Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Long time :)

Been awhile since I stopped by here to say “Hi”. Missed y’all. It’s our busy time at work, and if I’m being 100% up front, I haven’t touched my banjo in about 3 months. gasp

I have been playing everyday, but it’s been guitar. This morning, I thought “maybe I should see if I even remember how to pluck a banjo string”. Sure enough, after about 5 minutes of dinkin’ and plinkin’ it all came back. Odd thing, the fretting was WAY easier than I remember. I’m guessing this is due to being used to the wider necks of guitars now, but it’s funny and a little weird how much muscle memory just takes over even after such a long break.

Another thing that was really interesting is my banjo was still in tune (well, within 2 cents each string). That really surprised me. I actually detuned each string and tuned back into the notes just to be sure. After playing for about 30 minutes, I think I need to change the strings. They just don’t have the crisp sound I remember. Sounded a little dead, especially the B and G strings.

Anywho… just thought I’d drop by, say Howdy. Hope y’all are doing well. Now, I’m off to practice some guitar. Trying to get “Pomp and Circumstance” memorized. My oldest graduates next month, and I want to surprise him with it.

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Welcome back! Good luck on pomp and circumstance.

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I’ve been in the doldrums since Christmas Mike, just couldn’t focus after a few notes on the banjo but since @BanjoBen posted On top of old Smokey I got my mojo back and now I’m revisiting some tunes I learned a few years back. I have concluded that our learning process works in a cycle. Just been through my longest period of downtime so I think the rest of this year I’ll see a marked improvement in my playing. At least that’s my goal.

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Welcome back!

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Mike! Always good to see you around the forum. Of course, playing any instrument is a good thing. Hopefully you’ll get some time to share some guitar videos.

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I’m glad you picked it back up, it’s like an old friend coming to visit. Welcome back to “banjo land” adventures.

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I still pick up my banjo every day & pick a few notes, but I have not “practiced” in a month.
But I have been thinking a lot, and processing, and getting little light bulbs of understanding of how this whole thing works.
Basically, I’m trying to learn more, but ease off of the pressure and try to have more fun. I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting, and like most experiments, failure is my teacher. And I’m the star pupil.

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