Banjo For Dummies. Bill Evans

Banjo For Dummies

comfortable playing with others on stage. At a festival, you spend a good deal of your time standing in a circle of musicians at jam sessions, so practicing while standing up is a great idea every now and then (and don't forget to bring a comfortable pair of shoes!).

Fretting with the Left Hand

The left hand's job is to change the pitches of the banjo strings to get all the notes you need for chords and melodies. The left hand accomplishes this task by pressing the tips of the fingers against the fingerboard just behind a fret, as needed, to shorten the length of a string and make its pitch higher. This technique is called fretting.

Fretting individual strings and chords on the banjo is a breeze after you've adopted these simple tips for finding a comfortable left-hand position on your banjo neck. Here's a step-by-step guide:

1 Rest your left hand on your leg and totally release all body tension from your hand and arm, just as if you were asleep (see Figure 3-6a).Your hand should assume a relaxed shape in which all the fingers are slightly bent in toward your palm (I know for some of you, it's difficult to relax. I'm from Berkeley, California, so just think of this as the California portion of the lesson and chill!).

2 Keeping the wrist relaxed but straight, place the left-hand thumb on the upper part of the back of the banjo neck, opposite the space between the 1st and 2nd frets (see Figure 3-6b).Remember not to support the weight of the neck with the left hand or pull down on the neck with your thumb. And keep chillin’! The hand and fingers should stay relaxed, as in Step 1.

3 Relax your shoulder, arm, and elbow, bringing your elbow down and in toward your body.This should move your hand forward in front of the banjo neck, maximizing the angle that your fingers will use to fret the strings.

4 Move your left-hand middle finger just behind the 2nd fret of the 3rd string and push down on the string, fretting it with the tip of your finger (see Figure 3-6c).Don't fret on top of the 2nd fret but position the finger as close behind the fret as you can. Try to maintain a vertical position with the fretting finger so that the adjacent strings are able to ring freely.

5 Try playing the 3rd string with the thumb of your right hand.The goal is to get a clear, ringing sound out of the note you've just fretted, with no buzzing.

If the new note sounds good, congratulations! You've accomplished the first necessary task to becoming a great banjo player, and you're now officially playing the banjo!

Photos depict getting a good left-hand position: Relaxing the left hand (a), positioning the thumb to get ready to fret (b), and fretting the 3rd string at the 2nd fret (c).

Photographs by Anne Hamersky

FIGURE 3-6: Getting a good left-hand position: Relaxing the left hand (a), positioning the thumb to get ready to fret (b), and fretting the 3rd string at the 2nd fret (c).

Now lift up the fretting finger and play the open (or unfretted) 3rd string with your right-hand thumb. As you lift the fretting finger, don't bring it too far up above the string; position your finger just above the string so that you're ready to fret again. Now fret the 3rd string again at the 2nd fret and strike the string with the right-hand thumb to check for clarity. Alternate between the open and fretted positions until the movement of your left-hand finger becomes second nature.

Remaining relaxed while fretting is important, so every now and then, do a quick mental check to make sure your arm, elbow, and hand are as comfortable as possible. Creating tension by using too much pressure with the left-hand fingers when fretting isn't unusual for new players. You want to use as much fretting pressure as it takes, but no more.

You can find out just how much pressure you need by placing a finger in a fretted position, just barely touching the string. Now gradually apply more pressure on the string with the left-hand finger, striking it repeatedly with the right hand as you go. You literally hear the sound come into focus as you fret. After you've passed the threshold where the sound is clear, note how much pressure you're using with the left-hand finger. If you're like most people, you may be surprised at how little effort it takes to cleanly fret with the left-hand fingers. The goal is to use just as much pressure as you need to get a clear fretted sound, but no more.

Watch Video Clip 2 to see how I put these fretting tips into action, and if you want to check out some more advanced left-hand techniques such as the slide, hammer-on, pull-off, and choke, turn to Chapter 6 with your right hand as soon as possible.

Fingering G, D7, and C Chords

The first time you discover how to fret a chord on your banjo is a very big moment in your burgeoning playing career. Whether you're blazing through a banjo breakdown or accompanying a campfire singer, chords are essential to playing the banjo. In this section, you master the three basic chords used in thousands of songs. If the world suddenly seems like a much better place after you've successfully fretted each of the chords in this section, that's a good indication that you were born to be a banjo player.

After you've mastered each chord by itself, try moving from one chord to the next, in any order that strikes your fancy. Strum with a downward right-hand thumb motion across all five strings a few times for each new chord and strive for a clear, ringing sound from each string for all three chords. This stuff is pretty exciting, isn't it? You'll put these chords to use later in this chapter.

Try to keep the tips of your left-hand fingers close to the neck and pointed towards the fingerboard at all times as you move from one chord to the next. At first, you may have to move one left-hand fretting finger at a time as you work the different chord fingerings into your motor memory. However, in the long run, fretting all the strings you need for a chord at the same time is more efficient. After you've mastered this skill, you can switch between chords with greater speed and accuracy.

The G chord: Real easy

Although people very seldom associate the banjo with Zen, you really don't have to fret anything at all to play the G chord, grasshopper! A G chord is just the sound of your right hand strumming the open strings in G tuning (see Chapter 2 for more tuning info). You could use your left hand to wave to your adoring fans, but I think it may be a little early for these kinds of grand gestures.

The D7 chord: A little harder

For the D7 chord, you place your middle finger just behind the 2nd fret of the 3rd string and your index finger behind the 1st fret of the 2nd string. Try strumming down across all five strings with your right-hand thumb, starting with the 5th string and striking each note down to the 1st string. Try a slow strum to check the accuracy of your fretting on each individual string, but then don't be afraid to go wild with some fast strumming to strut your stuff!

The C chord: More challenging still

The C chord is a bit harder than the D7 chord (see the preceding section) because you use one more left-hand finger to fret this chord. Here, the left-hand index frets the 2nd string, 1st fret — just as with the D7 chord. However, now you move your middle finger to the 4th string, 2nd fret, and you also need to fret the 1st string at the 2nd fret. Be careful that you fret

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