My Banjo Skills Increase and Various Injuries

So far during this week I have been quite pleased with my progress on learning the banjo.  The main skill I learned this week was to learn picking patterns and how to make the thumb, index, and middle finger together with as little string inaccuracies when I am picking.  One exercise for picking, I worked on for an hour.  I stretched and vigorously worked my fingers for about an hour with that exercise, that I had to ice my fingers because of how red they were and how much they hurt.  Despite the "pain" I went through, this was an extremely important skill to develop because overall, picking is the most difficult aspect of banjo at least for me so far.

This is the exact tablature I used for the picking exercise that I continually did to work on my picking skills.  The biggest challenge I have faced in learning the banjo is learning the picking patterns that I have to learn and the amount of accuracy that is demanded when you pluck the banjo.  In comparison to standard rock picking on a guitar and even on an acoustic guitar, it is much more difficult and nothing similar to what I have done before.  On regular guitar, you only have to control one pick and it is quite easy to strum away or quickly pick single strings.  The closest I have gotten to banjo picking before actually trying it was finger picking on my acoustic guitar which is one of my favorite picking styles.  Compared to banjo picking, finger picking is much easier because you don't have an extension to your fingers that you have to control in addition to your fingers.  The metal picks make it very hard to strum on the banjo and the difficulty to pluck with single fingers make strumming a very difficult task on the banjo.

Another banjo related injury I have sustained this week was also on my fingers.  I was strumming very hard with the metal picks and one of them slipped and cut some of my skin, which then spewed some blood onto my banjo.  Despite being rather gross, I have marked my banjo and there is no question that it is mine!

One goal for me every week is to learn a new song of sort on the banjo.  I decided to learn another Mumford and Sons song because of their difficulty and lots of banjo time in the song.  The way I find a song and learn how to play them are using the website http://www.banjohangout.org/tab/.  Most of the tabs on the website are accurate and allow for me to learn a song quickly and easily.  With out this website I would have a difficult time learning the songs, which is one of the main parts of my project and my set goals.

As I mentioned in my previous blog posts I am planning on having a Skype lesson with the youtube user happybanjodude.  He offers Skype lessons on his website.  I scheduled one for this sunday because it seems like a great opportunity to learn banjo from an expert, and because of the lack of banjo instructors in our area, this is the perfect chance for me to learn from an outside expert.  With his expertise and help I can really work out the kinks in my strumming and picking abilities so I can begin to learn much more difficult pieces.  Hopefully everything goes well in the lesson and there is no technological problems so I can have a successful and beneficial banjo lesson that will aid me in my banjo journey.  

I plan to put another blog post after my Skype lesson and will fill all of you in on how it goes.  See you then!