(1) I've seen conflicting advice on left-hand fingering for banjo. One message on IRTRAD some time back threatened serious consequences if the pinky fretted anything below the sixth fret. I've seen other advice that says use the pinky for the fifth fret as standard practice.
My banjo is a 19-fret tenor, and I can do the third-finger stretch to the fifth fret, but with some serious efffort for a few tunes. Is there an advantage in training my hand to do this, or should I stick to the more natural-feeling alternative?
(2) What is the best strategy for reaching the 7th fret on a GDAE-tuned banjo? For example, how would you finger the first two bars in the turn for "Jerry's Beaver Hat" as shown in the "Tunes" section of this website: |dfa afd|gbg faf| ?
I'd be most grateful if you would steer me right on these questions. There isn't a big Irish trad banjo playing community here.
there seems to be confusion here between two different fingering methods - neither is inherently "better" than the other, it just depends on what suits you, the size of your hand and the scale length of your banjo.
one method is to adopt mandolin or fiddle fingering - index finger for 1st/2nd frets, middle finger for 3rd/4th frets, ring finger for 5th/6th frets, little finger for 7th. if you can manage the stretches, this method avoids having to move the hand at all - just the fingers...................
the other method is to use - index finger for 1st/2nd frets, middle finger for 3rd fret, ring finger for 4th fret, little finger for 5th fret - and move the whole hand up the fingerboard a little to get the 6th/7th frets with the little finger. this avoids the worst stretches but involves having to learn to shift the whole hand up and down pretty fast...............
in practice, very few players stick absolutely rigidly to either system as the needs of various tunes dictate that you have to use "odd" fingering from time to time - this is only a broad guide.
from your description of having some difficulty with getting the ring finger to the 5th fret, it might be that the latter method would be more suitable for you - but it does involve the "quick flick of the wrist" to get the high B on the top string.
this motion is easier if you keep your thumb behind the neck rather than curled round it - the "curl" may feel more comfortable but it does restrict finger extension to some extent.
another possibility would be to have a banjo with a shorter scale length (note - it is the scale length that dictates the stretches, not the number of frets - measure the distance from the top nut to the bridge to find out the scale length of your banjo). tenor banjos can have scale lengths as long as 24" or as short as 20" - and that makes a lot of difference to which frets you can reach with which fingers.
Andy's comments cover the issues very well. But, if you want some visual aids, hope over to http://www.banjosessions.com, which is currently running an article on L- and R-hand technique for Irish tenor.
Grego, The "serious consequences" you were threatened with "if the pinky fretted anything below the sixth fret" might be that you end up playing as well as Gerry O'Connor. On his advanced video he clearly recommends fretting the fifth fret with the pinky finger. I'd love to suffer those types of consequences.
I use a combination of fingering techniques dictated by the tune itself. I find that I also tend to finger tunes in G differently than tunes in D or A. Just tryin' to make it work....
When I first started playing the banjo I used to use three fingers but thought there was to much jumping around with the 2nd finger I changed to four finger style and never looked back. 4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want. In my opinion 4 finger is far better the 3 for playing banjo. In that tune you where talking about you play the g before the b with your 2nd finger and the b with your pinky and the notes after it faf you play the a with your 3rd finger.
I'd like to play as "well" as Gerry O'Connor, but my choice of material might be different than his, some of it, anyway. Gerry describes his style as "finger assignment - with the pinky getting fret #5. It suits his jazzy, chromatic style.
Even someone with smaller hands can play the "pinky only frets #6 and #7" style with practice. The hand must learn to 'roll' up and down the neck, kind of like a cello player does. There are plenty of smaller-handed cello players, especially in grade-school orchestras. It helps with this method to start out with the neck more towards vertical than horizontal.
"4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want. In my opinion 4 finger is far better the 3 for playing banjo"
Depends on your priorities. If you want to play gnat-notes in quasi-bluegrass style, with bluegrass-style syncopations, guitar-style fingering works well. If you want to play more in the idiom of a fiddler, flutist, or piper, mandolin-style fingering gives you the right phrasing, the right ornaments, and so forth.
There's Irish tenor playing beyond Gerry O Connor, dude.
Chris - an interesting reply to Banjaxbanjo's post. I'm genuinely curious as to your sound and style on Irish banjo - are there any sound clips of your playing available?
There may be clips of my playing out on the web, but I'm not aware of any--have not posted any myself. I have a solo disc coming out in early 04 with Randal Bays which will probably be the best evidence.
Just for clarity: I am not dissing Gerry O Connor's playing--he's a fantastic technician and has certainly inspired a lot of players. But the comment "4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want" seemed simplistic to me; it's my opinion that there are a range of approaches to Irish tenor out there, and that the different approaches understandably yield different results.
That was my opinion coyotebanjo that doesn't mean its set in gold. The comment about Gerry O'Connor uses it what more do you want is saying if you want to be the best at playing the tenor banjo technically, follow in Gerry's foot steps. Can you name a better Irish tenor banjo player that Gerry O'Connor.
If you want to play like Gerry O'Connor-stylewise, then by all means follow in his footsteps. Whether or not he is the best is a matter of opinion(he's certainly right up there) and on the style of music you prefer. There are other great players too whom I admire e.g Eamon Coyne, Mick Moloney, Tony Sullivan, even Barney McKenna to name but a few. I would find it hard to say who was *the best*.
I've tried both 3 and 4 finger styles of fingering. I'm not sure which is the best as I tend to use both, on occasion. I've been used to the fiddle and mandolin so, as Chris says, it's easier to do ornamentations etc although sometimes it can be a bit of a stretch. I find that it's fairly easy to reach the higher notes by moving my entire hand--a bit like a piano accordian player ). This is strange at first but you get used to it. I've tried the shorter scale tenors but I've yet to purchase one--this makes things even easier.
I like to twist the hand a bit, so the fingers are actually pushing down a little slanted. It may look strange, but I feel it makes fingering easier and sliding down the neck easier.
Thanks, I really appreciate all of this feedback. Obviously, there is room for experimentation to come up with what's right for me. I do like listening to Gerry O'Connor, but I think my taste tends more towards Kieran Hanrahan.
Speaking of taste, I've been listening to some early Barney McKenna tunes (for example, the Swallowtail Reel) and I wonder a whether this is the best model to follow. The ornamentation style is very nice - realistic for a beginner like myself to work on, and effective also. But doesn't he tend to play reels a bit like very fast marches - no "swing", if I could call it that?
I know I risk some wrath here for impuning the father of the Irish tenor banjo, so I'll just go and put on my asbestos suit.....
"But doesn't he tend to play reels a bit like very fast marches - no "swing", if I could call it that?"
In my observation and experience, different players play the same tunes with differing degrees of swing. For that matter, *I* play tunes with differing degrees of swing depending upon who I'm playing with.
Case in point: I learned "The Ships are Sailing" probably 20 years ago, in a straight-8th setting, and played it that way for years--because that was the setting I had in my mind's ear. Have moved away from playing straight-8ths, and at this point the setting and degree of swing are both quite different.
This suggests to me that where or from whom one heard a tune tends to shape how one hears its degree of swing.
Slightly OT but still about Barney McKenna: there's a great, very rare RTE video called "The Green Linnet" (no relation to the notorious record company) featuring McKenna and Tony Mac Mahon (box) on tour in a tiny Deux Cheveaux pickup truck from Ireland, through Wales, England, S France, and into Switzerland, stopping and playing tunes along the way. Produced in 1978, hard to locate except through university Inter-Library Loan, and with some very eccentric scenes, but their duet playing (no accompanist) is FANTASTIC.
There's also good stuff of McKenna, whose health is no longer so good, and Mac Mahon on Tony's recent "Mac Mahon from Clare" disc.
I was always taught by my teachers that if you start a tune up, then you get to sort of "set" the amount of swing, and if you're following someone else's lead, it's polite to follow their amount of swing. The amount of swing in anyone's playing is part of their style, and there's no one amount or lack of swing that is "correct" in this stuff...
Barney Mckenna's playing is a bit odd it sounds out of time. I'd say his strokes are a bit like Sully's on the Irsh banjo book. I suppose we have to take our hat off to him because he was the first person to bring the banjo into Irish music using the tuning GDAE.
I have read all your posts, and a lot of you are saying, which way is best to play the banjo, and you are talking about how much swing you should put in tunes, i don't mean to offend anyone here but i think that is a load of crap, you can only play the way you play, in my personal opinion i believe that you should play directly from your heart, it doesnt matter how you play the banjo as long as your happy with it, play the way you play, don't try and immitate players like gerry o'connor, have your own individual syle, its great to listen to players like him, he has inspired hundreds of banjo players, but there are so many out there now that are carbon copys of him, people try so hard to sound like him, sure you can use some of his techniques but have your own style, and as for fingering, there is no right or wrong way, you can only play the way you can play.
I'm a great fan of Gerrys and Barneys playing, but Gerry is the best, only because nobody else can play like him . On the question of fingering, I prefer to use the pinky on the 5th.fret of the tenor banjo, keeping my middle finger for occasional filling gaps, it avoids confusion when I change to mandolin, and use the 3rd.finger for the 5th.fret.
Banjo fingering questions
Banjo fingering questions
Dear banjo players, two questions from a novice:
(1) I've seen conflicting advice on left-hand fingering for banjo. One message on IRTRAD some time back threatened serious consequences if the pinky fretted anything below the sixth fret. I've seen other advice that says use the pinky for the fifth fret as standard practice.
My banjo is a 19-fret tenor, and I can do the third-finger stretch to the fifth fret, but with some serious efffort for a few tunes. Is there an advantage in training my hand to do this, or should I stick to the more natural-feeling alternative?
(2) What is the best strategy for reaching the 7th fret on a GDAE-tuned banjo? For example, how would you finger the first two bars in the turn for "Jerry's Beaver Hat" as shown in the "Tunes" section of this website: |dfa afd|gbg faf| ?
I'd be most grateful if you would steer me right on these questions. There isn't a big Irish trad banjo playing community here.
Thanks
# Posted on December 26th 2003 by grego
Re: Banjo fingering questions
there seems to be confusion here between two different fingering methods - neither is inherently "better" than the other, it just depends on what suits you, the size of your hand and the scale length of your banjo.
one method is to adopt mandolin or fiddle fingering - index finger for 1st/2nd frets, middle finger for 3rd/4th frets, ring finger for 5th/6th frets, little finger for 7th. if you can manage the stretches, this method avoids having to move the hand at all - just the fingers...................
the other method is to use - index finger for 1st/2nd frets, middle finger for 3rd fret, ring finger for 4th fret, little finger for 5th fret - and move the whole hand up the fingerboard a little to get the 6th/7th frets with the little finger. this avoids the worst stretches but involves having to learn to shift the whole hand up and down pretty fast...............
in practice, very few players stick absolutely rigidly to either system as the needs of various tunes dictate that you have to use "odd" fingering from time to time - this is only a broad guide.
from your description of having some difficulty with getting the ring finger to the 5th fret, it might be that the latter method would be more suitable for you - but it does involve the "quick flick of the wrist" to get the high B on the top string.
this motion is easier if you keep your thumb behind the neck rather than curled round it - the "curl" may feel more comfortable but it does restrict finger extension to some extent.
another possibility would be to have a banjo with a shorter scale length (note - it is the scale length that dictates the stretches, not the number of frets - measure the distance from the top nut to the bridge to find out the scale length of your banjo). tenor banjos can have scale lengths as long as 24" or as short as 20" - and that makes a lot of difference to which frets you can reach with which fingers.
happy picking.........
# Posted on December 26th 2003 by teetotaller
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Grego:
Andy's comments cover the issues very well. But, if you want some visual aids, hope over to http://www.banjosessions.com, which is currently running an article on L- and R-hand technique for Irish tenor.
chris smith
# Posted on December 27th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Grego, The "serious consequences" you were threatened with "if the pinky fretted anything below the sixth fret" might be that you end up playing as well as Gerry O'Connor. On his advanced video he clearly recommends fretting the fifth fret with the pinky finger. I'd love to suffer those types of consequences.
I use a combination of fingering techniques dictated by the tune itself. I find that I also tend to finger tunes in G differently than tunes in D or A. Just tryin' to make it work....
# Posted on December 27th 2003 by Tusong200
Re: Banjo fingering questions
When I first started playing the banjo I used to use three fingers but thought there was to much jumping around with the 2nd finger I changed to four finger style and never looked back. 4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want. In my opinion 4 finger is far better the 3 for playing banjo. In that tune you where talking about you play the g before the b with your 2nd finger and the b with your pinky and the notes after it faf you play the a with your 3rd finger.
# Posted on December 28th 2003 by banjaxbanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
I'd like to play as "well" as Gerry O'Connor, but my choice of material might be different than his, some of it, anyway. Gerry describes his style as "finger assignment - with the pinky getting fret #5. It suits his jazzy, chromatic style.
Even someone with smaller hands can play the "pinky only frets #6 and #7" style with practice. The hand must learn to 'roll' up and down the neck, kind of like a cello player does. There are plenty of smaller-handed cello players, especially in grade-school orchestras. It helps with this method to start out with the neck more towards vertical than horizontal.
Bob
# Posted on December 28th 2003 by Laughtonb
Re: Banjo fingering questions
"4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want. In my opinion 4 finger is far better the 3 for playing banjo"
Depends on your priorities. If you want to play gnat-notes in quasi-bluegrass style, with bluegrass-style syncopations, guitar-style fingering works well. If you want to play more in the idiom of a fiddler, flutist, or piper, mandolin-style fingering gives you the right phrasing, the right ornaments, and so forth.
There's Irish tenor playing beyond Gerry O Connor, dude.
chris smith
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Chris - an interesting reply to Banjaxbanjo's post. I'm genuinely curious as to your sound and style on Irish banjo - are there any sound clips of your playing available?
Jim
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by Worldfiddler
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Jim:
There may be clips of my playing out on the web, but I'm not aware of any--have not posted any myself. I have a solo disc coming out in early 04 with Randal Bays which will probably be the best evidence.
Just for clarity: I am not dissing Gerry O Connor's playing--he's a fantastic technician and has certainly inspired a lot of players. But the comment "4 finger is the real fingering for the banjo. Gerry O' Coonnor use it what more do you want" seemed simplistic to me; it's my opinion that there are a range of approaches to Irish tenor out there, and that the different approaches understandably yield different results.
That's all.
chris smith
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Fair comment, Chris.
Jim
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by Worldfiddler
Re: Banjo fingering questions
That was my opinion coyotebanjo that doesn't mean its set in gold. The comment about Gerry O'Connor uses it what more do you want is saying if you want to be the best at playing the tenor banjo technically, follow in Gerry's foot steps. Can you name a better Irish tenor banjo player that Gerry O'Connor.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by banjaxbanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
If you want to play like Gerry O'Connor-stylewise, then by all means follow in his footsteps. Whether or not he is the best is a matter of opinion(he's certainly right up there) and on the style of music you prefer. There are other great players too whom I admire e.g Eamon Coyne, Mick Moloney, Tony Sullivan, even Barney McKenna to name but a few. I would find it hard to say who was *the best*.
I've tried both 3 and 4 finger styles of fingering. I'm not sure which is the best as I tend to use both, on occasion. I've been used to the fiddle and mandolin so, as Chris says, it's easier to do ornamentations etc although sometimes it can be a bit of a stretch. I find that it's fairly easy to reach the higher notes by moving my entire hand--a bit like a piano accordian player
). This is strange at first but you get used to it. I've tried the shorter scale tenors but I've yet to purchase one--this makes things even easier.
John
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Johannes J
Re: Banjo fingering questions
I like to twist the hand a bit, so the fingers are actually pushing down a little slanted. It may look strange, but I feel it makes fingering easier and sliding down the neck easier.
Lars.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Larshansen
Thanks! + a Barney McKenna question.
Thanks, I really appreciate all of this feedback. Obviously, there is room for experimentation to come up with what's right for me. I do like listening to Gerry O'Connor, but I think my taste tends more towards Kieran Hanrahan.
Speaking of taste, I've been listening to some early Barney McKenna tunes (for example, the Swallowtail Reel) and I wonder a whether this is the best model to follow. The ornamentation style is very nice - realistic for a beginner like myself to work on, and effective also. But doesn't he tend to play reels a bit like very fast marches - no "swing", if I could call it that?
I know I risk some wrath here for impuning the father of the Irish tenor banjo, so I'll just go and put on my asbestos suit.....
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by grego
Re: Banjo fingering questions
"But doesn't he tend to play reels a bit like very fast marches - no "swing", if I could call it that?"
In my observation and experience, different players play the same tunes with differing degrees of swing. For that matter, *I* play tunes with differing degrees of swing depending upon who I'm playing with.
Case in point: I learned "The Ships are Sailing" probably 20 years ago, in a straight-8th setting, and played it that way for years--because that was the setting I had in my mind's ear. Have moved away from playing straight-8ths, and at this point the setting and degree of swing are both quite different.
This suggests to me that where or from whom one heard a tune tends to shape how one hears its degree of swing.
Slightly OT but still about Barney McKenna: there's a great, very rare RTE video called "The Green Linnet" (no relation to the notorious record company) featuring McKenna and Tony Mac Mahon (box) on tour in a tiny Deux Cheveaux pickup truck from Ireland, through Wales, England, S France, and into Switzerland, stopping and playing tunes along the way. Produced in 1978, hard to locate except through university Inter-Library Loan, and with some very eccentric scenes, but their duet playing (no accompanist) is FANTASTIC.
There's also good stuff of McKenna, whose health is no longer so good, and Mac Mahon on Tony's recent "Mac Mahon from Clare" disc.
all the best,
chris smith
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by coyotebanjo
Hmmm...
I was always taught by my teachers that if you start a tune up, then you get to sort of "set" the amount of swing, and if you're following someone else's lead, it's polite to follow their amount of swing. The amount of swing in anyone's playing is part of their style, and there's no one amount or lack of swing that is "correct" in this stuff...
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Banjo fingering questions
Barney Mckenna's playing is a bit odd it sounds out of time. I'd say his strokes are a bit like Sully's on the Irsh banjo book. I suppose we have to take our hat off to him because he was the first person to bring the banjo into Irish music using the tuning GDAE.
# Posted on January 1st 2004 by banjaxbanjo
Re: Banjo fingering questions
I have read all your posts, and a lot of you are saying, which way is best to play the banjo, and you are talking about how much swing you should put in tunes, i don't mean to offend anyone here but i think that is a load of crap, you can only play the way you play, in my personal opinion i believe that you should play directly from your heart, it doesnt matter how you play the banjo as long as your happy with it, play the way you play, don't try and immitate players like gerry o'connor, have your own individual syle, its great to listen to players like him, he has inspired hundreds of banjo players, but there are so many out there now that are carbon copys of him, people try so hard to sound like him, sure you can use some of his techniques but have your own style, and as for fingering, there is no right or wrong way, you can only play the way you can play.
liam
# Posted on March 2nd 2004 by Liam "banjo" Vernon
Re: Banjo fingering questions
I'm a great fan of Gerrys and Barneys playing, but Gerry is the best, only because nobody else can play like him . On the question of fingering, I prefer to use the pinky on the 5th.fret of the tenor banjo, keeping my middle finger for occasional filling gaps, it avoids confusion when I change to mandolin, and use the 3rd.finger for the 5th.fret.
# Posted on October 22nd 2004 by tirvaluk