Hi Joe @jsmbrown I agree with all that @Mark_Rocka says but would add your also training the brain. Some would have you believe that learning to play banjo is easy but in truth it’s a very complex business.
Think about it, you use your eyes to read the TAB or watch @BanjoBen placing his fingers on the fingerboard demonstrating where the notes are, your using your ears to hear the music which lets your memory identify the melody. Your right and left hands do completely different tasks even your fingers work independently of each other and your brain has to co-ordinate everything. as well as store all this information in your internal database. Pretty impressive eh!
Before you can begin to speed things up you’ve got to learn to play it slow and we don’t mean a couple of times through. If your not naturally gifted it can take years to learn to play fast. This is why it’s so important that you work your way through Ben’s learning track. This will teach you the fundamentals that you will need as you move into the intermediate and advance sections. Patience. Practice and Perseverance are the tools you need to help you succeed.
In order to play fast you need to switch to autopilot and that’s a skill you can learn just like riding a bike or driving a car. But hey the good news is we are all in this together, we are here to help and encourage you as you learn. Just like the folks that helped us get to where we are now.
If you haven’t read this already I would encourage you to do so now. This is one piece of advice that will help you on the road to learning to build speed.
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