You do what?? At first 'frailing' seems like the most perverse way to play a musical instrument you can imagine. Down picking all the notes with the back of your middle or index finger(I go for middle). The strumming action also feels bizarre as well, as instead of flicking across the strings you kind of curl and uncurl you hand and the movement draws you finger across the strings.
As you've probably heard in my earlier post, this action isn't one that comes immediately as an involuntary response, especially from me,or if you've watched guitarists or someone like Earl Scruggs picking away furiously in the bluegrass style. Which is probably what comes to mind when most people think of banjo playing.
There's also something called the 'bump-ditty' which is analogous to the sounds made during the frailing technique! The 'bump' is the sound made on striking the string and the 'ditty' bit is the combination of the subsequent strum and the plucking of the 5th string with your thumb. This process entails making a claw shape with you hand and then rocking it over the strings to strike the strings(bump), strum(dit) and pluck(y). The thing I like most about the frailing technique is it's rhythmic quality, you're not focusing on melody exclusively and originally it was meant as an accompaniment to singing.
Sounds really complicated? Patrick Costello's online video workshops are the best teaching resources I've found on the web. He doesn't expect any level of prior knowledge and doesn't wrap it all up in jargon. Here's Patrick on the basic frailing technique.
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