The first one is at Didmarton Bluegrass Festival in Kemble, Gloucestershire.  They are playing the main stage at 1pm on Saturday 2nd September.  If you’ve never been to Didmarton before, this is the UK’s premier bluegrass festival with some great bands to see, lots of spontaneous picking sessions and a jam round the campfire until the small hours.  This is Joff’s favourite festival, he went to the very first one in 1989!

The trio are also doing an intimate evening at Priston, near Bath, on Friday 15th September. This will be a candlelit evening, and a great opportunity to hear Joff play a wider range of music including Victorian party pieces, Ragtime, Jazz as well as some original songs and Bluegrass standards, backed up by two of the best bluegrass musicians in the South West.

Contact pristonfestival (at) googlemail.com for more info.

You can see videos of the band performing live here.

The post Joff performing live in South West England appeared first on Joff Lowson.

Hearing a banjo played fast, Bluegrass style, is one of the most exciting sounds in all of music. There’s just so many notes pouring out of the instrument, it’s dazzling. Many people who start learning to play the banjo aspire to play like this. You might think it’s impossible, but deep down inside you know you’d love to be able to play like that!

In this article we’re going to talk about all the factors that go into making that fantastic fingerpicking Bluegrass banjo sound, and give you a few tips on how you can achieve it.

How can people play the banjo so fast?

The secret is to play rolls. A roll is a repeating pattern of notes played with the right hand, if you are a right-handed player, and with the left hand, if you are a left-handed player. There are thousands of possible rolls, and once you have plenty of experience playing the banjo, you will be able to switch between them easily to get different musical effects.

The most commonly played rolls are the Square Roll and the Forward Roll. You can get a really authentic sound with these. The Mixed Roll is also played by many of the most famous banjoists. When you play a roll, some of the notes you play will be the melody, and some will be extra notes added in automatically by the roll to give that exciting sound.

When we talk about a roll, we are only talking about which finger picks each note, and in what order. So for example the Square Roll is four pickstrokes repeated over and over, Thumb Index Thumb Middle, which we abbreviate to TITM. The Forward Roll is just three pickstrokes Thumb Index Middle, so if you play that several times it would be written like this – TIMTIMTIMTIM

This is the first big secret to playing the banjo fast. You are just playing a few simple rolls over and over again, and by changing which strings you play, you make it sound exciting; because unexpected notes come out at unexpected timings. Of course you want to play a melody as well, and you can achieve that by a combination of picking the correct strings and using the other hand to stop or fret the strings to get different notes.

If you are a beginner it’s very important to concentrate on executing every pickstroke and fingering you do with clarity and confidence. It’s great to play just one note at a time to start with, and get a good feeling and sound from every note. If you are a complete beginner, it’s best to play some simple melodies first, before adding any rolls. There are 50 melodies to play here (free videos).

As a beginner, or as an experienced musician wanting to play a banjo show piece fast, the very first step is to play it slowly and accurately.

Keep practicing a number of songs, so you get more and more fluid. You can learn Cripple Creek completely free here on this website, or buy a song tutorial from the store.

Once you’ve got a song you enjoy playing and feel confident you can play it all the way through without a mistake, that’s your opportunity to play a little faster. Play all of your repertoire several times, and especially play your favourite song a few times.

Come back to the banjo every day, and play all your favourite tunes through every day until there is at least one you can play all the way though several times with confidence of playing every note correctly. It’s great to play slowly to start with, every great musician learns tricky new songs by playing them slowly first.

Reminder to stay relaxed and comfortable. Breath comfortably while you are playing. Stay in a good, upright, balanced posture. Don’t allow any strain to come into your body. Get more help to hold the banjo here.

Don’t put any pressure on yourself to play fast, just keep playing perfectly well at your own speed. Gather confidence and experience of playing well with good breathing and feeling every note.

If you keep going every day, after a while, you will naturally feel a bit more energy and/or a bit more relaxed on a particular day, and when you start playing it will just naturally come out a bit faster.

That’s the magic breakthrough moment. Once you know you can play perfectly and speed it up a bit, the door is open for you to perfect other songs and play the songs you know a bit faster again.

Keep doing that and soon you’ve be playing at any speed you want.

What speed is necessary to play banjo with other people in a jam session?

I recommend 108bpm (beats per minute) as a great tempo (speed) for a beginner to aspire to. A lot of songs sound good at this speed. The play along backing track for Cripple Creek is at 72bpm, which is a speed most beginners are comfortable with. I’ve known many students who are able to play at 108bpm after just a few months, if they practice every day.

If you are lucky, you might find a slow jam session near to where you live, which will give you a lot of confidence playing with others.  You could also go to a Bluegrass or Old-Time music festival, most of these have slow jams for beginners.

Banjo set up

Do you find it hard to press the strings against the frets and get a clean sound? Maybe your banjo needs a set-up to lower the action. I recommend taking it to a professional repairman.

Join the Banjo Academy

In the Banjo Academy all the songs have been arranged specially so you can play them with simple rolls and fingerings, making it much easier for a beginner to play.

The post How to Play Banjo Fast appeared first on Joff Lowson.

There are lots of things to consider when buying your first banjo. Cost is going to be important to most people and you can get a new banjo which will sound good and be easy to play for less than $300 if you look around. There are plenty of banjos in the $500-$700 range which are good enough for professional performance, but the best instruments cost several thousand dollars.

What to look for when buying a banjo?

It’s important to get a banjo which is easy to play. This depends on a lot of factors to do with how well it is made, how straight the neck is and whether the frets are properly dressed. The main thing to check out is the fretting action. You get different notes by pressing the strings against the frets, which are the small wires running across the fingerboard. It should be easy to get a clean sound on any fret and any string, without needing to press too hard with the fretting finger. The ‘Action’ is the distance between the strings and the frets, so a banjo with a low action is going to be easier to play than a banjo with a high action. Most players prefer a low action.

The banjo should also be in tune all the way up and down the neck, this is called the intonation. This depends on the position of the bridge. Guitars and some other stringed instruments have a fixed bridge, but the bridge on the banjo is movable so it is possible to adjust the intonation. This needs a skilled repairman to do it. Don’t leave the shop without the banjo being properly set up!

How many strings?

The five string banjo is the most popular, and also the easiest type for a beginner to play. There are over fifty free instruction videos to help you get started playing the five string banjo eight here on this website. If you want to play a four, six, or eight string banjo, good luck!

Closed or open back?

Some banjos have an open back. These are usually lighter and have a slightly quieter sound. Other banjos have a wooden bowl, called a ‘Resonator’ attached over the back of the drum. The resonator normally sits against your body while you are playing, so it can be more comfortable to play sitting down and helps to project the sound forwards. ‘Closed back’ or ‘Resonator’ type banjos are a bit louder and most Bluegrass players prefer them. Unfortunately they are quite heavy and it can be tiring to play them standing up. A lot of people say if you want to play Bluegrass, you must play a closed back banjo, but if you are a beginner, the most important thing is to be comfortable. For a lot of people, an open back banjo is going to be lighter to hold and more comfortable to play.

Scale length

The ‘Scale length’ is the length of the string from the bridge to the nut. In other words, when you are not fretting the string, this is the total length of vibrating steel wire that is creating the sound. Banjos can have strings of different lengths, but always tuned to the same musical notes. If you think about taking a steel wire and stretching it tight to make a sound, there’s a lot of tension in there. So if you increase the length by just a half an inch, it’s going to make a big difference not only to the sound, but also how easy it is to play. A lot of professionals like to use long scale banjos around 26″ because of the improved sound, but they can be harder to play. For beginners I recommend looking at some shorter scale instruments like the Deering Goodtime.

To sum up

When buying your first banjo, make sure to get one that feels comfortable to hold and is easy to play. It needs to be properly set up and in tune all the way up the neck. Most music shops will give you good advice and try to be helpful, but the best thing is if you have a friend who knows a bit about banjos or guitars to check the playing action for you.

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What are picks?

Picks are little metal or plastic things you wear on the tips of your fingers and thumbs to help you play the banjo more easily. There’s a lot of good reasons to wear picks. You will get more power and a better sound. It’s also easier to play fast whilst wearing picks. Some people lack confidence when they first start playing and tend to play very quietly. Picks will help you play louder so you will feel more confident.

Getting used to picks

It takes a little while to get used to playing with picks when you first start, so many beginners prefer to play without picks. We will talk about playing without picks later, but for most people it is a mistake to start playing without picks.  Why? Because it is so much easier to get used to them if you wear them right from the start. It will only take a few weeks or months before it feels natural, and you will get all the benefits straight away – the increased volume and a clearer sound. If you get used to playing without them at the beginning, it can be very difficult to get used to them later on. I know several players in their 70s who started with bare fingers, and after forty or fifty years of playing they still wish they could play with picks to get that special sound.  Unfortunately it’s really hard to switch to using picks if you’ve already learnt to play without them.  On the other hand, I know guys who played with picks all their lives and then decided to play with bare fingers, and it was easy for them to do that.

Playing without picks

So why play without picks? A lot of my students play with bare fingers and there are many different reasons for it. One guy I know works shifts so the only time he has to play his banjo is late at night. He lives in a flat with neighbours really close by and playing with bare fingers is quieter than playing with picks. Some people prefer the softer sound of playing with bare fingers. But the most important reason for playing without picks is if you just don’t enjoy wearing them! Seriously, if you find wearing picks doesn’t work for you, then just play the banjo without them! You can play everything on JoffLowson.com, including in the Banjo Academy, with or without picks.

Playing with and without picks

I played for over thirty years with picks on, and I love the sound they make, it’s brighter and clearer than with bare fingers. However in the last few years I’ve been enjoying playing without picks sometimes, just to experience a different sound and feel. Playing without picks can be nice for slower songs and also if you are accompanying a singer who has a very soft voice. When I’m joining in a jam session with people I don’t know very well, I often play without picks for the first few songs, just to feel my way into the jam. Once I feel more comfortable with the group, I put my picks on and play louder. Of course you can play quietly with picks, it’s just a question of practise. I’ve tried playing many songs without picks, and sometime I like that softer sound, but I usually prefer to play with picks on. Even Earl Scruggs played without picks sometimes!

There are some more technical reasons why you might need to play without picks. There are certain kinds of strumming or brushing actions that are easier to do without the picks, so a lot depends on the style of banjo you want to play. However for most people I recommend starting to play the banjo with picks.

See video about banjo picks

The post Do I need picks to play the banjo? appeared first on Joff Lowson.