Pretty Polly - Traditional Banjo Lesson 

Nice sound.....what banjo is that you’re using?... great

Hi Clifton. today is my birthday (78) and I started playing a recording king banjo about a month ago. I tried Scruggs style, and then Clawhammer (overhand) and.then discovered 2 finger (with you), but had trouble with my picks. well....my thumb pick broke; and living in a small town in Saskatchewan with no supplies, I was then obligated to use my bare thumb & fingers. WELL.... WHAT A DIFFERENCE.!! Now I'm sounding like a real banjo player...(sort of - lol) Thanks for all you do. I'm not wealthy but I will send you something on Patreon. Keep pickin' buddy. :)

Every now and then Clifton, feel free to embellish the hell out of your songs. Sounds fantastic.

Few minutes of Mr Clifton and I learned how-to drop thumb properly! Thanks Clifton, appreciate!

I love that here "embellishment" = space. When I was first learning music on the bass guitar all of the best instructionals I saw or read would repeat that "the most important notes are the ones you don't play." Didn't get it at the time, but it's stuck out in my mind as particularly great advice recently.

This is great! Thanks.

Will show this to my good friend Bobby Thank you

Thankyou Clifton, I love learning licks, both clawhammer and two-finger!

So grateful for these videos man. I will contribute financially soon!

Hey Clifton. Greeting from Australia once more. Just wanted to thank you for giving a bit of time to "overhand" style. I'm coming up for three years of learning clawhammer and although I've tinkered with the two finger style according to your tips, my old brain can't really cope with learning two styles at once. As much as I admire your two finger, a little bit of an overhand demo, as you often do, helps me greatly to inject a little bit of that gritty Hicks feel into my playing. Thanks again. In other news... finally got me a fretless gourd! Its GREAT, and not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be.

Thanks from Spain! Good lesson Clifton! 👌🏽🙋🏻‍♂️

Thanks for making these vidoes. It has helped me out a lot.

I don't learn to many songs in the summer, usually too busy outside. I think I may try to squeeze this one in though. I like the way you play them. That is why I try to learn from your tutorials rather than some tab in a book. Already learned Going Across the Mountain, Hook and Line, and East Virginia from you. All overhand though. I'm going to try 2 finger on this one. Thanks again, Nate

I *think* you are doing something extremely unique with your 2 finger picking. I've been diving deep into the history of 2 finger and thumb vs index lead. From what I can tell, you are mixing the 2 in a very unique way that combines the best of both worlds. It seems that people that try to play thumb lead place the 5th string drone on beat and have the index as the 'and', where as index lead has the drone on the 5th string on the 'and', the same as overhand. You are playing the 5th string drone on the 'and' the same as overhand would, but then using the thumb on the lower notes to pick the melody, rather than using the index. This means that occasionally you might have to double up on 2 quick notes played with the thumb or index, or leave a gap and not play a drone note in order to facilitate. I don't think most people are doing this, they're playing a straight square roll that starts on the thumb or index. Your style gives a natural syncopation, born out of necessity to facilitate the technique. When you leave out a drone in order to start a thumb lead lick, it gives a half-time sort of feel and a bluesy sound for that moment before the rolling commences. It sounds extremely natural and primitive, and I don't mean that in the negative sense at all. I think this may be the key to unlock the doors to the mystery of the two styles and playing a more natural way, as you do. I also suspect that if you could get very fast at the doubling-up of the thumb (or index) on the drone followed by a melody note, it would eventually allow you to play at bluegrass speed with constant rolling. I could be completely wrong, but I'm starting to think this is probably the path that Scruggs took. Then the middle finger came in later to more easily facilitate the speed without having to double up on the index. This would make sense, and it's similar to 'travis picking'. Merle and others before him used 2 fingers, sometimes to play very quick licks, then others began using the middle to prevent having to double up on the index. But its all there within the 2 finger travis style, and you can play pretty much anything 2 finger if you are quick enough. Your technique appears to have no limits as to the rolling patterns, licks and speed you could potentially use , if you so desired. Even though you say it is a very straight forward song, there is a real truth contained within. I think your 2 finger style is an incredible time capsule and important chronical of banjo history and technique, an incredible lesson for new players and those wanting to get to the real heart of it and find the common ground in all the various 'styles' that exist. I've been searching for that common ground where every style makes sense in relation to each other, and I think this is it.

This is just such a great version of this song Clifton. As a newbie I really wish you had some tabs for me to study from.

The drop thumb frailing and two finger style are killing me but I'm going to try to get them down this year

Hey Clif, after a lot of hard work on emulating your version of Wild Bill Jones I've just now branched out to working on Pretty Polly. I've been thinking that it's gonna be awfully hard not to slip into Wild Bill Jones as both songs (your versions) use the same method of creating a background droning using a variation of the Knott County lick (which drew me to interest in learning these two songs because I love the sound it creates). I smiled at the tail end of this video when you recommend branching out and embellishing and you throw out a snippet of Wild Bill Jones!

03:24

Great tutorial! Did ya get the old Luscomb back? Or am I mistaken that you ever let it go 😂

Tuning is fCFBflatC

Should I be following the sound or your finger positioning? I'm having trouble with this lesson. Thanks for the content Clifton.

Commie hat ?