So you want to play the banjo huh?

Good, it is a great instrument. This page is dedicated to helping people who want to learn to play the 5 string banjo in what is called Clawhammer, Frailing, or Old Time style. This consists of links I have built up over the years, book recommendations, and other general tips. More advanced players will probably know all of this stuff and may just want to skim (check out the chords). Feedback, corrections, links, book recommendation, and tips are always welcome. Please email me at zenbanjoman@gmail.com. My guestbook was disabled due to spam. But please email me or send me a message at My Space http://www.myspace.com/zenbanjoman.
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Buying a Banjo
Learning Your First Licks
Chords
Albums and People
Books
Tips
Links

Buying a Banjo

For this kind of banjo playing you are mostly looking for a 5 string open back model. If you have one great, start playing it. If you have a closed back one, that should work fine to start, plus you can always take the back off anyway. If you need to buy one there are three routes you can go:

Buy a cheap banjo to see if you like it and can play it

This is the route I went. Personally I would recommend buying a pretty good banjo instead. Honestly anyone can play the 5 string banjo, and play it well. I swear you can do it. There is really no reason to doubt. You will outgrow this banjo quickly and wish you didn’t buy it. But, if you must there are some options. You can get a new Rover RB-20 or RB-110 5 string open back banjo plus soft shell case from Bernunzio. As of writing this $169 or $279 depending on the model. Other starter options which are a bit better and will last you a year or two more before you outgrow them (you will outgrow the Rover within a year) are the Gold Tone CC-OT Openback for $299 which is well worth it. This is a way better banjo than the Rover for $20 more. There is also the slightly more expensive American made Deering Goodtime for around $340. These are the main “entry” level open back banjos out there today. This Gold Tone CC-OT is way better than the CC-100 I originally bought. The Gold Tone CC-OT looks like the clear winner to me in this category. Of these banjos it is the one I would recommend. However, there is a final option. Check out bernunzio.com, they have a great banjo inventory. Most of the banjos between $300-$600 would make a fine first banjo. All of these banjos are played by man who runs the site and he comments on them all. Look for the words “good player.” That is key since you don’t want something hard to play. Also email him and ask for his advice.
Be very careful about used banjos from ebay! The cheap ones are mostly not playable regardless of what they say. If you are a beginner and want to go cheap don’t touch ebay, trust me. For used banjos check out banjos check out what is for sale at the Banjo Hangout’s Classified pages. They are more trustworthy. Finally read the next section even if you think this is the route you want to go, you will probably wish you went the next route within a few years.

Buy a pretty good banjo as a starter but not for a lot of money (My Recommendation!)

This is my personal recommendation. Someday you will want two (or more) banjos, and this one can last you as your “second” banjo for a long time. The main new options are the Kevin Enoch Tradesman and the Chanterelle Student Model. Both are great banjos. The Chanterelle goes for around $800, and the Tradesman goes for around $850 depending on the options. Make sure you get a fretted model (starting out fretless would be a bit hard). Both of these banjo’s will last you forever, and in the long run you won’t be stuck with a $300 banjo you don’t want to play. I have a Tradesman and I love it and play it all the time. Both of these are light and easy to carry and make great festival banjo’s too even if you have better banjos. This is the route I would recommend all beginners take. For used banjos check out what is for sale at the Banjo Hangout’s Classified pages. That is where I got my Tradesman and I saved some money.

Buy the one and only banjo you will ever need right off the bat

For you hard core people out there, this is the way to go. Why waist money on a temp banjo? Life is too short to play a low quality instrument, etc, etc. As I said above check out bernunzio.com, they have a good banjo inventory. For this category any banjo that is a “good player” over $950 will probably do. Other than that, banjos are about makers. Some popular makers to check out are Mike Ramsey , Bart Reiter, Kevin Enoch (his non-tradesman banjos are played by some of the best players out there), Johannes Bonefaas (JB Banjos), Chuck Lee, Brooks Masten, and more. I suggest playing at festivals, banjo camps, etc and get a feel for the options out there and what you like before going this route. But for sure go this route at some point. My Brooks banjo is on order. J

Buying Tips

You probably want an 11 or 12 inch rim and a 25 to 27 inch scale. Way different that those two is probably not good for your first banjo. When I started playing 11 inch rims were the standard, most people seem to be moving to 12 inchs these days. I have both and both are good. Going smaller than 11 inch isn’t probably a good idea unless you know what you are doing and are looking for a specific sound.
Do yourself a favor and make sure ALL of the tuning pegs are geared even the 5^th string one (assuming you can afford it, the Rover doesn’t have a geared 5^th string tuning peg). It saves a lot of time and hassle when you are first learning to tune your banjo.
Real skin heads might be a bit more work than you need when first learning to play. Keep that in mind. The new renascence heads are great, and I highly recommend them.
Never buy a cheap used banjo off of ebay. They are never as good as they say they are. If they are good it will be way over priced, used bernunzio.com or banjohangout.org instead.
Unless you really know what you are doing, get the new banjo setup by a professional (some places come setup like Bernunzio, so ask). It is cheap and will make a world of difference. To find one call a local guitar shop which does setups and ask if they have people who work on banjos. If they don’t ask if they know a place that does. A few calls later you should find your man. Also banjo teachers should know who can set it up for you. Also they should be able to tell if it needs one.
If there isn’t anyone around you that knows how to setup a banjo buy the Complete Banjo Repair book by Larry Sandberg and learn to do it yourself.
Have your setup guy put a rail spike in the 7^th fret for the 5^th string and buy a capo. Don’t put it in yourself. It is too cheap to risk it. You don’t have to do this right away, but you will need to if you want to play with a mandolin or fiddle player.
You can get your parts from Janet Davis Music and Stewart-MacDonald, both are fine stores.

Learning Your First Licks

At some point I want to put a lot more instructional info here, but for now I don’t have the time. But I can point you in the right direction. First and foremost GET A TEACHER! I can not stress this enough. The banjo has been taught and “handed down” person to person since the beginning. There is no substitute for a real live person to teach you. If you know of any bands with banjo players ask them about it. Or call guitar shops who give guitar lessons. Ask if anyone there teaches the banjo and if they don’t ask if they could recommend another place to call. Once you find a banjo teacher make sure they teach clawhammer and not just bluegrass. If they look down there nose at clawhammer move on, life it too short for that.

With that out of the way, first thing you need to get down in the right hand technique (assuming you are right handed). Luckily you can work on this all day in Open G and it will sound fine. Get your banjo to Open G. If you don’t know how check out the Tuning frame on Uncle Bens Banjo Homepage. Then check out the frailing frame on Uncle Bens Banjo Homepage. Work on it. This is also very well explained in the The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo book. The companion DVD shows it and you can hear it. Work on that for a while. Order the books while working from Uncle Ben’s page, and find yourself a teacher. By the way I use my middle finger, you can use either that or your index. Opinions vary. Once you can do something with the right hand, start mixing it up with chords on the left hand. Chords take some time to get down, so relax. Another, easier, way to learn the chords is to learn one song after another, each song introducing a new chord; this is what a teacher is for. Below are some chords for you to practice. Practice switching between them. Start by doing the basic right hand technique with different chords. Then play: 1 strum pluck, 5 strum pluck, for a measure of one chord, then switch to another chord. If you are thinking “Huh?” that makes more sense after you look at the chord diagrams. If you are still lost the Tao book has some great exercises for this and explains it in more detail. And your teacher will explain what I mean if you ask. One note about the Tao book: It is a great resource for beginners. But move on quickly. The author tends to think one size fits all, he uses only G tuning, tells people to use their middle finger over the head of the banjo, etc. So don’t take everything he says as gospel. Use his book as a way to get going and quickly find teachers and people to play with and keep an open mind.

Chords

The links below are the chord charts. The dots are where your fingers go. The numbers represent which finger it is. The numbers at the top show the fret, and the letters at the bottom the name of the chord. Red is the root or 1 note of the chord, blue is the 5 note of the chord. Closed chords (all 4 strings are fingered) are shown as movable and each fret shows what the chord is. Enjoy!

Major Chords Open G Tuning

Major 7 Chords Open G Tuning

Minor Chords Open G Tuning

Major Chords Double C Tuning

Minor and Major 7 Chords Double C Tuning

Major Chords G Modal Tuning

Minor and Major 7 Chords G Modal Tuning

Major Chords Standard C Tuning

Albums and People

To get a good feel of this kind of music, you are going to have to start to listen to it. There is no way around it. Let me say that again more clearly: To be good at the old time banjo, you have to listen to old time music. If you listen to pop radio in the car, and expect to get good at old time music you are kidding yourself. Unless you grew up embedded with this music, you have some catching up to do. That means buying a lot of CDs and listening to them when you drive and whenever you can listen but can’t play. Even with a teacher you can’t get good if you don’t know what good is.

Places to Buy:

Many artists sell their CDs directly on their own web sites. I love buying direct, it is better for them and you often get on their mailing list which is cool. So always check that. Many also sell them through CD Baby so check there too.

Elderly Instruments has a good selection of clawhammer banjo CDs to choose from.
Of course the trusty standbys have many CDs too. Many of my favorite CDs came from Amazon. Also check out the MP3s on archive.org here. Some great old stuff for free!

There are many good CDs and artists, I'll try to give you a good sampling to get you started:

Must Haves Banjo CDs:

Clawhammer banjo volume One

Clawhammer banjo volume Two

Clawhammer banjo volume Three

High Atmosphere

Banging & Sawing by Bob Carlin

String Bands (you should try to have about half of your CDs by string bands, pick whatever CDs from them you like):

Skillet Lickers

The Highwoods String Band

The Volo Bogtrotters

Carolina Chocolate Drops

Foghorn String Band

The Forge Mountain Diggers

Indian Creek Delta Boys

Other good banjo CD's:

Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia

Dear Old Illinois

Kentucky Old Time Banjo

The North Carolina Banjo Collection

Other Great Banjo players who have CD's or are on CD’s to check out (this is just a starting list):

Arnie Naiman & Chris Coole

Cathy Barton and Dave Para

Clare Milliner and Walt Koken

Dave Landreth

Dirk Powell (fiddle)

Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley

Frank Proffitt

Grandpa Jones

Hobart Smith

Lunsford, Bascom Lamar

Lynn Chirps Smith (fiddle)

Mac Benford

Paul Brown

R.D. Lunceford

Reed Martin

Riley Baugus

Uncle Dave Macon

Dan Gellert

Brad Leftwich

Reed Martin

Mike Seeger

Pete Seeger

Wade Ward

Kyle Creed

Fred Cockerham

Glen Smith

Charlie Lowe

Use those names to Google or help you pick out CDs that look good. Good luck building your music collection!

Books

Basic Learning Books:

The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo by Patrick Costello
Good starter book. If you get a teacher you can skip it. If not this can get you started, but don’t get caught up in the Dogma. Don’t be confused later when you meet great banjo players who’s opinions differ from what is in this book. There is no right or wrong way to go most of this stuff.

The Banjo Newsletter
Not really a book, but get it coming as soon as possible. I really wish I started way earlier. This is a must have. Any keep them! You will wish you had later if you don’t.

Complete Banjo Repair by Larry Sandberg
Great for learning how your banjo works, and setup, etc.

Tab Books:

I know, some people think tab is evil. To a point I agree, but I still use it some. If you use tab, don’t rely on it and make sure you can learn songs by ear. If you are all by ear, don’t ignore tab, sometimes learning tab out of the newsletter is cool.

Banjo Player's Songbook by T. Jumper
Some of you will use tab, some of you will go more old school. That is up to you. If you learn by tab at all, this is a great book for beginners.

The Banjo Picker's Fakebook by David Brody
This will add songs that the songbook doesn’t have. You won’t need it for a while, but at some point it is nice to have.

Tips

Putting a towel in the back of your banjo will reduce the volume. This will keep any spouse, roommate, or neighbor from killing you while you learn new things. I also use this in hotel rooms while traveling and have never got one complaint.
Play with other people as soon as possible. It will make you a way better player and you will learn faster. Even if it is just one person.
Get the Banjo Newsletter soon and start reading it. It will help you learn who is who in the community, find CD’s, festivals, camps, etc.
Join the banjohangout.org website, it is a valuable resource.
Use youtube.com Search for clawhammer, banjo, and song names you are interested in, there is a ton of stuff.
Lot’s of bands and old time music folks are on My Space, including me. Check it out and friend me while you are at it. http://www.myspace.com/zenbanjoman
Listen to Old Time string bands, fiddle, and banjo as much as possible. Don’t waste car time.
Buy a capo and get a rail spike put in on the 7th fret for the 5th string. Otherwise you will have a harder time playing with people. Of course this is optional, not everyone does it.
If you learn from tab, get the song "off the page" and keep it there with practice. No one wants to see a tab book or sheet music at a jam session.
Sing along when there are words to do so. It doesn't matter if you can't sing, it helps in the learning process.
Keep you fingernails cut short, but leave just a little extra on the finger you hit the strings with on your right hand. This will help give you volume if you want it.
Use a banjo strap so you don't have to hold the neck up with your left hand even while sitting, it is more important than you think.
Learn about old time music gatherings and festivals in your area and start going to them. It takes some courage but it will be some of the most rewarding parts of taking up the banjo.
Banjo camps are a great way to learn a ton in a short time from world class teachers, meet a bunch of people, and check out a lot of different banjos and their sounds. Try to go to at least one.

Links

Some of these links fit is two or more categorize. You will just have to deal with it. Also not every link above is listed here so look at the rest of the page for more links. For the record, these are in no order. If you know of a cool link or two I’m missing, email them to me. I’m always looking for new stuff.

Thank you for visiting my site.

So you want to play the banjo huh?

Buying a Banjo

Learning Your First Licks

Lessons

MP3 and Music

Banjos and Parts

Festivals Camps and Schools

Tabs and Music