banjo 101 for guitarists

August 12, 2006 9:36 AM

I have recently been turned on to bluegrass, and am especially in awe of banjo players. I play guitar and would love to add banjoesque picking techniques to my arsenal, and assume other players have already done so. Are there any guitarists who employ banjo picking patterns? Online instruction, tabs, &c.?
posted by signal to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

I just 'picked' up a banjo myself and am eagerly awaiting to read the answers. All I have to offer is that you'll probably be most interested in the pattern for Scruggs-style.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:59 AM on August 12, 2006

Also, this previous AskMe post might help you if you haven't already seen it.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:05 AM on August 12, 2006

Learn a forward roll and a forward reverse roll. These work great on guitar. Not all banjo rolls translate as well to guitar. I started on banjo, learned a forward roll and decided to see what it sounded like on guitar. I had so much fun playing it on guitar that I wound up spending the next 2-3 years working on finger-style guitar. I finally did return to the banjo, though, and still love it dearly.
posted by wsg at 10:51 AM on August 12, 2006

Mark Knopfler uses a banjo-like pick style. He explains the basics here.
posted by RussHy at 10:57 AM on August 12, 2006

That Knopfler vid is cool. It's a lesson in basic Travis-style fingerpicking.
posted by wsg at 12:05 PM on August 12, 2006

Response by poster: wsg: question: foward and f-reverse rolls call for the 5th string, which if I understand correctly is tuned to the same pitch as the 1st string, which doesn't seem practical on a standard-gauge stringed guitar. How do you adjust for this?
posted by signal at 5:14 PM on August 12, 2006

Good question. This is why some rolls don't translate to guitar so well. Use the 3 high strings, G-B-E, for now, OR, you can use the thumb notes as an alternating bass pattern on the bass strings, E-A-D. Hope this helps. I do a lot of solo and duo work and I use these rolls A LOT. You will get a whole lot of mileage out of them if you can get them down, but it does take time to get adept. Of course, start very slowly. Like Knopfler said "It's difficult to learn," but once you get it, a lot grows out of it. Also, if you don't know the pattern that Knopfler plays, it would behoove you to learn that one, too.
posted by wsg at 5:46 PM on August 12, 2006

There are many good fingerstyle guitar lessons on youtube. The key is the double-time thumb playing on every beat (in 4/4). These lessons are more in line with the Knopfler video than banjo, though.

http://youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_sort=relevance&search_query=fingerstyle+guitar
posted by wsg at 5:58 PM on August 12, 2006

oops. Here's that link hot.
posted by wsg at 5:58 PM on August 12, 2006

This is not an answer to your question, but is related.

I recently learned that I also like bluegrass. I've heard a lot that I like on the Bluegrass Preservation Society podcast at bluegrasspreservation.org
posted by JamesMessick at 7:05 PM on August 13, 2006