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How to Play the Banjo Wrong
Once the most popular fretted instrument in America, the banjo was brought in its infancy with trafficked people from Africa, but then it evolved into something like its present form throughout the cotton plantations, minstrel shows, Mardi Gras parades, early Jazz bands, dance halls, and hoe-downs of the South. By the 1880s, it had spread throughout the country. During the depression, it began to symbolize "grass-roots" America. Then, in the next four decades, it became a prominent national voice for human rights. On its journey, the banjo has both gained and lost strings, acquired multiple tunings, and acquired about fifty different ways to play. All of the ones that have come down to us include fretting the strings with one hand (usually the left) like you do on guitar. And all of them involve setting the strings in motion with the other hand (usually the right). Ways to set the strings in motion include:
In addition, several common banjo styles include ways to affect the strings' motion with the left hand, including "hammering on" (fretting a string that is already in motion) and "pulling off" ("unfretting" a string that is already in motion). And if there weren't enough of these individual techniques to give you a wide range of choices, most traditional banjo players have used a combination of three or four of these techniques in every measure. Even if you ignore the flatpicking techniques (which are seldom used on 5-string banjos today), there are easily forty different ways you can put those building blocks together to create music on a banjo. Sure, some combinations were more popular than others. But it is safe to say that at any given time between, say, 1865 and 1965, at least twenty different combinations were being used by banjo players in different regions or micro-genres. Beyond that, each picker felt free to add whatever techniques he or she thought added to the sound. And why not? The banjo was like the guitar, the saxophone, or any other instrument being used in popular music - any innovation that made the sound more appealing or accessible was welcomed, and usually imitated. In my own experience, right up until changing popular tastes pushed the banjo off the radio by the mid-1970s, playing the banjo was all about entertaining people and getting your message across in a way that people would listen to, remember, and maybe even accept. To my mind, it still is. Why did I mention the mid-1970s? By then, the rise of Rock and Roll and the banjo's apparent connection to "uncool" elements of society (such as the Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw) had taken the banjo out of the mainstream of popular "youth culture" for the next forty years (at least). (Our article "Whatever Happened to the Banjo" addresses that trend.) By the late 1970s, when I played my banjo "out," folks who didn't like Bluegrass didn't understand why a person who was not an inbred, ignorant, racist cave-dweller by birth would even own such a patently offensive device. And folks who liked Bluegrass didn't understand why I didn't make a bigger effort to sound just like "Earl." The Rehabilitation of the Banjo(?)A couple decades ago there was a resurgence of interest in other playing styles, such as frailing and what they're now calling clawhammer. And today's generation of "hipsters" aren't as offended by the sound of banjos on Mumford and Sons tunes as their parents would have been. Now when I take my banjo "out," fewer people automatically assume that I'm a dolt who "doesn't know any better." (Or if they make that assumption, it's not specifically because of the banjo.) Many appreciate hearing something and somebody that doesn't sound just like everybody else. To them the sound of the much-maligned banjo is new and fresh. And that's a good thing. What isn't so good is that some of the folks who taught themselves banjo during those "lean years" are quick to claim that folks who don't play their favorite styles exactly the way they do are playing the banjo "wrong." Technically, they accuse others of being "inauthentic," as though the important thing about banjo music is keeping it straitjacketed into one or two styles that were never close to universal. In light of the banjo's history as "the people's instrument," and its three-century history of evolution and constant reinvention, such attacks on fellow pickers are inexcusable. Worse yet, they confuse and discourage would-be beginners. And that's a very bad thing. To give the devil his due, two or three of the folks telling me that I play the banjo "wrong" do play better than I, especially when they play the one or two styles they're actually any good at. That's not the point. The point is, how did they get from "I like this one style of playing that was popular between 1923 and 1941 in sixteen counties in West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Tennessee" to "Everybody else is wrong"? So I decided to write an article listing all the ways I could think of to play the banjo wrong. I apologize for my explanation for this list being so very much longer than the list itself. How to Play the Banjo WrongHere is the list I've come up with so far:
I'm sure the list will get longer as I get reader responses. How to Play the Banjo RightConversely, I suppose I should provide a list of how to play the banjo right. So here it is:
If you are new to the banjo, or even thinking about getting a banjo, let me welcome you to a long and continuing tradition that (with the exception of a few oddballs) has always been about fun, entertainment, communication, and coming together. Eventually we hope to publish "how-to" play articles from several different traditions, because we think you have the right to try different approaches and to focus on the techniques that get the results you want.
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