Groanbox Boys

If you get chance to see 'em, take it. I saw them in in 2008 when they were in North Yorkshire and they play a great mix of folk, blues and old-time music - fantastic.



http://www.groanboxboys.com/

drop thumbing - new tunes over xmas

Started to try and get my head around drop-thumbing. This is where you drop you thumb down and pluck one of the first four strings instead of the 5th string. It's a a technique which breaks the monotony of the constant pluck-strum-pluck rhythm.

Pickin and Grinnin (How to Play Banjo - Tim Jumper p41)


Irish Melody (same)


Here's Patrick Costello showing how it should be done.

Heroes - Dock Boggs

Initially, what got me into banjo was the idea of the bluegrass picker blazing away on those intricate rolls, but as I started to look at the history of the instrument more closely I came to feel that there was lot more to the story, and that the different styles of playing that evolved reflect the history and politics of America as it developed a unique and vibrant culture of its own through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

For me, one musician represents what I love about both banjo and American music - Dock Boggs. He's virtually unknown in the UK but his music has a fascinating hybrid quality which sets him apart. His recordings from the 1920s are a combination of old-time folk songs and early blues and have a driving rhythm which feels distinctive and unique. Boggs only recorded about twenty tracks in the 1920s before the Great Depression finished his recording career and sent back to the mines, where he stayed until he was rediscovered by Mike Seeger in the 1960s. He rerecorded a lot of his old songs and a load of folk standards for Folkways Records and you can download both his old and new stuff from Smithsonian Folkways - see the links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dock_Boggs
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=313
http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-6/6-5/dock-boggs.html

This is Jim Pankey playing a great clawhammer version of Country Blues

It's what your right hand's for... frailing

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.

moving on

These are all tunes I recorded over subsequent weeks and months as a record of how I'm doing.

Boil 'em Cabbage Down (March 08)


Cripple Creek (March 08)


My First Tune (Sept 08)


Jessie James (Sept 08)


Goin down the Road Feeling Bad (Nov 08)

First Tunes February/March 08

This is the first piece I learned, 'Goodnight Ladies'. It's from the Mel Bay book for beginners bluegrass, but as I've never played guitar or anything before, I think that to start out with bluegrass banjo was a bit ambitious. The three-finger style is quite complex to pick up from scratch and trying to get my head around left and right hand actions was too much. It was also slow, demoralising and not much fun - for anyone!

Tom Dooley

It was then I went out looking for tutorial books, as there aren't that many banjo teachers in North Yorkshire, none to be precise. I found a book by Tim Jumper, 'How to Play Banjo', which takes things right back to basics, and finally introduced me to the 'frailing' style, which is a more rhythmic technique than the intricate bluegrass style. Admittedly I'm murdering any style here, but it felt like I was making progress. More about frailing later...

Jessie James


Sourwood Mountain

Northern Banjo Boy

Well I'm not really a boy, but 'man' sounded like I know what I'm talking about...

I started playing the banja in Jan 2008 and since then it's become something of an obsession, so alongside torturing the family and neighbours - as well as droning on and on to anyone who'll listen - I've found loads of stuff on the web and other places which I keep losing, so this is somewhere for me to keep track of all this stuff and to see how I'm doing compared to how I was.

Oh, the guy in the picture isn't me. I'm fatter and not so cool. This guy is a picker from the USA called Munsey Gaultney (me neither!) but if you want to see any more pictures of old people plucking a stick go to www.oldtimeherald.org