How is playing the banjo a lot like throwing a javelin blindfolded?
You don’t have to be very good to get people’s attention.
Over the past year or so I’ve taken up a (slightly) quixotic quest to become the next Earl Scruggs. Or at the very least a passible bluegrass banjo player. I grew up around bluegrass and country music, and it always fascinated me how fast those banjo players could play while still playing a recognizeable melody. Being one who is moderately inclined towards picking up instruments with strings and frets I figured it would be no sweat.
Bluegrass banjo is difficult. Never again will I associate a badass banjo picker with Cletus the slack jawed yokel. The fingerpicking alone is a challenge, but then you throw in using chord voicings to carry melodic lines and all other kinds of crazy left hand techniques…we’re talking art, folks. Right now I’ve got the training wheels on, but hopefully in a few years I’ll be able to make that train start rolling down the tracks. Traditional American folk and bluegrass music is in danger of being lost, so thanks to the Folk School and other similar organizations for carrying the torch on to new generations.
In the meantime, here are some cool banjo-related videos.
Earl Scruggs:
This one has so many famous players in it, including the immortal John Hartford (R.I.P.):
Very cool with some crazy techniques…
Ahh, Deliverance… With Steve Martin and Muppets!
A gentleman is a man who knows how to play banjo, and doesn’t.
-Mark Twain.
If you get really good at banjo we could do a banjo-violin duet and I will play like Mark O’Connor (I can play like that if I practice, I just can’t, uhh, improvise that fast.)
Also, whenever I heard the word banjo I think of Charlize Theron’s retarded character on Arrested Development.
I love how we’re the only ones that comment on our own blog. FOR BRITISH EYES ONLY!
That’s why I found Sarge’s email so comical. Is anyone ever going to read this besides us?
“Instead of building houses, maybe you should be building land. On the ocean. There’s no land on the ocean, Michael.”
See now we’re getting too “meta”. I’m going to edit your comment to up the “awesome” factor.