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