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Two Finger Pickers

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For the eclectic banjo player who counts 2-finger styles among their tools of the trade.

515 Members, Created 1/31/2011 -

Administrators: stigandr5 (owner) , Marc Nerenberg , revellfa

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From thisoldman on 5/10/2012 4:10:57 PM

After weeks of checking out videos and reading, I finally made the plunge and my very first banjo is on the truck/plane. One banjo, so many styles.

I have always been interested in history, so the clawhammer/frailing style appealed to me. But....now I have run into its relative, the two finger, thumb-lead style which also apparently had its deep roots in history. So -- I've decided to give this style a try first.

As I said, I have looked at (many of the) videos online and done some reading (the Thumb-Lead Banjer site has been the most helpful so far).

Is there any other resource I can tap into that would help me get started?

6 Comments
	livio says: 5/11/2012 11:08:40 AM I would advise listening to early Doc Watson records; He basically had two styles, clawhammer and two fingerpicking banjo,sometimes He would play the two styles within the same tune, Livio.
	Tom Hanway says: 5/15/2012 10:19:45 PM I'm a blues guitarist, and that's what got me into banjo picking. Rev. Gary Davis was a two-finger (upstroke) picker. I don't see a lot of difference in the mechanics between guitar and round guitar, er, le banjo.
	livio says: 5/18/2012 11:39:51 PM I hundred per cent agree with Tom; what I personally find even more interesting is the fact that in Rev. Gary Davis style you can find traces of the electric (eclectic) guitar style so popular in the rock field; so , in short, we could say that the banjo ( played ala two finger style) is the ancestor of rock guitar!
	livio says: 5/18/2012 11:40:03 PM I hundred per cent agree with Tom; what I personally find even more interesting is the fact that in Rev. Gary Davis style you can find traces of the electric (eclectic) guitar style so popular in the rock field; so , in short, we could say that the banjo ( played ala two finger style) is the ancestor of rock guitar!
	livio says: 5/18/2012 11:40:13 PM I hundred per cent agree with Tom; what I personally find even more interesting is the fact that in Rev. Gary Davis style you can find traces of the electric (eclectic) guitar style so popular in the rock field; so , in short, we could say that the banjo ( played ala two finger style) is the ancestor of rock guitar!
chuckb says: 9/28/2012 6:09:28 AM Tom, Mother Maybelle started out on banjo. Her 'boom chucka" style, the bedrock of country music guitar (the guitar style of consecutive runs, ala Riley Puckett seemed to reach a dead end), seems to have come from "bum ditty." Experiment with thumb lead, two finger index lead, classic banjo (the basis of Chrlie Poole's style), etc. and you are dealing with the components of Earl's style. To quote Wade Mainer, "I thought we were just playing music."
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