[Everstorm]

The aurora ?

[Snarkyfishguts]

4 hours ago, Everstorm said:

The aurora ?

Right? Couldn't see it at all with eyes, but we could see it beautifully once the picture loaded. It was exciting!!

[Snarkyfishguts]

Weekly review!

 

I didnt really track my food this week.  I only tracked three days and they were all okay. 
i exercised every day this week! I did yard work today and my muscles count that as a strength training exercise. 

 

I succumbed to brooding three times this week, but snapped out of it, 

 

What I loved about the past week:

Bert helped us carry heavy things today and has been really great with my dad. They are getting along so well and Mom and I can go do more stuff and not worry about Dad.  Dad is getting better at being more independent again too.  I also loved just being more spontaneous this week and really laughed when I said “ we should plan to be more spontaneous again!”

We also out up halloween decorations and they are cuuuuuuute! Spooky cute for the 3-4 year olds in the neighborhood. 

What I'm looking forward to Next week:

i’m really looking forward to tweaking my next challenge and I’m looking forward to having our siding fixed so no more outside leaks.  I think we picked out a new dishwasher too and it will be 300 dollars off if we buy it by tuesday. Fingers crossed there for that. 
 

Not next week, but I am looking forward to sleeping tonight. Lol

[Snarkyfishguts]

Challenge Wrap Up:

 

I started super strong and then hit a wall during this challenge. My diet plan took a big hit. I’m eating the way I used to, and that’s not supporting my health goals.  I put way too much pressure on myself to do strength training and I didn’t do it.

 

But my walking improved significantly. I’m walking every day, and some days I walk more than once. Also, the house is clean. During the challenge, Mom and I tackled the garage and the workshop and we got SO much done. The outside furniture is stored away, the flower beds are put to rest for the winter, and we’re cleaning out a LOT of junk. I love that.   I feel like my mindset overall is better too thanks to the Finch app. So…  

 

What’s next? I’m not sure, honestly. I had an idea a few days ago but I’m feeling better today and I’m looking back at my notes and thinking it feels punitive, so I’m going back to the drawing board. I’ll work it out before week 1. 

[Snarkyfishguts]

Today I tackled some non-urgent to-do items on my list:

1. Call and schedule a hair appointment- I'm going in next Thursday! 

2. Delete apps that don't spark joy-  I deleted 7 apps!

3. Turn off notifications for all apps that aren't time sensitive-I left on apps that are travel-related, health related, and text messages. Everything else is turned off. 

 

I'm learning to play the banjo. I found a tutorial on you tube, and I like it a lot. I just woke up one day and thought "How can I be even whiter?" LOL. Seriously, though, my grandfather's banjo has been sitting in our house for a while. He left it to my brother who has his own banjo and no place to put a second banjo. So I was moving it out of the way so the visiting uncle didn't see it, because my grandfather did NOT want him to have it. He was very clear. And I took it out of the case, tuned it, and I just thought, "Well, now...I like this." 

My relationship with my grandfather was okay. We got along, but he thought I should be married and cooking dinners for menfolk, and I finally told him some stories about first dates with different guys and he stopped bugging me about it. Then instead just told everyone I was his spinster granddaughter. "You know, the old maid" My grandfather also believed a person should be automatically amazing at a thing or else they were wasting their time being an idiot. HE was so impatient and critical.  So I'm taking my sweet, sweet time learning, and really enjoying it. I loved him, and he loved me, but what an asshole he could be.

So you can understand there's something deeply satisfying about taking his banjo meant for my brother and learning to play it. It feels like I'm honoring him and annoying the shit out of him at the same time. 

 

 Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a good rest of your day.

 

 

[Whisper]

14 minutes ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

It feels like I'm honoring him and annoying the shit out of him at the same time. 

A new take on the Barny theme?

 

I loved him He loved me

But he could be a raging ass

With a bit of petty smite and a kiss from me to him

Won't you hear my banjo too!

[Radost]

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I'm taking my sweet, sweet time learning, and really enjoying it.

The way you embrace the complexity of your grandfather and your relationship with him is beautiful and I hope you really enjoy taking your time with the banjo, feeling free to be bad at it and knowing that you’re doing something wonderful anyway. 

[Snarkyfishguts]

2 hours ago, Whisper said:

A new take on the Barny theme?

 

I loved him He loved me

But he could be a raging ass

With a bit of petty smite and a kiss from me to him

Won't you hear my banjo too!

I love this so much!! 

 

1 hour ago, Radost said:

The way you embrace the complexity of your grandfather and your relationship with him is beautiful and I hope you really enjoy taking your time with the banjo, feeling free to be bad at it and knowing that you’re doing something wonderful anyway. 

thanks! You understand it, and I am really appreciative of that! ??? 

[Sovalis]

I hope the banjo treats you well, Snarky. I am really happy to read your growth and evolution over the course of catching up on this thread. You seem really in tune with yourself and respectful of where you are at and it is awesome. ❤️ 

[Snarkyfishguts]

17 minutes ago, Sovalis said:

I hope the banjo treats you well, Snarky. I am really happy to read your growth and evolution over the course of catching up on this thread. You seem really in tune with yourself and respectful of where you are at and it is awesome. ❤️ 

Thank you Sov! That really means a lot to me. I don't feel very in tune with myself today, but reading this has encouraged me to take some deep breaths and go for a walk.  Thank you!

[Laghail]

20 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

2. Delete apps that don't spark joy-  I deleted 7 apps!

 

This is such a good goal! 

 

20 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

3. Turn off notifications for all apps that aren't time sensitive-I left on apps that are travel-related, health related, and text messages. Everything else is turned off. 

 

Honestly this was a game changer for me. Just turning off notifications for Amazon and Facebook alone gave me back some executive function. 

 

20 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

I'm learning to play the banjo. I found a tutorial on you tube, and I like it a lot. I just woke up one day and thought "How can I be even whiter?" LOL. Seriously, though, my grandfather's banjo has been sitting in our house for a while. He left it to my brother who has his own banjo and no place to put a second banjo. So I was moving it out of the way so the visiting uncle didn't see it, because my grandfather did NOT want him to have it. He was very clear. And I took it out of the case, tuned it, and I just thought, "Well, now...I like this." 

My relationship with my grandfather was okay. We got along, but he thought I should be married and cooking dinners for menfolk, and I finally told him some stories about first dates with different guys and he stopped bugging me about it. Then instead just told everyone I was his spinster granddaughter. "You know, the old maid" My grandfather also believed a person should be automatically amazing at a thing or else they were wasting their time being an idiot. HE was so impatient and critical.  So I'm taking my sweet, sweet time learning, and really enjoying it. I loved him, and he loved me, but what an asshole he could be.

So you can understand there's something deeply satisfying about taking his banjo meant for my brother and learning to play it. It feels like I'm honoring him and annoying the shit out of him at the same time. 

 

A. I love how you're navigating family legacy here.

B. I've been playing banjo for a year ish - welcome to the banjo side of the force! I'm curious about a couple things about your instrument, but PLEASE ignore the spoilered list of questions if you want more privacy with your new instrument. I'm slowly saving & banjo shopping to buy my own instrument in 2026 and I'm curious about everyone else's banjo (sex joke goes here). 

 

Spoiler

a. how many strings?

b. open or closed back? 

c. does it have frets? 

d. is it strung with metal strings or gut/acrylic?

e. does it have a tone ring?

d. does it have tuning levers??

 

The one I'm currently borrowing is below (that's a lie, my internet is being funky so this is a pic of the same model that I stole from the internet so I don't have to upload a pic).

a. it's a 5-string, which is most common but it does mean I need to use a capo if I want to play along with @Sea-to-sky's mandolin or a fiddle player on trad tunes.

b. it's closed back so it's going to sound louder but that tends to make it worse for claw hammer style and/or playing in folk sets, for reasons I'm not 100% clear on yet.

c. it's fretted, which is super normal but there's this class of fretless banjos that people use to re-create a pre-civil war sound or a gourd banjo sound.

d. it uses metal strings, which most banjos have since 1880. Makes the sound louder/brighter, but loses some of the warmth/reverb that is characteristic of guitars and gut-strung banjos. Apparently a lot of banjos leftover from that transition period when metal strings became available, they're badly warped from musicians stringing metal on instruments that weren't built to take higher tensions from metal strings. A real tragedy, but since the 1880's, banjos are built with extra reinforcement to handle the strain. 

e. it doesn't have a tone ring, which you can tell by how the white round pot head head is flat by the metal surround. A tone ring is a rim that lays under the head and stretches it outward to shape the acoustics. My dim understanding is most beginner banjo's don't have a tone ring, they're all post 1880, and that's a lot of what you're paying for when you get a fancier instrument.

f. It def doesn't have tuning levers, and they're this bizarre (to me anyway) add-on that was trendy in the 1960's - basically some extra pegs on the head that the musician would hit mid-note to warp the string into a long ascending or descending note. Sorta hardwired-in a slide levers. Weird as hell but neat to see instruments from the period that survive because most of them were custom hodge-podge jobs. Earl Scruggs was supposed to have used tin snips on his wife's floor waxing machine (what a fucking world to own one of these at all) to construct a tin box that he wrapped around his banjo head so people couldn't see how his tuning levers worked.  

 

Def a beginner here, so please god, call me on it if I got something wrong. Also ask StS about her heritage mandolin, its a great story. 

 

 

20 hours ago, Whisper said:

A new take on the Barny theme?

 

I loved him He loved me

But he could be a raging ass

With a bit of petty smite and a kiss from me to him

Won't you hear my banjo too!

 

Amazing! 

[Everstorm]

20 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Turn off notifications for all apps that aren't time sensitive-I left on apps that are travel-related, health related, and text messages. Everything else is turned off. 

 

Brilliant.  I just did this after reading your post, so thank you!

[Snarkyfishguts]

7 hours ago, Laghail said:

 

This is such a good goal! 

 

 

Honestly this was a game changer for me. Just turning off notifications for Amazon and Facebook alone gave me back some executive function. 

That is awesome! I'm so relieved to hear you've had positive benefits from it. Notifications are so disruptive. I kept feeling like I had to be available all the time, and then I realized "No I don't!"  Right now, I still feel like I'm on hold, so I'm looking forward to that feeling going away. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Laghail said:

 

A. I love how you're navigating family legacy here.

Honestly, I felt like I was doing okay yesterday but today I struggled hard and while I don't regret sharing, I don't want to spend any more time on him.

 

7 hours ago, Laghail said:

B. I've been playing banjo for a year ish - welcome to the banjo side of the force! I'm curious about a couple things about your instrument, but PLEASE ignore the spoilered list of questions if you want more privacy with your new instrument. I'm slowly saving & banjo shopping to buy my own instrument in 2026 and I'm curious about everyone else's banjo (sex joke goes here). 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

a. how many strings?

b. open or closed back? 

c. does it have frets? 

d. is it strung with metal strings or gut/acrylic?

e. does it have a tone ring?

d. does it have tuning levers??

 

The one I'm currently borrowing is below (that's a lie, my internet is being funky so this is a pic of the same model that I stole from the internet so I don't have to upload a pic).

a. it's a 5-string, which is most common but it does mean I need to use a capo if I want to play along with @Sea-to-sky's mandolin or a fiddle player on trad tunes.

b. it's closed back so it's going to sound louder but that tends to make it worse for claw hammer style and/or playing in folk sets, for reasons I'm not 100% clear on yet.

c. it's fretted, which is super normal but there's this class of fretless banjos that people use to re-create a pre-civil war sound or a gourd banjo sound.

d. it uses metal strings, which most banjos have since 1880. Makes the sound louder/brighter, but loses some of the warmth/reverb that is characteristic of guitars and gut-strung banjos. Apparently a lot of banjos leftover from that transition period when metal strings became available, they're badly warped from musicians stringing metal on instruments that weren't built to take higher tensions from metal strings. A real tragedy, but since the 1880's, banjos are built with extra reinforcement to handle the strain. 

e. it doesn't have a tone ring, which you can tell by how the white round pot head head is flat by the metal surround. A tone ring is a rim that lays under the head and stretches it outward to shape the acoustics. My dim understanding is most beginner banjo's don't have a tone ring, they're all post 1880, and that's a lot of what you're paying for when you get a fancier instrument.

f. It def doesn't have tuning levers, and they're this bizarre (to me anyway) add-on that was trendy in the 1960's - basically some extra pegs on the head that the musician would hit mid-note to warp the string into a long ascending or descending note. Sorta hardwired-in a slide levers. Weird as hell but neat to see instruments from the period that survive because most of them were custom hodge-podge jobs. Earl Scruggs was supposed to have used tin snips on his wife's floor waxing machine (what a fucking world to own one of these at all) to construct a tin box that he wrapped around his banjo head so people couldn't see how his tuning levers worked.  

 

Def a beginner here, so please god, call me on it if I got something wrong. Also ask StS about her heritage mandolin, its a great story. 

 

 

Thanks for the welcome!!

To answer all your questions. It's a 5 string banjo, with metal strings and a resonator that I can remove once I find instructions on how to do that. 

it has frets, no tuning levers.. I don't know about a tone ring, I had to google what that was even with your description and I'll check if the banjo has it. Heck, I'll just take a picture of it next time I practice it. It took forever to wrap my head around the 5th string, like it's just this thumb in a hand of strings lol. 

 

Your banjo sounds great! That's  really cool you've been playing a whole year now. I am an absolute beginner so I couldn't correct you if you are wrong about anything. It sounds like you've learned quite a bit in just a year, so that's super cool! Did you take a class or did you do an online tutorial or how are you learning banjo? 

I've been playing for a few weeks. I'm doing a 30 day tutorial, and have been on day 7 for 2 weeks. I'm really enjoying taking my time, and I love that the instructor encourages this too. This is the tutorial I'm doing. I like this dude, he is slow and thorough and he shares songs to listen to that are interesting. I don't have picks yet, that's going on the wish list. do you use picks? Do I really need picks? I don't really want them.  Capos. Oh man, okay. I don't know about those either. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Everstorm said:

 

Brilliant.  I just did this after reading your post, so thank you!

 

YAY! I hope it helps a lot!

[Snarkyfishguts]

Today was a rough day. I was lost in bad memories and feelings and there was brooding. We got to Dark Knight Tier of Brooding.

 

 

My dad was telling me about Fun Batman and how he really hates the serious Dark Knight stuff. He misses the Fun Batman

 

 

 

Fun Batman does sound like fun.

 

One more Batman.. but actually my favorite Robin and Batman  

.

 

Okay I think we're good here.  Have a good night!

[Sea-to-sky]

Ok, i think that may officially be my favourite batman + robin clip of all time now? .

what film is that from? I clearly need to watch it. 
 

i grew up with cartoon batman, (the newer one, not the origonal) which was a different level of weird

 

hope you feel less low tomorrow. Getting stuck in a low mood sucks. Worst case scenario, the phantom banjo player would be a pretty awesome villain name. 
 

14 hours ago, Laghail said:

but that tends to make it worse for claw hammer style and/or playing in folk sets, for reasons I'm not 100% clear on yet.

Also have no idea why. But I've played with quite a few different banjo players in folk music session over the years and the main issues tend to be volume in comparison to the other instruments and staying on the beat (they are up there with accordionists for being off beat,  for some reason i am not clear on). 
personally they play fine with the rest of us though i find. So as long as youve got a capo, i don't see why it should be an issue. 

[Snarkyfishguts]

5 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Ok, i think that may officially be my favourite batman + robin clip of all time now? .

what film is that from? I clearly need to watch it. 
 

 Lego Batman movie! It is hilarious.

5 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

 

i grew up with cartoon batman, (the newer one, not the origonal) which was a different level of weird

 

 

is it fun weird?

5 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

 

 

hope you feel less low tomorrow. Getting stuck in a low mood sucks. Worst case scenario, the phantom banjo player would be a pretty awesome villain name. 
 

omg, I could be a Batman Villain! My evil nature would come out as I practice the same finger picking pattern  over and over and over lol. i do feel better today. I slept well and it squeezed out all my brain toxins so I could start with a fresh brain sponge today. 
 

5 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Also have no idea why. But I've played with quite a few different banjo players in folk music session over the years and the main issues tend to be volume in comparison to the other instruments and staying on the beat (they are up there with accordionists for being off beat,  for some reason i am not clear on). 
personally they play fine with the rest of us though i find. So as long as youve got a capo, i don't see why it should be an issue. 

You have a mandolin? How did you  get started with that? 

[Snarkyfishguts]

 

Various vibes of forum folk waiting for the new challenge…

 

 

 

 

 

i feel the seal resonates with me currently lol

[Sea-to-sky]

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

You have a mandolin? How did you  get started with that? 

I found it in my grandfathers attic with a broken neck. 
long story short, bowl back mandolins are incredibly specialist when it comes to getting them fixed ?

[Sea-to-sky]

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

is it fun weird?

I remember it being fun. Admittedly i was 7 or something at the time, so my taste in tv series may not have been the best

 

glad your brain sponge is feeling less gloopy today

[Everstorm]

1 hour ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

feel the seal resonates with me currently

 

Sounds about right

[Snarkyfishguts]

2 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

I found it in my grandfathers attic with a broken neck. 
long story short, bowl back mandolins are incredibly specialist when it comes to getting them fixed ?

Whoa, I bet! Glad you got it fixed!
 

1 hour ago, Everstorm said:

 

Sounds about right

high five! Er fins! Er flippers!

 

!

 

[Snarkyfishguts]

On 10/16/2024 at 1:34 PM, Laghail said:

 

 

B. I've been playing banjo for a year ish - welcome to the banjo side of the force! I'm curious about a couple things about your instrument, but PLEASE ignore the spoilered list of questions if you want more privacy with your new instrument. I'm slowly saving & banjo shopping to buy my own instrument in 2026 and I'm curious about everyone else's banjo (sex joke goes here). 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

a. how many strings?

b. open or closed back? 

c. does it have frets? 

d. is it strung with metal strings or gut/acrylic?

e. does it have a tone ring?

d. does it have tuning levers??

 

The one I'm currently borrowing is below (that's a lie, my internet is being funky so this is a pic of the same model that I stole from the internet so I don't have to upload a pic).

a. it's a 5-string, which is most common but it does mean I need to use a capo if I want to play along with @Sea-to-sky's mandolin or a fiddle player on trad tunes.

b. it's closed back so it's going to sound louder but that tends to make it worse for claw hammer style and/or playing in folk sets, for reasons I'm not 100% clear on yet.

c. it's fretted, which is super normal but there's this class of fretless banjos that people use to re-create a pre-civil war sound or a gourd banjo sound.

d. it uses metal strings, which most banjos have since 1880. Makes the sound louder/brighter, but loses some of the warmth/reverb that is characteristic of guitars and gut-strung banjos. Apparently a lot of banjos leftover from that transition period when metal strings became available, they're badly warped from musicians stringing metal on instruments that weren't built to take higher tensions from metal strings. A real tragedy, but since the 1880's, banjos are built with extra reinforcement to handle the strain. 

e. it doesn't have a tone ring, which you can tell by how the white round pot head head is flat by the metal surround. A tone ring is a rim that lays under the head and stretches it outward to shape the acoustics. My dim understanding is most beginner banjo's don't have a tone ring, they're all post 1880, and that's a lot of what you're paying for when you get a fancier instrument.

f. It def doesn't have tuning levers, and they're this bizarre (to me anyway) add-on that was trendy in the 1960's - basically some extra pegs on the head that the musician would hit mid-note to warp the string into a long ascending or descending note. Sorta hardwired-in a slide levers. Weird as hell but neat to see instruments from the period that survive because most of them were custom hodge-podge jobs. Earl Scruggs was supposed to have used tin snips on his wife's floor waxing machine (what a fucking world to own one of these at all) to construct a tin box that he wrapped around his banjo head so people couldn't see how his tuning levers worked.  

 

Def a beginner here, so please god, call me on it if I got something wrong. Also ask StS about her heritage mandolin, its a great story. 

 

 

Spoilered for banjo

 

Spoiler

 

[Sea-to-sky]

27 minutes ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Spoilered for banjo

Ooh, nice. How does it sound?

[Snarkyfishguts]

5 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Ooh, nice. How does it sound?

Pretty good! The notes are nice and clear and theres no buzzing.  I did realize there is a slip of paper in the resonator so i gotta google how to remove it so I can get that out. 

[Laghail]

On 10/16/2024 at 8:23 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

That is awesome! I'm so relieved to hear you've had positive benefits from it. Notifications are so disruptive. I kept feeling like I had to be available all the time, and then I realized "No I don't!"  Right now, I still feel like I'm on hold, so I'm looking forward to that feeling going away. 

 

I approve of you! 

 

On 10/16/2024 at 8:23 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Honestly, I felt like I was doing okay yesterday but today I struggled hard and while I don't regret sharing, I don't want to spend any more time on him.

 

Big hugs. Complicated family is complicated.

 

On 10/16/2024 at 8:23 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Thanks for the welcome!!

To answer all your questions. It's a 5 string banjo, with metal strings and a resonator that I can remove once I find instructions on how to do that. 

it has frets, no tuning levers.. I don't know about a tone ring, I had to google what that was even with your description and I'll check if the banjo has it. Heck, I'll just take a picture of it next time I practice it.

 

Loooove this!! From the picture you shared, there's no tone ring, which would have looked like your banjo pot is pressing outward in front like a mum carrying high in early second trimester. All that really means is your neighbors can't hear your practice sessions while you're a beginner, which was a win for me when I realized my banjo was the same. 

 

On 10/16/2024 at 8:23 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

It took forever to wrap my head around the 5th string, like it's just this thumb in a hand of strings lol. 

 

Right?? When it's time to change your strings, holler and we can chat through it. Luckily strings last a long time for us newbies, especially if you're playing without picks. I only bring up string changing re: 5th string because there's a tiny rubber hose on your 5th string right by the peg that prevents the 5th string from scratching the finish on the neck just there. Of course I instantly lost that protector the first time I changed the strings myself, and of course it's impossible to replace. No harm done but I was annoyed with myself.

 

On 10/16/2024 at 8:23 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Your banjo sounds great! That's  really cool you've been playing a whole year now. I am an absolute beginner so I couldn't correct you if you are wrong about anything. It sounds like you've learned quite a bit in just a year, so that's super cool! Did you take a class or did you do an online tutorial or how are you learning banjo? 

I've been playing for a few weeks. I'm doing a 30 day tutorial, and have been on day 7 for 2 weeks. I'm really enjoying taking my time, and I love that the instructor encourages this too. This is the tutorial I'm doing. I like this dude, he is slow and thorough and he shares songs to listen to that are interesting. I don't have picks yet, that's going on the wish list. do you use picks? Do I really need picks? I don't really want them.  Capos. Oh man, okay. I don't know about those either. 

 

Eli!!!!! That 30 day tutorial is where I started too! Only took me 60ish days to get through his 30 day course, so, guess you could say I'm pretty cool.... Please read the rest of this with the understanding that I am, in Banjo terms, a 7-year old child explaining the mysteries of the universe to someone barely younger than me lol!

 

But yeah, Eli is so soothing and does such a great job, right? I just felt reassured and empowered by him to enjoy my banjo at my own pace. He's going to have you progressively learn a short list of songs, then practice accompanying recordings of him playing the melody and you doing some simple accompaniment. One of the last things he'll do is throw one more song at you that uses techniques you've already learned from earlier songs, and then sorta teach you how to teach yourself a song. Cannot recommend him high enough and I'm so happy you're enjoying his series.

 

Dumb question, did you find Eli's PDF songbook okay? I felt stupid when it took me a few days to realize there was a PDF and I didn't need to keep rewinding and replaying the vids in order to practice. Oh, and when you get to Cumberland Gap B part on day 20 (day 40 for me bitches!) he'll tell you that the pinky-stretchy bit is the hardest part of the course and don't stress if you don't get it during the 30 days - that's so real. Apparently you're slightly reshaping the ligament in your left pinky as you work on that piece, and working slow and steady there is best. After I finished the course, I wanted more and I found a local teacher, and teacher Bob really liked the instruction I'd gotten from Eli. Teacher Bob affirmed that stretching your pinky for that skill should be a process over days/weeks because some workaholics want to master that move in a day and they end up tearing their pinky ligament! Teacher Bob says work on that skill for like 2-3 mins at the beginning and end of every session and go slow. 

 

My teacher (the dork with the double instruments) ended up being $30/lesson and just the right mix of mentoring and instruction for my preferences. Zero shade if you finish the YouTube course and then keep learning by yourself, there's a ton of people that just enjoy the banjo's associations with self-paced learning and uncomplicated self-expression.

 

Oh, picks. You don't need them to play, despite Eli teaching you the 3-finger Earl Scruggs style that uses them. Finger picks for 3-finger style only costs $6 for two sets, and you can fuck around with different materials, but looks like even the best picks in the world with freaky cobalt alloys only run like $40. But you're just gunna be quieter without picks, and if you get to a place where you're playing faster, you might want picks to give you more flexibility and precision. BUT, as teacher Bob keeps reminding me, this is folk music, not classical music. Anything you wanna do, if it makes you happy, just keep doing it. There's this whole style that doesn't use picks, just use the forefinger to strum down on a string, the thumb to string up, and then the other fingers on the right hand to strum. That style is called claw-hammer because the shape your hand takes.

 

Zero obligation, but if you have a spare minute, watch a little of this linked video of Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) playing claw-hammer on a  NPR Tiny Desk Concert. The video does a great job showing you his right hand technique and the kinda crazy soundscape he makes with the claw-hammer style. 

Compare that with Noam Pikelny playing with picks using 3-finger style in this vid, and just notice what this mutant of a Slenderman-looking motherfucker can do in terms of precision with that style applied to the jazz/bluegrass he specializes in. 

 

I've been talking with teacher bob about directions in banjo, sorta what kind of musician I wanna be when I grow up. He doesn't play RPG's but the way he explained it sounded a lot like an RPG-class evolution guide, with the moral of the story being to explore what I like and respect the time it takes to grow into myself as a player. 

 

 

On 10/17/2024 at 3:02 AM, Sea-to-sky said:

Also have no idea why. But I've played with quite a few different banjo players in folk music session over the years and the main issues tend to be volume in comparison to the other instruments and staying on the beat (they are up there with accordionists for being off beat,  for some reason i am not clear on). 
personally they play fine with the rest of us though i find. So as long as youve got a capo, i don't see why it should be an issue. 

 

The internet says resonator banjos (the kind with the back on) are supposed to be loud enough to play lead, but tend to be too loud to easily fit into a trad session; sorta like if someone mic'd one single drum in a drum circle, and then tried to have a normal back-n-forth in the circle. Something about the resonator banjo being incepted to play rhythm for Dixieland jazz sets and dance halls circa 1877-1910, while the 4-string banjo went back across the Atlantic and the quieter flat picked tenor banjo embedded itself in Celtic trad. 

In any case, I trust your experience with folk sets StS, sounds like you've had quite the time with them!

 

19 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Spoilered for banjo

18 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

Ooh, nice. How does it sound?

18 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Pretty good! The notes are nice and clear and theres no buzzing.  I did realize there is a slip of paper in the resonator so i gotta google how to remove it so I can get that out. 

 

It's soooo pretty!!!!