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[Ace Harding]

Is there a Banjo-GAF?

I heard a couple guys playing banjos in the subway station and thought, man I'd like to learn how to play the banjo. Is it hard to learn? I play guitar - not really really well but decently enough - would that be helpful or is it totally different?

Are you generally fingerpicking while holding chords, or moving around the fretting fingers a lot too? Are there tons of different fingerpicking patterns or typically just a couple? Is the tuning (and thus the chord shapes) totally different than guitar?

Do you use those picks you wear on the end of your fingers, or just your fingers?

Finally, what would I need to spend for a decent (but not really expensive) banjo and where should I buy one?

 

[Ziggurat]

If you already play guitar you should get a banjitar.

 

[Herne]

Billy Connolly and Shigeru Miyamoto play the banj-oh... you meant one of us.

 

[iamblades]

4 or 6 string banjos can be played and tuned just like a guitar would, but are usually tuned more like a ukelele, with the top string tuned an octave up.

A 5 string bluegrass banjo needs a different technique and a different tuning because the top string on the banjo is not a bass string, but a 'drone' string. So fingerpicking guitar technique where the thumb plays the bass and the fingers play the chords doesn't really work. So instead you use the backs of your fingernails and play every string with a downward motion.

Like this:

http://youtu.be/G-fo7xZG7BE

 

[Valhelm]

My dad is a semi-professional, and won first place in the Florida Banjo Festival (lol).

I think the banjo is a great instrument, but sounds much better when not being used for traditional music.

 

[EVOL 100%]

I'd like to. I heard it was very difficult to get a grasp of though, even if you play guitar.

 

[Ace Harding]

4 or 6 string banjos can be played and tuned just like a guitar would, but are usually tuned more like a ukelele, with the top string tuned an octave up.

A 5 string bluegrass banjo needs a different technique and a different tuning because the top string on the banjo is not a bass string, but a 'drone' string. So fingerpicking guitar technique where the thumb plays the bass and the fingers play the chords doesn't really work. So instead you use the backs of your fingernails and play every string with a downward motion.

Like this:

http://youtu.be/G-fo7xZG7BE

Cool - that video is completely different than what I thought playing the banjo was like. Totally different than guitar also.

 

[J.W.Crazy]

After years of wanting one I've been playing for about a a year and a half now. I play guitar (just thinking about it, it's been 10+ years!) with an affinity for finger picking so the transition was fairly smooth but I'm still very much a beginner. If you just want something that sounds kind of similar you might be better going with a six string banjo\guitar but in my opinion they're not really great at being a banjo or a guitar. I'm usually one to go as cheap as possible but I would recommend against buying a low end banjo. Fender and a few others have 5-strings in the $250 range but they're not really great at delivering a solid tone. I ended up spending about $400 at a local music store but the difference in build quality and more importantly sound is night and day.

Cool - that video is completely different than what I thought playing the banjo was like. Totally different than guitar also.

That guy Patrick is great. He focuses mainly on clawhammer/frailing style but does show some of the more stereotypical bluegrass picking style too. They're two very different disciplines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn4YhHdhhUU

That's probably more along the lines of what you were thinking.

 

[AlexMogil]

I play clawhammer sometimes. Don't need picks for that.