"Clawhammer" is the answer to the question, "If Jesus played the banjo, what style would he play?"
It begins with the fact that God created Adam with fingernails, not fingerpicks. (Cf. Genesis.)

I guess the "free" model of google AI has it all figured out.

Fwiw, at a banjo camp some years back I asked the 2 instructors for the intermediate/advanced group which ^^ was easier.  They were in agreement that clawhammer was initially easier, but in the long-run probably 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

[Not that it matters, but I switched from a "no wrong notes" strum stick to a banjo .... was finding 'way too many wrong notes on the strum stick ..... almost as many as my banjo, as it turns out.  ]

Then there’s this recording which was released decades ago:
youtu.be/3kGA5r0p3BE?si=W-hKgjQk2UWlU7kM

I wonder why Mike Snyder switched?

For me, I find Scruggs style more fun playing with other people playing other instruments, the banjo is just one part of the whole, it is flavoring. I just started learning clawhammer this summer and find myself playing clawhammer drop thumb more when I'm by myself. It lends itself to melody better. I can play a song.

Old time has its origins in Celtic music, Celtic tunes have different names and slight variations based on location, this is why tunes have different names and variations.

What is Celtic music?

Hi Tim, and All,

Thank you all. An excellent response to my post and I appreciate it....Jack

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Originally posted by Tim Jumper

"Clawhammer" is the answer to the question, "If Jesus played the banjo, what style would he play?"
It begins with the fact that God created Adam with fingernails, not fingerpicks. (Cf. Genesis.)

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Clawhammer is just another picking style, no different than three-finger or plectrum or melodic or Irish or whatever. There's no magic to it, even though people like to think that is so. Because of its "by ear" roots, the tune titles get mangled, much like a game of "telephone", where you pass a word or phrase from one person to another and by the end, it is totally different than the original. This happens in almost all music that is passed by ear. When it gets written down, it may take years for people to agree on a single name for it...if ever.

Like any style, it can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. I play several crossover tunes like, "Cripple Creek", "Cumberland Gap", "Soldier's Joy", etc., in both Scruggs and Clawhammer. They're just different aspects of the same tune, and the versions I play are neither harder or easier in either style.

Some players want to play note-for-note with the fiddler. I prefer to play as a compliment to the fiddler, not the exact same notes.

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Originally posted by ALCO

What is Celtic music?

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no such thing... 

So, how does "clawhammer" differ from "frailing"? "Stroke style?" "Rapping?" "Thumping?"

Yep, most old time tunes/clawhammer arose from plantations and "them thar hills." Poor folk not inclined to write things down, just play and enjoy! Sometimes I wonder if some "crooked" tunes came from imperfect memories, alcohol, or something else. All the terms Joel asks about are all interchangeable according/depending upon what the speaker thinks they mean. I chose clawhammer because it is rhythm and melody rolled into one and great for backing up solo singing. About half the time with Bluegrass I cannot identify the tune even when I know it well and can play a clawhammer version of the same tune. Bluegrass is primarily stage/performance music whereas old time is supportive of a wider range of delivery and settings, just my opinion of course. Different strokes for different folks! It is a banjo! Enjoy! banjered

I play clawhammer because I'm a fan of Wilko Johnson.

Hi Tom,

Yes, I totally agree. What strumming style banjo is called does vary as has been mentioned and should be no problem--Just grab it and play away......Jack

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Originally posted by banjered

Yep, most old time tunes/clawhammer arose from plantations and "them thar hills." Poor folk not inclined to write things down, just play and enjoy! Sometimes I wonder if some "crooked" tunes came from imperfect memories, alcohol, or something else. All the terms Joel asks about are all interchangeable according/depending upon what the speaker thinks they mean. I chose clawhammer because it is rhythm and melody rolled into one and great for backing up solo singing. About half the time with Bluegrass I cannot identify the tune even when I know it well and can play a clawhammer version of the same tune. Bluegrass is primarily stage/performance music whereas old time is supportive of a wider range of delivery and settings, just my opinion of course. Different strokes for different folks! It is a banjo! Enjoy! banjered

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If a player’s interest is primarily the banjo and what is possible I can’t honestly see how that would lead that person to anything other than playing  and composing finger-style repertoire.

"Which is harder, bluegrass or clawhammer?" Are you kidding?

There must be very few - if any - instruments where such a starkly obvious technical and stylistic comparison exists and is simultaneously almost universally neglected. To the extent that this collective ignorance/ommission/ historical amnesia becomes an inadvertant form of self-satire.

Wee Doggies.....Jack

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Originally posted by banjered

 All the terms Joel asks about are all interchangeable according/depending upon what the speaker thinks they mean. 

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Exactly right.

A lot of ink and bandwidth has been spent defining the terms and differentiating between clawhammer and frailing, the two most utilized labels since the advent of the folk revolution.  I always thought of frailing as more of a chordal, bum-ditty based style a la Grandpa Jones and String Bean and to a degree Pete Seeger.  Clawhammer on the other hand was a bit sparser and more melodically developed ranging from Wade Ward to the stuff in John Burke's book. It has been a long time since I have heard someone refer to their playing as frailing.  Nowadays "clawhammer" is the en vogue term, whereas "frailing" was more used by the folkies pre-1980's or so.  I guess "clawhammer" just sounds cooler, or tougher, or something. 

Originally the terms Joel mentions were regional names for  the down-picking of particular areas.  My Dad's cousin in central Missouri once asked me to get my banjo and "thump" him one.  

Katey Hill, Wade Ward's niece  once said that; "...Uncle Wade clawhammered all the time", as compared to another musician, so apparently "clawhammer" was a traditional name for the style in SW Virginia.

Conway, in her book "African Banjo Echos in Appalachia"  mentions minstrels wearing "clawhammer coats" so perhaps the name was derived from a typically worn  article of clothing rather than being descriptive of a particular playing technique.

I have never heard "stroke-style" connected to any thing but the down-picked minstrel style, but I'll admit to a possible amount of ignorance as regards that.

Arthritis
No need to hold chords

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Originally posted by R.D. Lunceford

quote:

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Originally posted by banjered

 All the terms Joel asks about are all interchangeable according/depending upon what the speaker thinks they mean. 

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Exactly right.

A lot of ink and bandwidth has been spent defining the terms and differentiating between clawhammer and frailing, the two most utilized labels since the advent of the folk revolution.  I always thought of frailing as more of a chordal, bum-ditty based style a la Grandpa Jones and String Bean and to a degree Pete Seeger.  Clawhammer on the other hand was a bit sparser and more melodically developed ranging from Wade Ward to the stuff in John Burke's book. It has been a long time since I have heard someone refer to their playing as frailing.  Nowadays "clawhammer" is the en vogue term, whereas "frailing" was more used by the folkies pre-1980's or so.  I guess "clawhammer" just sounds cooler, or tougher, or something. 

Originally the terms Joel mentions were regional names for  the down-picking of particular areas.  My Dad's cousin in central Missouri once asked me to get my banjo and "thump" him one.  

Katey Hill, Wade Ward's niece  once said that; "...Uncle Wade clawhammered all the time", as compared to another musician, so apparently "clawhammer" was a traditional name for the style in SW Virginia.

Conway, in her book "African Banjo Echos in Appalachia"  mentions minstrels wearing "clawhammer coats" so perhaps the name was derived from a typically worn  article of clothing rather than being descriptive of a particular playing technique.

I have never heard "stroke-style" connected to any thing but the down-picked minstrel style, but I'll admit to a possible amount of ignorance as regards that.

 

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...and if the OP is really seeking to distill what is today a technique to a 'what is it?' 'essence' (which is a rather convoluted approach) then surely the closest we can get to an 'answer' is the symbiotic relationship to dance?
Of course exceptions and variation evolve and influence in turn, but the cultural and historical lineage is dance. 

R.D. Lunceford , I find the Conway logic of minstrel performers wearing tails as the origin of the name extremely unlikely . While "clawhammer coat" was an actual term in use, pretty much all evening dress coats had tails, thus most men dressed for evening would be wearing them.

By the early 1960s, when the term finds general use (the term is in print by 1961 in reference to Scruggs style, but in 1962, Traditional Music from Grayson and Carroll Counties, Virginia, Folkways Records FS 3811 is unmistakably descriptive about the term).

Obviously it would have been in vernacular use before it finds print.

By the mid 1960s it the term has pretty much caught on with the current meaning and starts to show up in print frequently.

Minstrelsy in the 1960s was using tenor and plectrum banjos, so by Conway's logic, that should be called "clawhammer banjo".

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Originally posted by Jack Baker

I have often wondered why most clawhammer tunes have different names for the same melody and that melodies have different names: Now I know why Clawhammer needs no chords: It does seem to have very similar right hand techniques....pps. I have had countless students who love the rhythm of Clawhammer ask me why so many names for the same tunes and why there are so many tune variations with the same name...

Clawhammer style is much easier to play than Bluegrass style I deduced and that is probably why so many students new to banjo ask me this question......
 

Clawhammer Explanation

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Confused by "clawhammer needs no chords". I have learned plenty of tunes that would be next to impossible to play to speed without knowing chord structure. I mean technically 3 finger does not need chords either, just open tuning and slide your barred index around. I realize how stupid that sounds, but saying clawhammer needs no chords sounds almost as wild to me. There are many, many tunes where knowing chords is almost essential. The left hand technique is different, but just because you are not holding down chords doesn't mean that learning them is useless. I am not grasping the connection between old time tunes having name variations because the left hand structure is different (or vice versa). I think you should consider that perhaps your students who are learning 3 finger but love the clawhammer rhythm might want to explore a little down the road. Maybe something like Mark Kilianski of the Golden Shoals does in this video . 

I would hazard that the majority of tunes in the OT canon were not originally conceived with clawhammer in mind (or the banjo, for that matter). This is an issue of correlation vs. causation. Clawhammer is just one possible set of techniques for realizing a tune, and how it is applied can range from the "literal" (playing fiddle melodies note-for-note, clearly outlining chord changes where applicable) to the "reductive" (hitting only key notes in the melody, ignoring chord changes) to the "elaborative" (adding melodic and rhythmic variations that go beyond the tune and create heterophonic interest). 

What is fundamentally the same melody with multiple titles is a feature of culture, environment and social factors.

This is not unique to the U.S.; there are no shortage of examples in the vernacular repertoire of the British Isles. Everything from the simple by-ear acquisition of 'anonymous' melody in the pre -recording era, to the more complex area of cultural appropriation, has a hand in this process.
The various titles are generally of far less interest than the retention of the melodies themselves. If we were to describe this aspectin a single sentence we might say that: ...it is the echo of a musical heritage that reflects the social changes and upheaval that people have undergone.

I now realize why and what my attitude about Clawhammer and Other styles of banjo is about. Many of the great Historians have given us the Old Testament of Old Homemade Clawhammer etc. whether in Clawhammer or Bluegrass or other music of the age. My tabs are probably more New Testament renderings of Banjo songs. The greatest difference is that most of my tabs are based on the Vocals of current music my time which was mostly Vocal and that is why my Tabs tend to be indentifyable to the modern ear. Many of the Clawhammer tunes posted on BHO are taken from spontaneous melodies in people's person moments of what they knew. That would explain why no chords were ever needed as they were at the moment melodies and passed to nearby friends I would think....

Thank you so much for responding to nicely to my original post...I'm yours   Jack Baker

originally posted by Jack Baker

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Originally posted by EEB

If a player’s interest is primarily the banjo and what is possible I can’t honestly see how that would lead that person to anything other than playing  and composing finger-style repertoire.

"Which is harder, bluegrass or clawhammer?" Are you kidding?

There must be very few - if any - instruments where such a starkly obvious technical and stylistic comparison exists and is simultaneously almost universally neglected. To the extent that this collective ignorance/ommission/ historical amnesia becomes an inadvertant form of self-satire.

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I have to admit that I'm not sure what you're saying here, as this post seems rather cryptic. I'm not taking issue with anything you're stating here, but rather, i'm just unsure about what your point is. Would you mind clarifying what you're saying here? Thanks!