I really love playing the patriotic songs. I have been learning Banjo for just over 2 years now. But I’m always have issues with fretting the 4th string in the D and F shape as well as C. My fingers are not the longest maybe about average to small but they are fatter. I have had some online instruction and they have corrected my thumb position and it helps. But the problem I have is when I fret the C chord 4th string with my middle finger I can feel the buzz of the open G string when I play. I have positioned my middle finger by itself directly straigh down on the 4th string and can still make the G string buzz on my middle finger. I have to place my middle finger almost off the fret board to make it work and then sometimes I push the 4th string off the fret board in error. When I fret the 4th string my finger flattens out and the flesh of my finger gets in the way of the 3rd string. Don’t know how I can resolve this. Maybe I playing too hard and pressing too hard, don’t know.
4th string problems
Hey Bill! Rest assured that a lot of folks run into problems like this and usually they are more than resolvable with some slight modifications to your hand position.
A lot of it has to do with the way you curl your fingers, and the angle of your fingers and wrist. If you can upload a video of your fretting hand position showing the problem, that would be great!
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Ok thanks, I’ll work on the video.
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Simplest way, create your video upload to YouTube and post the link here.
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