jsinjin - Posted - 05/26/2025:  11:22:39

I have been playing clawhammer for more than a year which is much less than the lifetimes that others on this forum have. I have had some success with this technique for practice that I borrowed from track and field workouts.

Some up front details: I have a sort of personality defect that keeps me from even remembering a melody or hearing tones. I literally couldn’t whistle jingles bells or twinkle twinkle little star and would have difficulty telling them apart. I have played one song for over a year and can’t even whistle it. I am terrible at playing with other people and have to approach each song by memorizing each note, fret and string as a long sequence and I break that up as chunks that I actually use flashcards to help me learn.

But for speed training I borrowed some “workouts” from my years with a close relative who is an elite track and field athlete. I have been using a 4 week practice regime where in that four weeks I do no change in speed or tempo of a song. During that four weeks I take each week and break it up as follows:

Sunday-rest day with just practicing and playing the song and other work without any real focus for up to two hours total

Monday-30 minutes total focus on the song with speed at my “normal tempo”. I’m currently comfortably with 60 bpm which is a major upgrade from the 30-40 I was at a year ago.

Tuesday-speed intervals where is work for 60 second intervals for parts of the song at 15 percent faster than my “normal speed” so roughly 69 bpm with the parts of the song repeated on strum machine with metronome and backup.

Wednesday-back to 30 min of total focus on the song with speed at my normal tempo focused on playing it through over and over without mistakes at 60 bpm

Thursday- A tempo workout which is 15 min at 10 percent faster than my normal tempo never stopping playing at 65 bpm with strum machine

Friday back to 30 min of total focus on the song

Saturday-long workout of 70 minutes at 60 bpm repeating the song over and over.

After four weeks I move the base pace up by 5 % and determine if I am making a lot of mistakes or not.

My biggest limit has been just the absolute regurgitation of the list of notes while I translate that to playing. Each time I play the song it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time unless I really concentrate on the note by note list in my mind.

Note that this is not the only practice I do. Throughout each day I practice for typically 90-120 min total including the speed work. I would do more my my career has a lot of work and I like to workout as well.

Silver_Falls - Posted - 05/26/2025:  13:40:31

When playing clawhammer it's vastly more important to maintain a steady percussive rhythm than getting the notes "right". You're gonna need to work on resetting your priorities in this regard.

1. Regularly practice with a metronome.

2. Don't worry about speed. That will come in time.

3. Before touching the banjo, get used to keeping time with the metronome by clapping your hands and/or tapping your foot. Consider getting a tambourine for your foot to tap on. Be confident and steady. Turn off your brain. When you're on the mark, the clicks of the metronome will tend to vanish. Then you can move on to playing a "bum-ditty" on the banjo, open strings, in time with the metronome, brain off, same way, over and over.

4. Add counting out loud to your bum-ditty, "one.dit-ty two.dit-ty one.dit-ty two.dit-ty..." Over and over and over and over. (Equivalent phrases are okay, too: "one and-uh, two and-uh, one and-uh, two and-uh...") These should match with the playing of your right hand, "pick brush-thumb, pick brush-thumb..." (As in, "down down-thumb, down down-thumb...") You're still only just playing open strings, with the goal of getting the movements of your right hand in perfect sync to the rhythm, until it's automatic. Until you don't even have to think about it.

5. Select some musical phrase in the song you already have been working on -- even if it's just 2 bars to begin with -- to play over and over, round and round, in time with the metronome, no stopping. Your goal again is to get this automatic, all muscle memory, your mind is off, repeat repeat repeat, not even thinking about it.

6. MOST IMPORTANT: as you play, when you hit a wrong note, just let it go. That is, whatever you do, don't ever stop the rhythmic flow to go back and play the "right" note. Let it go, keep going, stay on the beat, maintain the rhythm. This is all important. Don't worry, stay relaxed, keep your pace. You'll get another chance to play that note you're after on the next round.

Practicing like this will feel like an intense brain effort at first. Because it is. Don't overdo it. Twenty minutes per session is perfectly adequate. In no case over 45 minutes. Just like training your muscles, your brain needs rest to recover and integrate in between sessions.

banjered - Posted - 05/26/2025:  15:54:14

Great advice above! I also found that if I practiced just before going to sleep that the next morning/day it was easier to play. banjered

Rusty - Posted - 06/09/2025:  11:35:41

What Silver Falls said above. Speed comes when you have the tune engrained in your mind and no longer think about notes.

jsinjin - Posted - 06/09/2025:  11:57:52

I’m definitely different and the worst case for banjo playing and forum sharing. Unfortunately I can’t not think about the notes. I literally can’t remember what a song sounds like. Can’t even hum a single song and if played the melody for happy birthday vs twinkle twinkle little star (a part of the amusia test I took) I miss the answer 50 percent of the time. Imagine reading where you had to read every word and know the meaning of it each time you read it. That’s how I do music. I memorize every single note, what it is and where it is on the fret and string. I don’t use tab but I do convert the entire song to memory like that and have to repeat it note by note every time I start a song. I do find I’m getting faster by metrics of speed. I don’t worry about missed notes for sure but every time I start a song it’s like reciting a book for me or reciting every state. I have to remember each and every one and say them. It reminds me a lot of organic chemistry or anatomy and physiology where I just memorized the material and got better and better at regurgitating it.

I would say that I may be the record worst candidate for banjo playing: I don’t listen to music of any type, I can’t hear chord changes, melody, rhythm and can’t tell timing at all even in a popular song. I couldn’t hum a song if I tried, I can’t even guess a popular song without hearing the lyrics and I would much rather read the lyrics than listen to the song any time any day. Because of all of that my even tiny approaches to play with others have been abject failures independent of the level of skill, I just have no idea what is being played and can’t even tap out the notes. I’m also that guy who bought the most expensive custom banjo he could find with no experience in playing at all.

But to my credit, I play every day often several hours because I enjoy the mental activity. I have a teacher I pay and meet with every week. I cover Patreon to two very helpful and respected banjo teachers every month at the highest levels, I have a subscription to strum machine which I use to set and monitor my timing. So I am doing some of the things right. I also don’t use Tab as most people recommend on here.


But as far as getting faster, the more times I practice a song linearly over time and monitor the rate, the faster I go. It reminds me of weightlifting or interval training. And I’m definitely improving. For me it’s actually not about the music or the way it sounds, I’m actually just trying to play it faster to get the metric up to play faster. It’s truly for me about playing the notes faster in the correct timing.

From that perspective I can state that the above method over a 16 week period has really shown an improvement in playing a song faster with no errors.

Owen - Posted - 06/09/2025:  13:39:33

Could you recognize/identify Twinkle Twinkle by itself after m-a-n-y [dozens/[hundreds/thousands/???] reps?     Same question for Happy Birthday?

jsinjin - Posted - 06/09/2025:  13:41:59

Dunno. I probably wouldn’t remember it. I remember the words! It you recite happy birthday and recite twinkle twinkle I nail it every time. Even if you pick one world like twinkle or birthday I got that easily.

I recall a friend who shared songs and I always skipped listening to them and read the lyrics and looked up the meaning behind them. I never thought about why I did that

 

Owen - Posted - 06/09/2025:  17:17:38

What if it was a tune [rather than a song]? 

For the decade+ we were on the remote reserves, each community had an annual winter carnival [of sorts].  An integral part was the jigging competitions .... pre-schoolers, all the various age categories, a few adult age categories, the elders catagory, and all of 'em mens' and womens' divisions ........... and every last one of them to Big John McNeil!!! 

When they advertised for a live band to come and play for the dance(s) they'd put it very clearly in the ad: "Must be able to play Big John McNeil."   [And to top it off on the local FM radio station "requests" to accompany birthday greetings, anniversary wishes or for no particular reason were often BJMc.]   

I'm no expert, but I'd be surprised IF anyone could go through something similar and not recognize BJMc right off the hop.