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I have had acryllic nails on my middle three fingers of my right hand since around 2011. Downpicking on a tubaphone with medium gauge strings destroyed my nails/ I learned this solution from the great Marc Johnson and find lots of old time banjoists I know find this a worthy solution. Once I mentioned I did it lots of pickers I know personally told me that is what they did. Nail salons particularly in the Southeast are fairly familiar with banjoists with such need. I have known classical and flamenco and finger style jazz guitarists who do this since I was a kid, and I am 77
I have tried all of those when I was working, as acryllic nails in a diesel shop dont last long.
I found that Joel's thimble works very well if you are doing a lot of brushing, and work well if you have a banjo with medium gauge or heavy strings.
The freedom pick works fairly well with lighter strings.
Since I retired, I find the acryllic nails work much better than either pick, although i do sometimes use the Joel Hooks SS Stewart Thimble when trying to reproduce 19th and early 20th century banjo. Many more banjoists especially semi professional banjoists in the old time world have acryllic nails but are pretty silent about it. You do have to go the nail salon about every two or three weeks to have them trimmed or replaced, or filled in, depending on the wear and tear. Bring a picture of how you want your nails. If you are starting out, Googlin or looking up this you will find web pages with pictures of how nails should be done.
This is a personal solution and different things work for different people.
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Originally posted by writerradquote:
Originally posted by CullodenThe people who originated old-time banjo playing didn't have long nails. They worked manual labor so they wouldn't be able to cultivate nails to play the banjo with. Just a thought.
Actually until the late 1890s and for many people the early 20th century, banjoists did not play on metal strings, but played on strings that were made of animal gut, or plant fiber. Banjos were tuned 3 or 4 steps below and the tension applied to make late 19th and early 20th century banjos loud and bright at higher pitches was not requred. Still a huge proportion of professional and well known banjoists who down picked, which includes frailing,used banjo thimble which were like metal picks. As noted above, my hero Joel Hooks makes an exact reproduction of the standard banjo thimble that was used recommended by SS Stewart, I do know traditional Black banjoist like Rufus Kasey of Virginia who said he continued using a banjo thimble into the 1970s but could not find them in music stores any more after that.
Metal strings did not come on as a general rule until about the turn of the century, as did raising the pitch of the banjo. This led pretty much either to the demise of down picking,and the growth of finger picking as the main form of banjo playing, and the growth of finger picking, and that led to the growth of use of finger picks. The older generation in Bluegrass represented by Earl Scruggs and Ralph Stanley started out as 2 finger pickers playing without picks, but ALL transitioned to picks. Earl Scruggs was of the opinion that folks like him and Ralph who started out with bare hands had developed strnger hands than those who used picks.
I have been playing the banjo about 26 or 27 years now. When I was working, it would have been impossible for me to to have had acrylic nails, I did physical work with parts and supplies for fixing buses, and constructed racks and bins for storing things. Soon as I retired I ended up playing so much banjo on my Tubaphone with medium heavy strings that I had no nails, I ran into the great Marc Johnson of Clawgrass fame and he told me about acryllic nails.
Funny thing, once I got acryllic nails, some of what I thought were my closest pals in the banjo world locally and around the country and beyond admitted they did that,
Typing with them right now!
Your statement about not being able to grow nails while you were doing physical labor is what I was referring to. People who originated the old-time playing style were factory workers, railroad men, farmers, coal miners, mill workers, and the like. They played music as a way to relax and have fun, they didn't play for a living. The banjo thimble that S. S. Stewart advocated was made for people who weren't able to grow long nails because they worked hard and long nails just wouldn't last long in such conditions.
When people began to play for a living the idea of growing nails was more practical. If they didn't have an occupation that would break their nails it was easier to cultivate them.
The pioneers of old-time playing usually didn't even have factory-made banjos. Banjos were often made by local people who had learned how to stretch a hide across a bent hoop. Necks usually didn't have frets and they were strung with gut strings. Even the nuts and bridges, and often the pegs, were homemade.
By the same reasoning, the people who originated the Delta Blues in the early days were working people as well. That style of music originated with working-class people, people who worked in cotton fields, or mills, or on the river docks. They worked hard and played the blues as a means of self-expression. Their working-class roots are evident in the guitars they played. They didn't have expensive instruments, they played Silvertone and Harmony guitars. A beautiful style of music grew out of such humble origins. Just like old-time music did.
thanks for all the info. i do find it very interesting. but let me ask about "acrylic nails." i went to a nail salon once and they painted an acrylic coating on my nails. is that what you're talking about? or are you talking about some sort of fake nail that is placed/glued/applied on top of your nails and then shaped up? (i found the acrylic
painted on my nails worked fairly well. but they didn't last very long and they would get caught on the strings at times, but that might have just been me. )
I have not, luckily my nails are very thick so I have never had an issue with my nails. I have a friend who grows his nail out and then goes to a beautician to apply epoxy coting on the nail, it last for three or four months.
Hi, i remember trying different stuff including borrowing the wifes nail varnish!
But i found out that if i file the edges of the nail, so it is slightly pointy, it lasts a lot longer and is less likely to split.
Good luck!
Edited by - MarkStafford on 11/27/2024 07:08:18
Like my late friend, Reed Martin, I use short fingernails and it gets the job done. I could keep them longer until I reached 50 years of age. That was a long time ago. If I'm in a situation that is louder I have Joel's thimbles and/or Kelly Freedom picks in my case as the fingernails will start to hurt after an hour or so.
Culloden could you be more specific about the timeframe when you refer to "old time"? Please narrow this down to a decade or two if possible.
I'd like to clear up a few things that have been written on this discussion.
Regarding pitch and the banjo. Claiming that "Banjos were tuned (I use "pitch") 3 or 4 steps below and the tension applied to make late 19th and early 20th century banjos loud and bright at higher pitches was not required" is not exactly true. There is a fairly clear timeline on banjo pitch that can be documented and I explore this in my article here:
archive.org/details/abf-5-stringer-219
I have attached below a simplified (though it is more complicated) chart depicting banjo pitch in North America as can be supported with documentation. Exceptions do apply and also prove the general rule. The conclusion is that by the mid 1880s banjo pitch had arrived, more or less, at today's concert pitch of C (post WW2 bluegrass "tuning" with the 4th string lowered one step). Standard of frequency in pitch has been thoroughly documented by many people and I will not get involved in that.
Generally strings were gut or silk but we do have examples of wire starting in the 1880s. The use of wire was mostly a compromise where gut was preferred. We have accounts of using wire due to "dampness", economics, or shortages of gut strings. Wire becomes most prevalent with pick playing and it is because of pick playing that they became the standard string material.
Regarding what we now call the "classic era" (which was much larger than just S. S. Stewart though he seems to be the go to person to flog). This, as was minstrelsy before it, was driven by the "working class". I know this can be confusing due to narratives spun by folk era academics and works like "Half Barbaric Twang", but it is factual. The vast majority of participants in this musical fad were the young working class product of the post ACW industrial revolution.
Most of the prolific composers and known professional banjoists from this era came from working class families or left jobs to pursue music.
As such, these young working class persons were able to buy nice banjos and sheet music. I make the comparison to today: drive through any working class neighborhood and look in the driveways. You will find boats, jet skis, motorcycles, $80k pickup trucks, camper trailers, etc. People bought things they did not need then too. Not to mention that you got much more banjo for your dollar adjusted for inflation than you would today.
Regarding the "hand made banjos"-- please post photos of "old timers" holding these hand made banjos in the specified decades referenced Mark, I'd like to see them. This should not be too difficult if these hand made banjos were as prolific as you insinuate. Dated photos are best.
While it is true that before, during, and just after the American Civil War, if you wanted a banjo you either made it or had someone make it. The common description was a "tackhead flour sieve with a pine neck"-- and with the documentation we have, this was a story told by pretty much anyone who discovered the banjo during that time. But as soon as commercial banjos became available commonly, that is what people used.
Did individuals still build banjos? Absolutely, but the examples of these one off banjos usually conform to commercial patterns and show some degree of craftsmanship.
Poverty could also be a factor in self built banjos. That said, these were not prefered and what we have found is that as soon as the builder could get a commercial banjo they did.
I believe that the folk revival had a large part in spreading the idea of common self made banjos, particularly the "mountain" pattern banjo that was popularized by Frank Warner and further spread in the 1970s through Foxfire books.
Circling back to banjo thimbles (in period vernacular any "banjo pick" was a "thimble"). The best information we have is that the "banjo thimble" (pick for stroke style or banjo style) was developed by Tom Briggs in the 1840s. Briggs was a professional banjoist and featured act on the minstrel stage. The thimble was all about volume and consistency in tone. It also allows one to play smoothly, particularly the "roll" or "nail glide" arpeggio that was a common embellishment.
While most earlier banjo instruction books do not specifically mention wearing thimbles (I think Briggs and Converse are the only two), we know from accounts that they were pretty much ubiquitous across the board and used by professionals and amateurs alike for "banjo style" playing.
Banjo thimbles were still being sold past 1900 and into the 1920s when people stopped caring and pick playing took over. For a time Sears and Roebuck even included a banjo thimble with banjos they sold!
While not mentioned here, another myth is that Stewart "promoted the more refined guitar style of playing". Stewart was clearly a fan of playing with a thimble. He wrote about it on several occasions, provided instructions in his "American Banjo School" and "Observations on the Banjo" as well as a full page article that he would include in other publications. He even went so far as to file a patent for a banjo thimble.
So, to wrap up this essay, the banjo thimble was not just used for broken nails from working class factory jobs or farming. The banjo thimble was more like the violin bow-- a necessary implement for consistent and clean tone with volume needed for stage work (or dances). It provides a smooth surface for fast playing and note separation in arpeggiated "rolls" (this is similar to what is referred to today as a "Galax lick" but not exactly).
Let us start with your major confusion, Players who use acrylic nails DO NOT USE THEM because they are long. As far as I have ever heard, no one advocates using long nails natural or acrylic to play banjos, because banjo strings both contemporary mental strings, and the older gut or fiber strings are not well played by the fingernail itself, acrylic other otherwise. You play well with natural or acrylic nails, if the power from your finger is transmitted by the body of your finger through the nail into the banjo string. If it is just the nail, the sound is going to be crap at best. If it is just the nail, acrylic or natural, will break. If you have acrylic nails as I have for the past 13 years, you can wind up paying more attention to their getting too long and them becoming too weak to play and the longer they get the less precise your frailing stroke can be and they get more and more in the way of your finger picking,
The problem I mentioned myself about not having the acrylics while I was doing industrial work had nothing to do with length I did shipping and receiving, and parts work in garages and bigger facilities where transit buses, engines, transmissions, and other parts were repaired or rebuilt and where buses were being retrofit or received day to day service for 3 decades. I was not an office worker, but sometimes had to do real work with my hands and back. The acrylics can break and crack in a way that natural nails do not, and it is actually more of a hassle if they do to get them fixed, than for a natural nail to grow back. They can even mess with a pair of welders gloves.!
. People use acrylics as they use banjo thimbles, and the variety of pics people mention,because they are HARD and they do not wear down the way your natural finger nail does. In frailing, especially with medium or heavy strings, you can wear down your natural nail and you cannot effectively frail. That happened to me when I retired, bought a big custom made Tubaphone style banjo with medium to heavy strings, and started really working on my banjo playing. After a week or two of practicing every day like I should with this wonderful banjo, I had no nails on my picking hands
In fact, the particular problem of acrylic nails is that they can grow much longer than natural nails. Then, they are not good for banjo playing or doing much else, You have to trim them and cut them short more regularly than you do natural nails. You have to regularly go to the nail salon to have them paired back or completely replaced by shorter ones. No one uses them to have longer nails, but to have sturdier nails that dont get broken or worn off by down picking on metal strings.
Again this has been part of banjo playing with various devices before acrylics were invented. Even before steel strings came in for banjos in the late 19th or early 20th century, many players who down picked used banjo thimbles like the one Joel makes (Joel actually makes them in a little shop in his back yard!) If you have ever examined banjo thimbles both 19th century or Joels, two of which sit on my desk now, you wont find them being very long. Thimbles were so widely used in the 19th century that down picking was often called thimble playing.
Talking about blues being mostly played by people who played Silvertones and Harmonies, hardly as to do with the Early banjo which we are talking about. Silvertone is one of the store brands for Sears Roebuck, a corporation that was not in operation before 1897. Sears did not begin to market Silvertone products until 1916, a brand name that they first used only for phonographs. Harmony did not exist as a company before 1892. It is pretty irrelevant to discussing what banjoist did across the 19th century to talk about the choice of instruments of musicians in a 20th century genre, particularly when your proof is the use of brands not in existence until the 1890s or 1916. You can type out uninformed stuff like that, but those of us who really try to do banjo and other music history would start with finding out what Silvertone and Harmony actually mean, when did the Blues begin, when did Silvertone and Harmony begin to sell instruments. Minor issues like that.
Our knowledge of what banjos people actually played and who played them dates to the late 1830s when the big explosion of banjo playing began. That knowledge points to a very early stage of the supremacy of manufactured and factory made banjos being the banjos that set the tone for players across the country and around the world. If you read the Clipper from the 1840s or 1850s you read the Dobson brothers ads to send a banjo to anyone In the World for about 15 dollars.
You have a great spread of inexpensive manufactured banjos oriented to a mass market, spreading very extensively following the Civil War, and you find pretty much a recession of home-made banjos, and the idea of a real banjo being a manufactured or crafts person made banjo. Banjo historians and banjo fanciers naturally orient to the high end banjos that were produced by the great makers, but do not pay much attention to the explosion of inexpensive banjos the increasingly mass-market oriented banjo makers made for popular consumption.
However, the record is pretty clear that manufactured banjos which became increasingly cheap, became the hallmark of the home made or individual craft made banjos, If someone actually examines what working class people who played banjos played we would find Cotton Mill employee Charlie Poole buying a fine Orpheum No. 3 Special with side money he made selling Moonshine. You would find the future cotton mill worker Earl Scruggs saving up his pennies at 12 or 13 to spend 10 bucks on a Kay he ordered from Montgomery Ward.
Most of the research I have seen of what such musicians we know of who played what the record companies called old time music prized banjos manufactured and crafts person made banjos of the highest quality, following the designs that the more advanced figures of the banjo industry championed. Very much of our research on banjos and their making shows even folk makers of banjos followed, sometimes not knowing what they were doing what they thought were trends from the major craft and manufactured banjos. Across the 19th century even in the most isolated communities, the idea that a real banjo was a manufactured or craft banjo following definite designs seemed to be accepted by banjoists you might call traditional. Ever inexpensive production banjos of the banjo industry made such banjos more and more available.
Mentioning upping the pitch, I did a lot of study of pitching of banjos of recordings of African American traditional banjoists who were recorded in the 1930s to 1980s, if anything they tended to pitch their banjos higher than standard pitch, with the most popular pitching being about 10 cents about G sharp for G, but several musicians pitching as high as B and Bflat for G which must have been murder on the necks.
Again, banjos went through a variety of stages of construction. The early stages of manufactured and five string banjos that began to be played beyond African Americans in the late 1830s widely and began to be commercially produced about that time was tuned 3 or 4 steps lower than banjos came to be standardly tune in the late 19th century and 20th Century. They were strung with strings made of fiber or gut, and the redesign of the banjo that went across the late 19th century to produce the current tone of banjos aiming at a distinct and high treble had not occurred, Even before this change so many players used thimbles for down picking that down picking, frailing etc was known as "thimble playing." Several traditional 20th century Black banjoists I know of like Rufus Kasey , said they used thimbles until their last one was lost and stores no longer carried them in the 1950s.
The spread of manufactured banjos oriented for the mass market begins with the Civil War with very large numbers of inexpensive banjos being manufactured by the larger companies and a large number of smaller local manufacturers of banjos. There is every sign in real discussions of real traditional players that people who do real research, that these banjos were the hall mark which other banjo makers including home banjo makers followed.
Factory workers, farmers, and other people tended to do whatever they could to buy the best banjos they could buy. Many more inexpensive manufactured brands were available and played across the 19th century and into the 20th century. That is pretty much the record of the old time musicians we actually know of. Cotton Mill worker Charlie Poole played an expensive Orpheum banjo whose purchase he financed by selling moonshine on the side. He later played al Mastetone. Cotton Mill worker Earl Scruggs saved his pennies to order a Kay for 10 bucks from Montgomery Wards when he was 12, though later his widowed mother helped him buy a Gibson RB-11 when he was a teenaged cotton mill hand.
Lots of uninformed fantasy used to traffic in banjo circles like the post I am responding to. Over the past 20-30 years, dedicated researchers of the banjo and its players have tried to find supporting evidence and facts to tear away the uninformed fantasies like the ne I am responding to. This allows the truth of what people did with banjos and how they did this to come to the fore and allows the people who made and play banjos to have their say about things rather than ignorance and fantasy about them.
Thanks
Edited by - writerrad on 11/27/2024 08:19:58
Joel Hooks, the time frame I am referring to is the end of the 19th century to the early 20th century. I am sorry that I cannot be more specific to within a decade but, if my timing is not to your satisfaction, I do not doubt that you will take me to task for it.
Son is a session guitar player and was forever complaining about nail breakages despite using hardener. Recently someone told him to eat a couple of Brazil nuts each day, he now swears that his problem has gone away because of those nuts, only saying.
quote:
Originally posted by CullodenJoel Hooks, the time frame I am referring to is the end of the 19th century to the early 20th century. I am sorry that I cannot be more specific to within a decade but, if my timing is not to your satisfaction, I do not doubt that you will take me to task for it.
Okay, great. So there was a "back to basics" thing that happened along side of the "fiddle contest" craze kicking on the heels of Henry Fordien promotion of "pioneer dancing" and "traditional" music-- all pretty much fabrications with some basis of truth (all the best lies have a thread of truth).
We do see the Hicks/Proffitt pattern mountain banjo emerge at this time (as of now still post 1900).
But by FAR the banjos being used were "factory" commercial makes. And from the photos we have of these "mountain banjos", they were not built out of poverty or want but rather a conscious choice to be "old timey" in the fabricated nostalgia that was then rapidly becoming a fad.
As I grew older my nails grew thinner. They also became more brittle, especially in low humidity days of winter. So I have tried several suggestions mentions here: acrylic nail extensions. biotin, vitamin B of various types. nail coatings. None of these work well for me. The salon grinds my nails thinner to make the nails adhere better, Like writerrad in former times, I do messy work that makes acrylic nails get ugly quick and start to come loose. Then my nails are worse off than they were before the salon service. Biotin, vitamins, and jello haven't helped either. But I'd guess they might help a person who has a bodily shortage of these. I'm still taking and hoping.
There's a lot of talk here about breaking nails and playing with short nails. we need to realize that nails vary in hardness, thickness, curvature both laterally and sagittally. Any of these things influence both banjo tone and ease of breaking nails and the eroding of nails from picking. We just have to check around and find what works for us invididually, if anything does.
Nails also vary in the distance between where the nail departs the quick ends and the finger tip. My gap is over an eight of an inch. Short nails for me means protruding fingertips. I often break my middle nails--the longest one seemingly at greater risk of bumps. Maybe the people claiming here that short nails work fine don't have this finger tip--nail quick gap. Surely some of the oldtimers who clawed had such gaps and experienced this problem.
The solution I've found for now is press on nails. Asian made plastic nails and sticky pads are available in bulk sets on Amazon. They are apparently designed small for women's nails, as I can only use a couple of the largest ones in each set. But still cheaper than retail single sets. The one on my middle finger gives the nail underneath some protection from accidents. If my nails grow out, I will coat just the tips with a nail glue that has some viscosity to it, such as IBD brand. I don't like to keep my nails fully coated for I think they need exposure to air and they need some moisture, even if it is through lotions and oils. So I keep the press on nails on only until they come loose or two weeks, whichever comes first, then give my nails a break (pun intended).
I find that a self stick press on nail works wonderfully, and if you look you can find some that look quite natural.
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Originally posted by Anthony SI’m a beginning clawhammer (and banjo) player. Finding that my fingernail (index, right hand) is not that strong, keeps getting chewed up, broken down….i’m working through ken Perlman’s clawhammer style banjo book. In the back, he gives suggestions for nail care, one of which is…placing “scotch” tape over your finger. Anybody have any images of how this is done? What it looks like? Videos? Words of advice? Etc. I’m trying it but not sure I’m doing it right. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Anthony,
Short of smashing your finger nail bed with a hammer as Pete Seegar mentioned, gluing on a clear finger nail works really well. Any drug store should have them in a little kit with multiple sizes and the glue. The glue is soluable with acetone.
The hammer method does work, which I can attest to. I accidentally mutilated the end of my middle finger while using a power tool. When my slightly shortened nail bed grew a new nail, not only was it harder than the original but it came in with a slight hook on the end. That hook made it easy to pick out the melody strings with greater force and accuracy.
I tried the hard as nails application and didn't find it worked at all.
To me this is a personal solution and one solution for one player is not necessarily the best for others. I I have been lucky that there are two very competently run, hygenic nail salons about 5 blocks from where I live who seem to be in competition to be modern, ultra clean,and friendly, a competition that seems to be more about them being different waring branches of the same Vietnamese family.
I am too awkward for anything one has to apply themselves. I did like the freedom picks for a while and did do some work with Joel's SS Stewart thimble. but the acrylics seem to be the best for me.
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Originally posted by writerradI have had acryllic nails on my middle three fingers of my right hand since around 2011. Downpicking on a tubaphone with medium gauge strings destroyed my nails/ I learned this solution from the great Marc Johnson and find lots of old time banjoists I know find this a worthy solution. Once I mentioned I did it lots of pickers I know personally told me that is what they did. Nail salons particularly in the Southeast are fairly familiar with banjoists with such need. I have known classical and flamenco and finger style jazz guitarists who do this since I was a kid, and I am 77
I have bad nails that just can't stand up to aggressive fingerpicking. (I'm mainly a fingerstyle guitarist.) After trying just about every solution recommended, including many of the ones mentioned here, I decided to try acrylic nails after seeing a documentary on flamenco guitarists that began with an amazing player in a nail salon getting his nails done.
This was more than 20 years ago, and I wish I'd discovered this option when I was a young man.
I go in every three week, the procedure takes about a half hour and costs 25 bucks with tip. All the worries I had (they wouldn't really hold up; I'd be breaking nails all the time, etc.) weren't born out by actual experience. I doubt I break a nail once a year and they stand up to whatever punishment I subject them to.
Plus it's fun being the only guy getting his nails done in a salon full of women!
Edited by - wileypickett on 11/27/2024 18:31:25
There is absolutely no way to understand even the most traditional banjo playing and use of banjos without understanding that the banjo was shaped by the eruption of commercial capitalism in North America in the 19th century, whatever its previous origins or condition. If one actually goes back and examines the explosion of banjo related performances, banjo advertisement, banjo instruction, and various attempts at the production of banjos, the naive idiocy that such mountain banjos played an important role in doing anything except nuturing the prejudices of the ignorant.
There are many stories I have heard of old time music enthusiasts encountering particularly the last generation of African American southern banjoists from the 1970s through the 2000s when the last of them passed away, and attempting to foist on them gourd banjos or minstrel banjos as if this was the appropriate thing for them, These stories inevitably end in the rejection of these banjos by traditional banjo players, and their attraction to manufactured banjos which long before were the main line of development of the five string banjo even in the service of black tradition. These banjoists almost universally preferred resonator banjos made by Gibson or Deering, or if they could not afford them, or were not gifted banjos by enthusiasts, cheaper Japanese invasion models, or inexpensive ones. There was no craving for gourd banjos or "mountain banjos",
quote:
Originally posted by ecclesSon is a session guitar player and was forever complaining about nail breakages despite using hardener. Recently someone told him to eat a couple of Brazil nuts each day, he now swears that his problem has gone away because of those nuts, only saying.
Yes I have knowm of classical, flamenco, and fingerstyle, Jazz guitarists devoted to nail care in all these ways since I was a child.
I buy fake figer nails and sand the tips down til they fit and glue them on with fingernail hardener which last until you discover the nail is gone after working with hand at something else besides playing my banjo , It is way better than tape. big differance in sound. Then their are the metal type of pick available.
Thanks for all the responses and suggestions. Just to revise my “conclusions” a bit. I said that i thought i preferred the cling pro frailing picks to the banjo thimbles by Joel hooks. That was mainly, perhaps only, because i thought the cling pro frailing picks were more snugly fit on my finger, less slippage. (The cling pro frailing picks can be adjusted or tightened a bit by hand, relatively easily; maybe a bit too easily?). But i found out that i had to shape the fit of the banjo thimbles (with soft touch pliers, for example), to get a good fit. So i did and now i am very happy with the fit and the feel of the banjo thimbles. I think i might like it more than the cling pro frailing picks in fact, because it feels like a snugger fit, less wiggle, slippage, nice and tight but not too tight. So I’m really glad that i found out i had to actually fit the banjo thimbles to my finger after it arrived. Made a big difference. Think I’m going to be using the banjo thimbles as my go-to pick. I think starting off my banjo/clawhammer journey using a thimble/pick will be good. I won’t ever have to worry about my nails and I’ll always be used to playing with the banjo thimbles (or frailing picks).
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