jsinjin - Posted - 03/07/2026:  10:45:48

I’m practicing this 1500 time per day in 100 set increments but I keep messing up. I have the banjo capo’d to A. the version I’m playing which I learned a couple of years ago through my private lessons with my teacher. This version the first measure has a bum-ditty then drop thumb ditty. The bum ditty has the first string at the fifth fret then a drop thumb open at the second string. I can play the song eyes closed with strum machine over and over and it’s a tune I can play without thinking anytime. It should be simple to sound melodic but the transition from that bum ditty to drop thumb on the second string always sounds clunky. I keep setting myself up with rigorous practice sessions of 200-500 repeats on strum machine of just that measure or that measure and the second measure performing this workout 1000 to 1500 times a day but no matter what I vary the movement, style or approach it always sounds completely “wooden” and “clunky”. When I listen to others play the opening it sounds like a melody with the speed of the notes sort of bouncing but when I play it, the sound of it always sounds like the drop thumb is the same tempo as the rest of the notes. It’s very hard to describe but there seems to be the same tempo for every note when I play it no matter what I vary while the musicians I see on other videos sound with a melody that isn’t as even. I don’t have this problem on a lot of other drop thumb parts of tunes and my drop thumb technique is something I practiced a lot in many different ways. In this one part on this simple tune it just sounds so wooden.

Has anyone experience this. I’ll try to record but my phone voice memos are not mp3s and don’t upload well here.

Alex Z - Posted - 03/07/2026:  12:39:42

A recording is essential for others to understand what the rhythm is that  you're playing.  I'll take a listen when you post it.

In the meantime, if you're playing something 1500 times per day in a way you don't like, maybe put it away for a bit until others can assist with diagnosis and remedy.  Let the brain get neutral and ready to accommodate a different way.  

jsinjin - Posted - 03/07/2026:  12:43:58

Oh no. I’m shifting it. I’ll try 500 at one specific accent then listen an hour later then another then another. I track each shift and the way I accent the notes. It’s definitely not without changing and simply beating my head against the wall. I always practice with thousands of repetitions per day for anything.

Bill Rogers - Posted - 03/07/2026:  14:08:43

IMO, you’re trying too hard. Put away all your technique bookd and tabs for a month and just play the banjo. You may find you can do just fine without all the detail. Much of the time it’s better to arrive at your own version of a tune rather than feel you must work from a particular source.

Lew H - Posted - 03/07/2026:  19:13:41

If it's that drop thumb in the second measure that's the problem, try leaving it out.

RG - Posted - 03/07/2026:  22:12:12

quote:

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

IMO, you’re trying too hard. Put away all your technique bookd and tabs for a month and just play the banjo. You may find you can do just fine without all the detail. Much of the time it’s better to arrive at your own version of a tune rather than feel you must work from a particular source.

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This right here. Not everything is empirical... music is all about feel. Listen, listen, listen to the music... and then keep playing until it sounds like what you want it to sound like. It's that simple, and that difficult.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/07/2026:  23:14:26

quote:

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Originally posted by Alex Z

In the meantime, if you're playing something 1500 times per day in a way you don't like, maybe put it away for a bit until others can assist with diagnosis and remedy.  Let the brain get neutral and ready to accommodate a different way.  

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The only thing you'll accomplish is programming your "mistake" into muscle memory and make it real hard to unlearn.

GS - Posted - 03/08/2026:  01:40:41

This is not specifically about cripple creek, but there are times when the few things I've learned, which has taken some effort, sound ok (to me), then times when they're not good, not as good as I'd wanted...but hey ho... I must point out I only play for my own pleasure (torture!) so no one really has to bear witness to my "talents" (!)

I'm kind of caught up in trying not to forget the things I've learned - I've only been doing this a couple of years - and learning other stuff and keeping it fun / interesting. This is not always easy and sometimes takes the fun out of just picking up this cool instrument. I'm kind of reluctant to stop playing the "familiar" and learn new stuff...but I guess I'll have to if the banjo journey continues.

The reason for my input here is: do folks try and retain what they've learned or just learn something and move on? Any other info on your playing habits would be interesting.

GS

jsinjin - Posted - 03/08/2026:  05:38:49

quote:

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Originally posted by RG

quote:

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

IMO, you’re trying too hard. Put away all your technique bookd and tabs for a month and just play the banjo. You may find you can do just fine without all the detail. Much of the time it’s better to arrive at your own version of a tune rather than feel you must work from a particular source.

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This right here. Not everything is empirical... music is all about feel. Listen, listen, listen to the music... and then keep playing until it sounds like what you want it to sound like. It's that simple, and that difficult.

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I HATE listening to music.  Except for trying to break down and reprogram a new tune.   Just don't enjoy listening to any music except the occasional clsssical symphony or those Van Cliburn piano competitions at TCU.

i didn't mean to open this can of worms again in the forum.  I just noticed that this particular set of theee notes hung up a bit and after severaL multi hour practice sessions on them and playingother people's YouTube videos back and breaking down the speed of each note something was off and despite several changes of speed and index and timing of each note with long practice sessions I wasn't for some recon moving my thumb down and off correctly in the drop thumb in the opening measure of this song to play the second string open after the bum ditty and it sounded off.   Especially when I timed it.   I guess I was listening but also comparing.   

 

I think of banjo like an solo piece for junior high classical Music students.   How can I make any part of a song play correctly for that specific measure.

Alex Z - Posted - 03/08/2026:  09:43:48

"i didn't mean to open this can of worms again in the forum. "



I apologize for not remembering that the poster has his own way of enjoying the banjo, and that's his preference.  So my way of enjoying and learning is not going to be applicable.  So I can't give advice on how to get to my point B starting from his point A.  That's perfectly OK.



Considering rhythm, our brains are interpreting teeny differences of time.  We don't know exactly what the poster is hearing and whether or not it will sound exactly the same to another listener.  That's why posting a recording of the different ways the poster is playing the phrase -- but still not sounding right to him -- is import in diagnosing what's going on and what could be changed.



Hope this helps.

Edited by - Alex Z on 03/08/2026 09:44:13

lawnboss - Posted - 03/08/2026:  15:16:41

When I am learning a new song, it's not uncommon for me to have a passage with a somewhat challenging phrasing idea that I would like to pull off. That phrasing remains "the beautiful dream", but if I can't get it in the first week or so I will develop a simpler version that I can play cleanly at tempo without breaking up the groove. I keep working on the beautiful dream, but I have the simpler version in my back pocket that will work well if the tune is called at a jam.

The secret, or the irony, is that often once I have polished up the simpler version, it makes me more comfortable and somehow that reduced tension often smoothes the way to nailing the more challenging phrasing in short order!

Good luck!

John Gribble - Posted - 03/09/2026:  19:01:09

I don't understand the version of "Cripple Creek" you're playing. The one I learned 60 years ago starts off 1 string 5th fret ditty 2nd sring 3rd fret pull -off ditty, then to a C chord and two bums. I have never played it with the 2nd string on an offbeat (with the thumb, I asume) the way you describe.

jsinjin - Posted - 03/09/2026:  19:38:24

The section is here from 4:17-4:19

Hilarie is my teacher and I meet with her weekly. I learned this tune over a year ago but we are going through multiple tunes I have learned and working to make them sound better with harmony and melody that is more “musical”.

jsinjin - Posted - 03/09/2026:  19:38:31

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_9OOicV2...KAYcqIYzv

Alex Z - Posted - 03/09/2026:  22:55:48

"When I listen to others play the opening it sounds like a melody with the speed of the notes sort of bouncing but when I play it, the sound of it always sounds like the drop thumb is the same tempo as the rest of the notes. It’s very hard to describe but there seems to be the same tempo for every note when I play it no matter what I vary while the musicians I see on other videos sound with a melody that isn’t as even."



Ms. Hilarie sounds great.  So that's point B, where you want to go.



We also have to hear point A, the point you are starting from, which you want to change to point B.



What does Ms. Hilarie say about how you are playing it now?

Edited by - Alex Z on 03/09/2026 22:56:19

John Gribble - Posted - 03/12/2026:  01:36:25

Aha! So the second string on the offbeat isn't just out there on its own. That phrase is 1st string-2nd string-ditty. played finger-thumb-finger thumb. The count is 1&2&, all four notes spaced equally in sound. The sound is the same as the version I learned mid-last century, but played slightly differently.

jsinjin - Posted - 03/12/2026:  05:00:20

I had a lesson yesterday. The problem was the way I was moving into the drop thumb was actually shifting my middle finger down so that it was below the first string. I was anticipating the drop thumb and batons so much attention to the upcoming movement that my percussion finger was out of position for the note.

Alex Z - Posted - 03/12/2026:  06:31:49

Glad you're back on track.

How anyone would ever come up with this diagnosis without hearing and seeing the poster play, I don't know.  Good teacher is Ms. Hilarie.

writerrad - Posted - 03/12/2026:  07:56:16

Find ONE VERSION OF THE SONG YOU ARE WORKING ON,  play it a lot.  SLOW IT DOWN.  Learn to hum it.  Learn to hum it as slow as you can.  Then try to play it as slow as you can.  The work will be the mental work on the tune that will preparing you for the physical, 

First of all, telephone or email the teacher.  She or he is being paid or has volunteered to help you.  For all you know every poster here is unqualified or dead wrong, even me.

Call or write or visit the teacher to try to solve this problem.  Do not expect strangers like me who may have evil intentions or may be dead wrong to offer you anything.   TALK TO YOUR TEACHER!

We are not dealing with classical music where the banjoist's task is to reproduce a written text or reproduce another person's performance note for note and play something that does not make sense to them.  There are a gillion different ways to play Cripple Creek.  I started out 60 years ago thinking there was a minor chord in it, playing guitar.  

Find the way that EXPRESSES THE RHYTHM the strongest for you, the way that appeals to your sense of it, even if it sounds a lot different from a teacher or instructor,  Get to the thrill of playing this.  This is not an intellectual experience, this is a physical athletic experience.  WORK ON THE RHYTHM FIRST. 

Think about the rhythm.  Think about singing or people dancing to it, just brush the banjo in that rhythm until you have that rhythm running  through you.   Find the CLOSEST YOU CAN COME IN YOUR OWN to that rhythm  Dont worry about the finer aspects of getting each note or of the banjo technique RIGHT,  get the rhythm.   Get it for yourself. 

It works for some people I know clapping their hands.  It works for me tapping out the rhythm on my desk with a pen until I have an idea of the rhythm, and just aim for that.

Do not expect to sound like your teacher.  Do not expect to intellectually or scientifically master this.  This is a physical experience like chopping wood or shoveling snow or washing the dishes. 

If you have any tools to slow down the tune so you are practicing to something slower use them.  If you do not, get some.  I use good old free Audacity that has a slowing down mechanism.  If I have a lesson,  I always slow down what my teacher is playing and try to repeat it  and see what he is doing.

Go slow conquer it slowly. This kind of learning comes from successive approximation.  You start distant but  you work your way into it.

Finally decide whether you are going to do it or not.  After playing the guitar very well for about 30 years,  I decided to learn to play the fiddle and the banjo when I was about 53,  I have made some progress on the banjo in those 25 years, but at a certain point a great teacher I had said he had been to my house, and  told me the fiddle looked much nicer on my mantle than in my hands, but he liked my banjo playing.   I donated that violin to a school program

 Decide whether you want to learn this or not.  If not do something else.  Typing about it on Banjo Hangout can turn into something else.

A great musician I used to know who taught many instruments said he preferred kid students to older students, especially those who had mastered another instrument.  He said the small kids did not mind sounding bad and were used to doing things that they were learning to do and could not do right, and had both the drive and the patience to keep at it until they mastered it.    One of my initial banjo teachers was about 20 years younger than me when I first took lessons from her.  With the basic strokes she explained when I was starting out that it was easier for her to do them because she had started  when she was 9, not 53 as I was when she was teaching me. 

Mature adults are used to doing things well.  We have weeded out the things  we do that we are bad at and focus on the things we can do.   Embrace not playing it right,  Embrace not doing it bad.  STRONGLY EMBRACE NOT BEING ABLE TO DO IT AS WELL AS THE TEACHER.  But also embrace doing it poorly yourself.  Try to do it a little less poorly each time.  Or set simpler goals.

You are not going to advance on the banjo or anything else in life by doing things well the first time or the 10th time,  Embrace sounding bad.  The more you sound bad and practice at it, the more you are going to get better.

Also after you read this post,  you have no further need to go on banjo hangout or any other Internet blog to find out how to do this.  Type out my post, read it aloud before every time you practice.  Carry this around with you every where you go,  Do not waste your type typing here.   Since I have now given the clear solution to your problems,  go through this post and make sure you do everything I suggest.  

But after reading my post, stay away from BHO or other online places on this issue.,  Copy and print out this post as it contains infinite wisdom that you will treasure for the rest of your life.  Disdain anyone who disagrees with me!

Talk to your teacher, talk to musicians you know on the Earth.  PICK UP THE DAMNED BANJO AND SOUND LOUSY ON IT AT FIRST, THE WORK TO SOLVE THIS ON THE BANJO NOT ON THE INTERNET,

Edited by - writerrad on 03/12/2026 08:23:14

jsinjin - Posted - 03/12/2026:  08:25:25

Sadly for me, do learn banjo by strict interpretation of trying to reproduce music exactly and I really prefer classical bass and treble clef actually working with each tune to recreate what I watch others play online or sometimes (very rarely) through tablature into standard notation. I am terrible at rhythm, so bad at playing with others that it’s probably my least favorite activity and I play music only for the attempt to try and reproved patterns. I don’t even listen to music for joy as most of it besides classical composers just doesn’t work for me.


I do apologize for not posting a video or recording. I should have with this question and I didn’t. My old method of recording and posting has been somewhat hampered by new security protocols on my work laptop and I have bro taken the time and effort to set up one of my home ones with connections and drivers for my microphone. The issue was of my hand position which when I recorded it on the iPhone and looked and talked to my teacher l, was losing roughly 1/4 a second of time between the drop thumb and my index finger hitting the first spring because I was lowering my hand too far which was throwing off the timing. Noticing that slight change fixed the problem on my next 1000 repeats of that measure until it was corrected.

I approach every song by memorizing literally every note at every fret and every string like a classical pianist memorizing Chopin. There is some feel for me to then patterns of finger movements but even after two years of daily practice I still have no way to understand the “intuition” most players have to hear how a song is constructed with I IV V. I can’t tell any chord changes at all except what I know is a chord change. But this is not worth rehashing. I completely agree that method of just listen and play with others-a lota is the very best way to become a musician and learn to play music especially with old time music and tunes. My goal is to learn a lot about music theory and be able to reproduce songs from memory on my banjo. I will sadly never be a person who gets joy from the essence of songs and playing with others.

But I do love practice and repeating patterns and figuring out specific techniques over and over again. I love to learn a song and hear myself play it technically with no difference from measure to measure if I line them up on a frequency spectrum right on top of each other.

That’s just me though. I don’t encourage anyone else to try this method.

Alex Z - Posted - 03/12/2026:  09:28:48

Mr. writerrad:  what the heck did you have for breakfast this morning?  

slc - Posted - 03/18/2026:  11:47:29

quote:

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Originally posted by jsinjin

In this one part on this simple tune it just sounds so wooden.

There's a very simple solution: try something else. Yes, making drop-thumb sound fluid and rhythmic takes time - but sometimes it just doesn't work even if it's technically "correct". Banjo really is more about pulse and rhythm than the melody, and there's a lot of flexibility in how one does that.

Fathand - Posted - 03/18/2026:  22:10:47

quote:

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Originally posted by jsinjin

quote:

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Originally posted by RG

quote:

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

IMO, you’re trying too hard. Put

 

I think of banjo like an solo piece for junior high classical Music students.   How can I make any part of a song play correctly for that specific measure.

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The song will be played correctly when it is pleasant to listen to. 

Cripple Creek is a song. Listen to people sing it or someone play the melody. Get that in your head, then try to make your banjo play something that sounds like the song.

Learning some theory can help you learn to fill a bar of music with something suitable, i.e. what you play has to match the timing and harmony of the piece and hopefully include the melody.

Tabs and notation are there to teach skills like finger dexterity and timing, or to show you where the melody notes are if you don't know. They are like a paint by numbers kit to an artist, showing you how to copy a picture but not how to make a picture.