Tom Collins — Salem, MA, USA

More About Me

That elusive sound. What is it? It's so hard to define, but you know it when you hear it. Each note is clear and precise, or is it raucous and ragged? It's a gentle lilt, or is it a driving pulse? Whatever that sound is, it's representative of the vastness of old time clawhammer banjo. You've been bitten by the bug, and you just have to learn it. You've bought the books, you've listened to the recordings, you've struggled with differing opinions and instead of sweeping glory all you've got is plunka ... plinka ... plonk!

Or perhaps you are an accomplished player looking to expand into fretless banjo, or learn to play up the neck? Maybe your next step is to sing with the banjo, or break away from tab? Is your style too crowded or notey, or otherwise jumbled? Do your variations in a given tune flow, or do you play the tune the same way through every time? Have you given thought to your emphasis? Are you stuck in the cluck; browbeating the back beat?

Either way, I think I can help. My name is Tom Collins and I teach old time banjo.

Learn old-time clawhammer banjo in beautiful downtown Salem! Just 25 minutes north of Boston is my restored 1828 home in the heart of the Salem McIntyre historic district. In a comfortable, professionally designed studio you will learn the intricacies of clawhammer banjo.

And if you can't travel to me, I have been giving live, online video lessons via Skype for years to banjo players all over the world. It's a wonderful way to have access to a teacher with whom you normally wouldn't have contact. For those of you with Macs, FaceTime works great too.

With me you will discover the benefits of learning by ear, the power of the downbeat, the deceptive simplicity of linear styles like Round Peak, and the arcane notes between the notes on a fretless fingerboard. You'll learn about specific players such as Walt Koken, Reed Martin, Fred Cockerham, Tommy Jarrell, Dwight Diller and many others. You'll learn tunes that inspire you to practice, and you'll learn them in a way that makes them live and breath with variations.

I prefer to teach mostly by ear, so after each lesson you receive mp3's of tunes that I record for you. By learning this way, you prepare yourself to walk into a jam and pick up tunes on the fly. You also open a whole world of tunes that haven't been tabbed (or even recorded since the 20's!).

I offer everyone a free online demo lesson (~15 mins long) so folks can get a sense for my teaching style. No strings attached. You can see me teach here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FretlessFury

Hope to hear from you!

Tom Collins