I've been frailing for awhile now, and I just started going through Pete Seeger's banjo book. He starts with the two finger style, where you up-pick with your index or middle finger instead of coming down with the back of your nail.
It's been fun practicing a new movement, and I plan on continuing my way through the book.
Is there any way that my new "up-picking" movement can be added in to my frailing style ?? I'm sure there must be some people out there doing something like that... Musicians are so creative!!
That Seeger book covers a wide range of banjo styles. Some are fun to learn and useful, some of it can be confusing. Good two finger players like the late Will Keys and Nick Hornbuckle who plays with John Reichman are amazing. I use two and three fingerpicking at times but have never mixed down and up picking like Seeger did. I find I can do almost anything with clawhammer and only finger pick for some songs or when a fiddler isn't playing a definitive melody. Others will no doubt chime in and it will be interesting to see what they have to say.
I play 2ftl and throw in a little clawhammer when it feels appropriate. I think mixing playing styles is at least something that is worth trying.
Go to YouTube and check out Zac Sokolow’s channel. He fluidly mixes styles (3F, 2F, down picking, up picking) within songs/tunes, sometimes changing styles measure by measure.
Matokie Slaughter, a source player from Virginia, mixed up and down picking in her playing. I’m sure many other source players were not bound by the names, and constraints, we put on things.
The “trick” is figuring out how to make smooth transitions from one picking style to another. Once you do that, you are free to explore a world of possibilities and expressions.
Here’s a video I posted on YouTube a couple years ago, exploring the similarities and differences between clawhammer and 2F picking styles. It might help you see your way into blending picking styles.
for Zac Sokolow!
msv133 When I was a mere youth in 1969, I met one Art Chambers (then in his 70's?) from Georgia at the local Old-Time fiddlers club. Art called his banjo style "drop-thumb frailing". It was kind of a combination style: He wore a plastic thumbpick, a plastic fingerpick on his index finger the normal way, and a plastic fingerpick on his middle finger reversed so that the blade of the pick laid against his finger nail.
He played the usual clawhammer patterns- bum-ditties, drop-thumbs, double thumbs, etc. He used his thumb and middle finger in the usual way, but would get drop thumb/double thumb patterns by picking up with his index finger (I T I T) like a two-finger stylist would.
The fiddlers would take turns at the mike, selecting their own accompanists, and almost without exception, Art was the banjoista of choice.
I think in the old days, banjo-playing was a lot more individualistic than now. Though thankfully in the last so many years, we're seeing styles like two-finger make a comeback, the banjo world is still mostly divided between Bluegrass and Clawhammer.
Edited by - R.D. Lunceford on 11/21/2024 12:25:31
Two different styles, in fact Pete said in his later years that if he published another banjo book he would have done it differently, focus more on one style. His banjo book is a mishmash of all the different styles he witnessed in his early life.
In the end, as one of my teachers said to me, "Learn the basics, a good foundation, then find your style, or voice with your banjo, don't just imitate.
Find your banjo style and voice, that is folk/old time music in my humble opinion.
Edited by - Rusty on 11/27/2024 06:55:31
