Banjo Hangout - Playing Advice: All Other Styles Forum Feed

Recognizable Music for Fingerstyle Banjo

eric@banjohangout.org — Tue, 4 Aug 2026 05:27:29 CST

The "Banjo Player's Favorite" is a great collection of music you might be able to recognize.

Arranged for regular fingerstyle banjo by Zarh Myron Bickford, it is free to download and fully in the public domain.

What EXACTLY is fingerstyle banjo playing?

eric@banjohangout.org — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:43:16 CST

I’ve been playing banjo for over 20 years, after playing guitar for at least that long. I use four finger picks on both, and never really discerned any style. I just play what I think a song needs. I can fake simple three finger good enough to fool a non banjo player, and can kind of clawhammer simple back up, and finger pick along with anything my friends want to play. What differs between my guitar playing and banjo playing, is incorporating the drone string to banjofy the sound.

All of a sudden, after all these years, I see discussion of “fingerstyle” banjo playing, like it’s a genre of its own. Of the two threads running, I’m still not sure what it is, where’s it’s from, if it’s a specific style, or if it is just a broad term that encompasses any use of up picking. So, I googled it. Is this about right, or is it way off?

Favo(u)rite Banjos for Fingerstyle Playing

eric@banjohangout.org — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:59:26 CST

Extension of Mike's discussion.

At the ABF rallies, banjos in use are really all over the place. We see noname jobbers up to original Bacon Silverbell NPU #6. Even "modern" banjos.

Open back? Yes.
Resonator? Yes.

At the last few rallies, Stewart banjos have been represented well. As with things, there is a slant towards the higher end models, #3s to Presentation grade.

Me. I slant to unadorned banjos. Perhaps this is an added appeal for me with Weaver banjos. I think they are visually fantastic. But I also bounce around, which is why I have a "library" of banjos (I swear I am not a "collector").

Currently I am playing a teens CE Wood Hoop Special with a CE resonator fitted and a Birdseye neck Weaver that is engraved 1910.

I also very much enjoy my Van Eps banjos as well as my Gariepy version of the FVE "flush fret". About two weeks ago I was playing a Weaver "Bohee Champion" that was "modernized" by Weaver with a new fretted fingerboard (it was likely all metal) and champion pegs. This is something Weaver was known to do, upgrade banjos. R. Tarrant Bailey even wrote about having it done.

With the fingerstyle players I know, any well crafted banjo is fair game.

String spacing

eric@banjohangout.org — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:48:34 CST

I’m wondering if among finger-style players here there’s much (or any) variation in preferred string spacing at the bridge?

Commercial capped bridges for use with steel strings generally come as standard or Crowe spacing. But the uncapped simplicity of bridges for use with gut or nylon inclines me to think that there are probably more finger-style players that make our own bridges (though that is a question in itself).

Speaking personally I can relate how the experimenting bug that goes with making my own bridge design did lead me away from the ‘rote’ of a fixed ‘standard’ or recommended spacing.

How does one play like Jerron Paxton?

eric@banjohangout.org — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:08:28 CST

I've been following Jerron for quite a while. Saw him again this weekend. He let me play his banjo. Very fun.

Anyway, I want to get into that style of playing. Is it "classic" banjo? Or is it something else? Where does one start? I've been playing for a while with clawhammer and 3-finger styles, but never got into this style. I do have a nylon strung whyte laydie to play on.

EDIT: See video below for what I'm talking about.

Winner's Common Sense Banjo Instructor, 1890

eric@banjohangout.org — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:54:27 CST

It is difficult to keep up with all the "Winner's" banjo methods, and yet here is another. These small landscape format Winner's books are all fairly generic and basic in information. But this certainly could be used to learn the basics of playing banjo.

It is worth downloading for the price of free!

Fingerstyle

eric@banjohangout.org — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 09:58:54 CST

A positive addition to the playing styles section - and the banjo community - would be specific reference to and home for fingerstyle players.

Currently a very small - but active - interest area compared to Bluegrass and clawhammer. But surely warranting specific mention in one of the other sections, even if it does not have a section to itself.

There are a wide range of questions that would be catered for and easily findable by this inclusion: history, vintage banjo repair, style-specific set-up and playing guidance. It might even encourage fingerstyle players to share recordings and notation.

Contextually fingerstyle is the major predecessor banjo culture from which grew today’s banjo activity. Yet the casual visitor to the Hangout today will see no specific top-level mention or signpost -or active support and encouragement - for this beautiful playing style.

Skeleton dance fantasy (update 2)

eric@banjohangout.org — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:06:36 CST

Think I'm starting to develop a signature voice.

Ballad no.1 : Beowulf

eric@banjohangout.org — Thu, 14 May 2026 15:32:25 CST

A piece split into sections with a returning ballad theme. It's basically three pressure systems that represent Beowulf's three trials. Grendel, Grendel's mother and the dragon.

Czech Marian Music - Baroque Songs for 5 string Banjo

eric@banjohangout.org — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 01:02:46 CST

This songs from a Baroque hymnal published in 1647. The songs were composed, both music and lyrics, by the Czech composer and poet Adam Václav Michna z Otradovice (around 1600 – 1676).

Songs: Rána života od ruky Spasitele 00:00; Pobožné umírajícího Vale a Salve 00:26; Veleslavnost blahoslavené Panny Nanebevzetí 00:45; Utrpnost krestana s Rodickou Boží pod krížem 01:10; Skrytá strela tela Božího 01:34; Ohen svatodušní 01:57; Vánocní roztomilosti 02:16;
arr: Ondrej Sarek

From book: Czech Marian Music - Baroque Songs for 5 string Banjo