Thanks for the reply, Archie. I appreciate the “actionable” advice. I will try to put these ideas into practice this week. I miss my banjo and I want to get back into making it part of my daily routine.
Effective Practice
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Always keep your banjo within easy reach, that way you’ll be more inclined to play it.
Oh, it’s out and visible, staring at me every night in the corner next to the TV… I just need a system for effective practice that can take me where I want to go.
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Hi Mark,
In my humble opinion, there’s no silver bullet. There is no one way to get you where I think you want to be (I want to be there too 
!), For what it’s worth, I would suggest to learn as many tunes as possible, and learn them thoroughly, because after you know dozens and dozens of tunes, you will be able to use parts of one song and apply them in other songs, thus starting to “improvise”…
So, keep pickin’ !
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As @Erwin1 say’s there is no silver bullet, no shortcuts. If your not gifted it’s all down to study and practice lot’s of it.
I said earlier, your in the right place to find help. All the tools are here on this site to take you from a rank beginner thru to a fairly accomplished player. All you gotta do is pick up your banjo make sure it’s in tune and start your journey.
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To make your practice effective for a jam my suggestion would be to go and study the jam you want to join in on.
Go once (or more) and just listen
maybe record (using stealth) some of the songs or parts of them
write down what songs they are doing…chances are they will do many of the same next time.
spend time observing those who play the same instrument as you…this can really help with ideas
then you have an idea of what you have to learn and work on to be involved and feel comfortable with it
final statement: There is no substitution for playing with others if you want to play with others…rhythm and play-along tracks can help some, but it is not the same as playing live with other people.
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Yeah, of course. And I’m not expecting a “silver bullet”, which is why I title this post “effective practice”. I want to put in the work, but I want to feel like the work I’m putting in is heading in the right direction.
I’ll keep learning a few new tunes as well, but I just started the waypoints lesson yesterday, as suggested and that stuff is really great. I want to be able to spend each practice doing more of that, then working on a new tune maybe. Eventually finding a YouTube bluegrass jam, as Archie suggests, to play along with.
The people that I play with are not bluegrass players though They know singer-songwriters or pop, classic rock, folk. They might know a couple Mumford and Sons songs. So just learning how to be flexible on the banjo is what I want to focus on moreso.
Yes, those waypoints lessons by Alan Munde are just gold ! If you’re interested I know a little exercise I learned from Leon Hunt, a British professsional banjo player, to get even more acquainted with the fretboard geography.
From your post, I don’t know if one of your wishes is to be able to distinguish the chords and chord changes in a song (I know it’s one of mine ). In that case the lessons by Alan Munde are even more important ! And the rest comes down to practice and listening, practice and listening, practice and listening…
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Hi @Erwin1 If you think it would help others I am sure @BanjoBen wouldn’t mind you sharing it with us.
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I don’t know Archie…you are aware of how difficult to understand them blokes from across the big pond are right? 
I do Dave, but I am a glutton for punishment. I attended a workshop with Leon in Perth some years back but he was still hung-over from his adventures the night before to convey any meaningful instruction. My friend and I plus one other student who signed up for the workshop came away somewhat disappointed. This way maybe I get a little of what I’d paid for and if other’s benefit then I am happy with that. Just for the record Leon is a nice guy and I forgave him for his misdemeanour long ago.
Ok, so here it goes :
It’s a little exercise that only takes 3 minutes, so it’s perfect to start your practice every day.
Take a piece of paper and draw a vertical line, so you have 2 columns. In the first column write 10 notes at random, one on each line. A note can be natural or accidental (flat or sharp), so for example the note Ab on the 1st row, D# on the 2nd, F on the 3rd, etc.
In the 2nd column, also at random, write down one of the three positions (in Ben’s jargon : Y-position, X-position, bar position, in Alan Munde’s terms : 1st, 2nd and 3rd position, Leon Hunt uses “root position, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion”).
So you have something like this :
Ab 2
D# 1
F 3
B 3
Eb 1
A# 3
Db 2
etc.
Now the purpose is to fret the (major) chord of each note with the associated shape. You start with your fretting hand on your knee, and then fret the 1st chord. Then put your hand back on your knee, and fret the 2nd chord, etc.
If you don’t know the position of the chord on the fretboard immediately, go to the chord of a note you DO know, and count up or down. For instance, if you don’t know where to find B in the 2nd position (X-shape), but you know to find the G chord in the 2nd position, then fret that chord, and slide up your hand 1 fret for Ab (or G#), 2 frets for A, 3 frets for Bb (or A#), and at last 4 frets for B. SAY THOSE CHORDS OUT LOUD WHILE YOU’RE FRETTING THEM ! You could also have fretted C, and slide down 1 fret. The important thing is that you start on a note or chord you KNOW, and then slide up or down. When you repeat that enough, a chord that was previously unknown, becomes known after a while, becoming itself a springboard to find other chords, thus expanding your knowledge of the fretboard geography.
After a while, you can expand that exercise by drawing a third column in which you randomly assign the chord to be major or minor. After that you can expand even further to include dominant 7ths and diminished chords. That should suffice as far as bluegrass goes.
Have fun !
BTW I attended Leon’s class for a week, and not only is he a supernice guy, but he also has a knack to explain difficult topics in the most simple way… much the same as Banjo Ben does !
I hear you Erwin, but what you have to remember is those guy’s on the other side of the big pond don’t understand plain English. It has to be in an American accent preferably from the Southern states. 
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Roger that 
That sounds a lot like an Excel Macro app I wrote a while back. It basically spits out random chords to play. You can set the time delay between new chords. I also made sone chord charts to go along with it.
You can find those here if you’re interested.
I’ve actually found British people to be in general a lot more understandable when speaking to an audience than south africans, but I’m not sure aboot the Scottish
I just wanted to add that if you’re just starting with the banjo, and Ab, D# etc. don’t mean much yet, you can “downsize” the exercise, and just practice G, C and D at random in different positions, because those chords are really, really important. (after that, you should continue with A, F & E).
That’s another point I guess I want to make : it’s good practice to be critical to any exercise or advice anyone gives you, and question how it can be beneficial to YOU. If necessary, don’t hesitate to adapt or adjust it so that it suits YOUR needs…
Well, enough of that, I’ll get off the preaching chair
Hi @K_G I have a hard time understanding Scots and I ur wan
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that reminds me, one time (lasy year?) I was in S.A. at church and the speaker (don’t think it was the pastor) said something I didn’t understand, so I asked the person sitting next to me “what did he say?” And they didn’t know either (they also were south African). I can do a decent mild Scottish accent, but I wouldn’t do it in the presence of a Scotsman
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Scots don’t take themselves too seriously. They laugh at themselves more than they laugh at others. What other country bares it’s bum to the world.