How To Choose a Banjo——Banjo Playing Techniques

[Emma]

The earliest style of playing banjo, and still an important one, is called the clawhammer technique. The name comes from the clawlike positioning of the hand, and most modern playing styles grew out of it. Clawhammer involves striking the four main strings in a downward motion using the index or middle fingernail. Simultaneously, the shorter fifth drone string is played with the thumb using a lifting motion. Complex melodies can be played with the addition of techniques such as “drop thumb” and “double thumbing”.

While clawhammer is largely aimed at creating driving rhythms, variations of the technique allow the player to sound single-string melodic notes, strum harmonic chords, and produce all sorts of percussive effects on the banjo’s head. A whole range of brushing and picking effects gives the banjo the ability to play a lead instrument role, rather than simply being an accompaniment to other instruments.

Traditional Appalachian banjo involved a style called two finger up-pick. As noted above, banjo player Earl Scruggs refined and popularized a three-finger style that has become the basis for modern bluegrass banjo technique, and is often referred to as “Scruggs style.” Even people uninterested in bluegrass became familiar with the fast, highly arpeggiated style Scruggs developed thanks to his “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme song for TV’s "The Beverly Hillbillies."

There are a number of other bluegrass playing styles that have been popularized by the banjo players for whom they’re named. Keith style, named for Bill Keith emphasizes melodic figures. Reno style is a three-finger technique with substantial single-string picking that’s named for Don Reno. As with Scruggs style, they’re played using finger picks and all such styles feature rolls—repeated patterns of eighth notes that are played in eight-note patterns while the player’s left hand chords. By varying the rolls throughout a song, the banjo helps to create rhythms that work within the overriding beat to prevent bluegrass from sounding mechanistic.