My Banjo Style

Dance all night and fiddle all day

Dance all night and fiddle all day

Dance all night and fiddle all day

That's the soldiers joy 

-Verse from Soldier's Joy



     Well, I promised some banjo on this blog so here it is.  This is an oldtime classic called Soldier's Joy.  It was a very popular fiddle tune during, and after, the Civil War.  A fiddler I played with in Tallahassee told me that it was popular in England and America, and that almost every oldtime fiddler knows this song.  It is often played as an instrumental, but many verses have also been put to the tune.  This particular piece is my modified version of Mike Iverson's arrangement.
      As you can tell, I need some more practice to get the tune sounding nice and clean.  I didn't want to wait until I'm perfect before I post, because I'll never be perfect.  A good musician doesn't get good before playing for others.  A good musician plays for others to get good.  Also, posting my videos will help keep track of my progress and hopefully inspire others to give music a try too.

      This video also gives you an idea of  my style.  It is a frailing (down stroke) based style.  Basically, I come down on the strings with my nails, much like a hammer hits a piano string, rather than plucking them with my fingertips (or fingerpicks).  I taught a lot to myself, but I also got plenty of help from Patrick Costello and Mike Iverson's websites.  Patrick has free books for download that teach old time guitar and banjo.  He is more concerned with keeping the musical tradition alive than making money.  Mike has free tabs for plenty of songs available on his website.  Patrick Costello's style is more of a pure frailing style.  He uses hammer-ons, slides, and pulloffs to create notes on the off-beats, but does not embelish the song to the point where he hits every single melody note.  His emphasis is on the chordal accompaniment of  the song.  Mike accompanies songs with a lot of rests, to emphasize certain notes, and strumming.  However, he is also skilled at melodic clawhammer ( a downstroke style that uses the thumb on lower strings to add more notes, and focuses on the melody of the song).  With these two influences, I have a started to develop my own intermediate style.  Some people consider frailing and clawhammer mutually exclusive but, to be honest I play both ways depending on the song and the situation.  When I play by myself, I tend to lean more towards Mike's teachings, so I can help bring out the melody.  When I'm playing with a fiddler, flatpicker, or singer, I tend to lean towards Patrick's teachings to rythmically drive the song, without taking the melody from my fellow musician.  In either case, it's music, and people play it differently.  There is no reason for anybody to fret over differences in style when we are all trying to reach the same goal... some good, foot stomping, old time music.