Hey Gang- How are you doing? Okay? I hope you’re feeling super-awesome. I’ve got a surprise. I’ve bought a banjo!!! Here it is. 
The banjo I’ve bought is a Recording King RKS-06-YE Starlight Series 5-String Banjo. It’s yellow as you can see.
Why a banjo?
Why a banjo?
A very good question. Well, I have wanted to learn to play the one for a few years. I enjoy the tonal quality and how it works as a solo instrument and an ensemble one. I’ve taken the resonator back off and decided to paint a design on it. The design with be a tree in the center surrounded by a celtic knotwork. I’ll show you after its finished.
I started to learn not just the chords of this new instrument, but the style of playing. It’s been challenging because it’s slightly different than playing either a fingerstyle or finger-pulling thing. The main difference as I understand it and please note that I am just learning so I could be wrong is where the 1 in the beat is. In a fingerstyle guitar the 1 is on the bass note or the thumb strike, but on the banjo’s claw style the thumb strikes the 5th string (the tiny thin one) on the ‘and’.
1,and,2,and,3,and,4, and… which seems to me to give the rhythm a syncopated thing. It’s sort of challenging. I find myself switching back and forth all the time because of my guitar style. Time and practice will help things out and I will get better.
Here's a video to accompany the blog post.
Keep coming back and see how I’m doing.
Thanks
Trevor
No comments:
Post a Comment