for many years. I have abosolutly no expericance with a banjo.
Learning banjo chords will be the easy part to playing the instrument, although they are different from guitar chords. But you can do it. Get a banjo chord book, learn the chords, and you’ll be playing soon enough.
The main difference is that your wrist will stay bent throughout much of the banjo playing; a different attitude that you must undertake.
If you don’t use thumbpicks now with manicured fingernails, then start now.
Note: Rachel S is correct about metal fingerpicks if Bluegrass will be the main genre of playing. When I played the five-string, playing songs other than Bluegrass was my usual style. Of course, an electric five-string, which I had for several years, could handle regular fingernail plucking.
WHY????????
guitarpicker56 is basically right. If you already play guitar, then learning banjo chords will be a piece of cake.
However I must correct him on one thing — if you want to play bluegrass 3-fingered fingerpicking, “manicured fingernails” aren’t going to get the job done. You must use either metal or plastic fingerpicks on your index and middle fingers, along with a thumbpick, in order to get that bright, loud, twangy sound that is so characteristic of bluegrass.
The right hand picking patterns or “rolls” used in bluegrass are a bit of a challenge for guitar players to learn partly because they’re so different from guitar fingerpicking patterns, and partly because in order to get your playing to sound like bluegrass — and to keep up with the rest of the band — you have to play them REALLY REALLY fast.
Of course, you could decide to play old-time clawhammer style instead, which uses no picks - just the thumb and the flat back of either the index or middle fingernail in a downward, percussive “frailing” motion.
I just recently made the dive into playing banjo from guitar (and bass before that) and I’ve found that the transition is not bad. I started playing banjo 5 months ago.
On the fretting side of it you’ll probably feel comfortable with. There are tricks and licks you’ll want to learn and make up as you go, but I found that it wasn’t much different than guitar other than finger placement. Banjo is like guitar and bass mixed together.
The the picking side of things, the first song I learned I played with finger picks and didn’t find it too incredibly challenging. but I never used them again. I’ve gone down the road of clawhammer/ frailing. I would like to become very comfortable at frailing first because its a bit more challenging (to me) than finger picking. I would like to learn both eventually over the years though. I don’t think I prefer either one really; I like them both equally.
The main reason I started frailing instead of 3 finger method is because I found a good teacher on YouTube that teaches it. If you start playing banjo you should check him out. He has over 120 videos that will help you.
Good luck, and I hope you start playing! Banjo is a very fun instrument.
-Ben
I agree with Rachel…your finger rolls are going to keep you busy for a while..especially speed wise!…and getting used to finger picks(you’ll get hung up for a while, don’t get discouraged..it’ll come with practice!)