www.banjosnob.com
Playing Since: 1971
Experience Level: Expert/Professional
banjoplayer1 has made 1 recent addition to Banjo Hangout
Interests:
[Teaching] [Jamming] [Socializing] [Helping]
Occupation: Musician
Gender: Male
Age: 61
My Instruments:
Plectrum and tenor banjo, learning banjo uke, and will someday take on the Irish banjo. I also play the clarinet and saxophone and sing (Sinatra-style crooning).
Favorite Bands/Musicians:
Buddy Wachter, Harry Reser, Perry Bechtel, Emile Grimshaw
Classified Rating: not rated
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Profile Info:
Visible to: Public
Created 3/2/2012
Last Visit 10/15/2021
Ron Hinkle comes from a banjo family; his father, Myron Hinkle, founded the Seattle Banjo Club in 1962, and the Grays Harbor Banjo Band in 1968, and was a 2009 inductee in the Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame in the category of promotion. Ron started playing the tenor banjo at the age of 12 as a member of the GHBB. He soon switched to plectrum, which he still specializes in today.
Ron has a long history as a solo performer and teaching clinics at banjo conventions, and as the banjoist for various Trad Jazz bands throughout America and Germany. He has also been a magazine writer, writing for The Resonator on and off for several years, and BMG for the last four years. He is a published author, having self-published his own successful plectrum banjo method book—Beyond Chord Melody—and updated Emile Grimshaw’s Modern Banjoist for the Clifford Essex Company. He recently retired from the U.S. Army as a Bandsman, playing clarinet, saxophone and banjo, and as a vocalist. In this capacity, he performed in 34 countries on four continents (including China and Iraq).
Ron has also recently started writing blogs (www.banjosnob.com) with the goal of starting a serious conversation about the future of the banjo. His personal mission statement is:
“To preserve, promote, and advance the four-string banjo through education and public performance.”
Preserve: Ron is an avid student of banjo history, and has taken on the personal goal of mastering and teaching all the historical styles of plectrum and tenor banjo playing.
Promote: Through his writing, YouTube videos, and public performance, Ron strives to bring the story of the four-string banjo to a wider audience.
Advance: Ron’s reason for understanding and mastering all historical styles is to eventually have the ability and knowledge to make the four-string banjo more relevant to today and to take it into the future, and to encourage others to do so as well.
