This is the best demonstration/discussion of right hand clawhammer technique ever seen. I've been playing for almost 10 years and was schooled in the "thumb always hits the 5th string" technique, something I use to this day. I didn't know there were players who played with a floating thumb. I don't have a problem drop thumbing, but I use my index finger and have small hands and can see how this could add tension to my right hand. Besides straight clawhammer, I'm sure being able to use floating thumb would be really useful when I want to mix in guitar like strumming in between single notes. Thanks Mike.
On my 4th week of clawhammer. I started using my middle finger and can't quite get a volume out of it. Tried my index and it's much louder. But you are right, I have more control using my middle and much more relaxed.....oh whoa is me!
A very helpful video - thank you. Regarding my own playing, for a long time I couldn't pluck the inside strings properly with my thumb. I eventually realised that (for me at least), the thumb has to go in at a steep angle, (almost vertically) sounding the string by coming off it at a similar angle. When I began clawhammer style, I was trying to push my thumb in the direction of the floor, and it just seemed to lock, it wouldn't sound the string and felt awkward. I hope this description makes sense!
Your approach is just awesome. Your hand looks so relaxed it blows me away but the way you do it is the same way I would like to learn to play since I am just learning. It looks like with the floating and resting positions help you play I guess the drop thumb style very efficiently and with ease. Your info to me is so instructive with a balanced approach all I can say is thank you very much.
finally, the mists clear ,i get to see what goes on behind the fist, allways been a guitarist, finger-picker-hippie, till i heard my first banjo,gotta remember im english,then i heard old time,saw clawhammer played ,loved it,you are my new hero
this is the first video i have found that is shot from the proper angle to see what your doing.... every other video ive seen they shoot it face on and all you can see is the back of the hand. Thank you so much!
What a wonderfully clear and helpful demonstration! I just built my own banjo and am figuring out how to play - this is the best introduction I've seen. Thank you -
Although I'm not a banjo player, I have to thank you for this and your clawhammer banjo website. I'm trying to adapt clawhammer style of playing for my bass guitar, and this is really, really helpful for me. Mostly single note brushes and drop and double thumbing in my style of play.
Hi, Mike! I just wanted to let you know thanks for everything. I bought a banjo last summer and I have been playing both Clawhammer and with Fingerpicks. I was already quite good on a few other instruments so I am picking the banjo up extremely quickly. I just wanted to say thanks for your website. It is great. The collection of great tabs have made my adventures with clawhammer/old-time much easier to learn. I appreciate people like yourself. I never thought banjo could be so addicting.
Thank you so much for really slowing this down Mike. To me the sound of the clawhammer style is very deceptive to the mechanics that are actually involved. This was very helpful.
Great teaching! I’ve played guitar all my life but only recently picked up a nylgut banjo. Techniques one and two are what I’ve fallen into. I think because they are similar to my “ flick “ guitar strum. I was watching some other clawhammer instruction and they all made me feel like I was doing it wrong. They were teaching the elusive third technique. I started off using the first finger to frail just to start with consistency but using the middle has stopped my cussing while doing three. Thanks!
tHIS IS WONDERFUL. I am trying to put together a lesson package for a friend of mine who is a long time musician in jazz and blues who is learning the banjo. My biggest problem learning the banjo is the my way or the high way fanatics who think all there is is one way of playing down picking , when most developed players learn to play a variety of ways,
Mike Hello ..This was great to see. I am 40 years doing something close to the third attack . I like the dynamic clarity it gives me and being what I do, there is no tension ever .. The thinking is architectural and all measurements to the strings comes from the distance from the Thumb on the fifth string to the others (Making drop thumb very easy) . I love how at ease you're playing is .If you are ever in Connecticut stop by for some fun All the best , Guy
I bought a banjo a little under a year ago. I am very, very familiar with guitars (and i much prefer acoustics) and decently familiar with pianos and the banjo has come extremely easily to me. I love it an unbelievable amount. Anyways, while I play a healthy mixture of frailing/clawhammer and 3-finger picking style, (both of which are awesome, but I find 3 finger to be easier and more useful in my songwriting) I think that your website is the best clawhammer instruction and tab around. Thanks
Thanks Mike, I have been told that "it has to be this way!" and I am so happy to see that I have a choice which way and where my thumb wants to be. Please post more. Newbie:::: :)
You have a wonderful loose and at ease sound.Your third style with a bit more practice will give you a crisper pallet so I hope you dont throw away the possibilities you could get from exploring it. I love your loose style but the thumb at right angle to the hand can really give you that crisper more driven sound when asked for.Index or Middle finger measures in and out from the thumb in double-thumbing in this style so the double thumb is easy and crisp when needed. All the best Guy
I find it very difficult to do drop thumb or floating thumb w/ much accuracy. I suppose it will only get easier with practice. Thanks for the video! You are greatly appreciated!
If you'd like to get complete control over your right hand, start by playing a single note with the back of the fingernail without letting the thumb come into the fifth string at all. Immediately follow this with a "skip", throwing the thumb into a string at exactly the same time as the "skip". This is hard to explain in text but easy to demonstrate in person (or through an internet lesson). Mike
I really enjoyed this lesson - makes sense of my problem. I can't keep any rhythm going if I use my index finger and have to pick the first string - I think it must be a tension problem - having to force my finger and and thumb apart. I'm much more comfortable playing with the middle finger -just have to hope it will strengthen given time.
Oh i thought Saga since you listed a Saga Pony at one time as being one of your banjos and i guess now i know where they got the idea for their peg head inlay. thanks.
i think this might just be a solution to the drop thumb problem i have. i play the 3rd way where my thumb touches the 5th string every time. this feels quite natural to me however im finding it near impossible to do a drop thumb. i will give one of the other methods a shot for awhile and see if it helps. thanks!
What kind of Banjo are you playing? i know it's a Saga but which model and what sort of nylon strings are you using? i ask because i would like to go to nylon strings but don't want to go to a low tuning. i am recommending this video to everyine i know interested in clawhammer banjo, beginner or not.
When you hit the strings with the "claw" do you pretty much always touch or scrape the skin of any of your fingers (particularly the middle) against the strings? Is that normal? Or do you open your hand so far that its angled so that only your fingernail hits? Thanks.
Only the fingernails hit. Send an email via the contact page on my website (a link is in the video description) and I'll send you a pdf file of my "Basic Right Hand Technique" handout...
Going with one approach at the start makes it hrd to put it the rhythmic variety a player wants once she or he starts listening to real old time banjoist or wanting to make their own real muisc. In fact i think a beginner should learn to play the bump diddy, the drop thumb, and double thumbing at the start, rather than wait to learn bump diddy first
I just started playing banjo about a month ago. After playing the bumdiddy for 3 weeks using thumb and index, I decided to take a lesson from an older man. He claims he plays both bluegrass and clawhammer. I showed him what I was working on and he had never seen this method. He plays with thumb/index/middle using an upward stroke like a fingerstyle guitarist would do. is this a bluegrass method. Do you thnk it would be too confusing to learn both ways?
Kathy, I would recommend you follow you heart. If you are attracted to both styles, then by all means pursue them both! It worked for me! I you don't feel the passion for one of the styles, I would recommend against wasting your time with it; focus on what you love...
It's an S.S. Stewart "banjuerine" built in the early 1890s. It got a short scale length and is tuned up 2 1/2 steps higher than a standard banjo (think of it as being capoed up five frets). I suspect they went with a 13" rim as a way to mellow out the sound...
What kind of Banjo are you playing? i know it's a Saga but which model and what sort of nylon strings are you using? i ask because i would like to go to nylon strings but don't want to go to a low tuning.
I'm having a very basic problem here, and I didn't know where else I should ask... I' read on your website that I should be able to hold my banjo without supporting it with my left hand, but it seems somehow impssible to me. My banjo has a wooden back and some sort of metal where my right arm normally rests. So it's a) heavy and b) quite slippery. Is there something I can do about it? thanks =)
