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Originally posted by pianojuggler

I’d say that the second unsolicited bit of advice I’d give a newbie is: buy a stand.

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The advice I'd give is don't buy a stand especially a cheap guitar stand. I read to many horror stories of broken banjo necks from using stands. As one repaier said on here "Those things are great for my business " I imagine there are banjo stands that can cope with the low centre of gravity.

My deepest apologies. I was looking through the forum after a long day and my benumbed little brain failed to realize this was a pinned post that started over a decade ago.

Nevertheless, there are a couple things in my wish list that I do wish there were ready answers for. I was looking on the web for an illustrated glossary of all banjo parts, and couldn't find one that was really complete.

Again, sorry for breathing life back into an old thread.

-pj

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Originally posted by GrahamHawker

quote:

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Originally posted by pianojuggler

I’d say that the second unsolicited bit of advice I’d give a newbie is: buy a stand.

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The advice I'd give is don't buy a stand especially a cheap guitar stand. I read to many horror stories of broken banjo necks from using stands. As one repaier said on here "Those things are great for my business " I imagine there are banjo stands that can cope with the low centre of gravity.

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Good to know.  I have both of mine set with the upper fork as low as it can go.  That's about the 9th fret.

Would love to see some posts dedicated to clawhammer techniques employed to hit all those melody notes, especially on fiddle or highly melodic tunes. Hammer ons, pull offs, drop thumb, phantom hammers, what other tricks, tips, whirly gizmos, etc., can be used as the bum ditty goes on and on in perpetual motion?

I'd love to see a thread where you oldtimers speak about the one or two things you learned about playing that made you go "a-ha!" and unlocked the banjo, or new levels of playing it, for you.

For example, last night I watched a video from Tom Cotton (his drop-thumb deep dive) which clarified a big issue I'd been having: I hadn't been using enough meat when dropping my thumb. In the video, he suggests not looking at drop-thumbing as a different stroke from the normal ditty stroke - so simple, but an eye-opener for me.

Where I live, banjo players are few and far between (mostly noisy Dixieland types on their rattlebox tenors). I've had to teach myself, which has been difficult because (dare I say it?) I'm not really as fan of OT music. A big moment in my playing came when I discovered Sawmill tuning, which opened up a whole new modal/trance style for me. These days, I'm trying to focus more on my technique, which has me exploring Double C.