Perceptions of the Banjo
Your appreciation of this miraculous instrument is contingent upon your exposure to it. If the only tune you know is the one from Deliverance, then it might creep you out. Or if you consider the banjo to be the guitar's retarded cousin, fit only for stump-jumpin, inbred, hillbilly mountain folk who run a little short in the dental department, then you might think it to be below your sophisticated modern taste.
But if you have developed a love and deep appreciation for the musical genre of bluegrass, then the banjo is something more. It is majestic, dignified, thoughtful, and the defining sound of bluegrass. It is mysterious and sometimes somber, an acoustic mountain of mystery that invites you to explore. For a small taste of what you might be missing if you don't appreciate the banjo and bluegrass in general, see some of the links below:
The Punch Brothers (covering the Cars)
Pine Mountain Railroad (covering Journey)
Iron Horse (covering Elton John)
The Punch Brothers (again)
These players are mostly modern and are not traditional bluegrass, but if you listen to them I think your schema of "banjo" will expand exponentially.
Playing the Banjo
I got a banjo for Christmas of 2012. I learned some chords and a few rolls, but it never really clicked with me. I've played guitar for 4 or 5 years and have always stuck with it as my standard instrument of choice, but the banjo always stood as that guilty I-wish-I-played-it-more instrument in the corner, usually in its case and usually out of tune.
The guitar is tuned to no particular chord. Any chord requires a few fingers thrown down against the fret board. It has a rich sound with a long sustain (as long as around 10 to 15 seconds), so it can be strummed as a supporting instrument. A banjo, on the other hand, is often (but not always) tuned to the key of open G, meaning that you can play it without putting any fingers down, and it makes the musical sound of a G chord. So songs in the key of G are easy to play. The banjo has a shorter sustain (maybe 5-7 seconds) and therefore must be part of a continuously moving melody in order to be relevant to the song. Usually this is achieved by what are called rolls- plucked sequences that involve an alternating pattern of thumb, middle, and index fingers engaging the 5 strings. One odd thing about the banjo is that the string closest to you is tuned to the highest note, instead of the lowest as in the guitar. This is because banjo players pluck the hell out of that string to produce the signature ring quality of banjo music. This is something I never understood until around early March, when I saw video of a banjo instructor playing in the "claw-hammer" style. Get a little taste of claw-hammer Cripple Creek here or here on a guitar (you have never seen this before).
Now the claw-hammer style is really a departure from what I had considered as traditional banjo playing. It turns out to be more traditional than what is called picking, which you can see here in another version of Cripple Creek. In the claw-hammer style, melody notes are struck between "brush strokes-" in which all strings are struck to fill in the musical gaps- and the thumb-pluck or the "down beat," where the thumb pulls up on that fifth string to produce the signature sound. It is probably called claw-hammer because the shape of the hand is in a claw, and the hammer-on is a technical skill that lends this style its unique sound. Go here for another great claw-hammer tune, Ole Joe Clarke.
The Claw-Hammer Project
I started getting serious playing the banjo around early March of this year, and I have come close to mastering the claw-hammer technique. What I would like to do is chronicle my stump-jumping inbred ramblings while I learn to play the banjo, and maybe I'll invite any unwary traveler along for the ride.
I hope this entertains you rather than making you want to tear your ears off.
More to come.
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