Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

My attempt at Wildwood Flower and pick tinkering

#1

Alright everyone. Here is my very first attempt at posting a decent video of me attempting to play something. It’s full of mistakes and sure to make your dogs howl so best to pen them up befor you hit play.

I’m off work this week sitting around recuperating from thyroid surgery and figured I would tinker around with all the picks I have acquired since I have started playing. Below is a list of the picks I used, in no certain order, see if you can pick which pick is which LOL!

Bluechip TP-1R50
Bluechip TD50
Fender Medium
Wegen Bluegrass
Dunlop Ultex 1.0
Dunlop Ultex 1.14

You will also probably notice in this clip that I am holding the pick with my thumb and middle and at time thumb, index and middle. I have been playing around with different ways of holding the darn thing since the tendon in my hand that cut my banjo career short now seems to be affecting the way I would normally hold the pick. If I was smart I would just put my guitar down completely for a couple months and see if I can get healed back up but I guess I am too stubborn for that :smiley:

Well there it is guys, be kind with the reviews :wink:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb1Z80upyWU&feature=youtu.be[/video]

#2

Nice job Brad! If I remember correctly, you just started earlier this year. That’s awesome. There were sections in there where it flowed real well.

As they were going I was trying guess what was what. I can’t remember exactly, but is an ultex #2 and #3 the TP-1R50? Is the white one a wegen? I thought those were black???

I feel for you with the tendon issue. I struggled with elbow issues and climbing for many years before I finally got past it. It can be very frustrating. It wouldn’t necessarily be what i would normally suggest, but have you tried a thumb pick? You can kind of use one like a normal pick and it takes very little clamping pressure with the fingers. Just a thought.

Keep cranking away! That’s awesome.

#3

Nice pickin’ Brad. I think I would have a hard time holding the pick like that. Seems like my index finger would be in the way. Hope you heal up soon.

#4

Very nice! I like it!

Love seeing vids from the forum members.

#5

Thank you all for your compliments and words of encouragement!

Mike,

The TPR was actually the last one that I used. You can kinda tell cause I fumbled around with it quite a bit as all the rest are standard TD shape for the most part. I am still deciding if I like this one or not. It feels a bit better when I play with 3 fingers but I really don’t want to play that way if I don’t have to.

Yes the wegen is the white one, that kinda gives that one away, was trying to palm them best I could so you couldn’t see em :wink:

One of the Ultex picks were #2

Can you guess which one was the bluechip TD50?

so here is what I will give away thus far

1 -
2- - Ultex 1.0
3 -
4 -
5 - Wegen
6 - Bluechip TPR-1R50

As far as a thumb pick I tried it a little with not much success, the issue I am having is that my thumb actually wants to push up against the side of the base of my index or toward my palm if you will. I can hold the pick standard with thumb and index fairly decent until I try to pick out the bass notes in the boom chuck rhythm pattern and then I just can’t get my thumb to want to go up there and grab that bass note.

Larry,

having my index finger pointed out there does become a hair uncomfortable but not near as uncomfortable as trying to hold it the standard way right now. I think getting my index finger out of the mix for now is allowing my thumb to articulate a bit better as I am not usning that first tendon in my hand as much that way.

I think at this point I really need to make a conscious effort to slow down and take a break and hope that my hand returns, whats so darn frustrating though is that I can use the mouse and keyboard just fine with my hands but can’t get em to pick!

#6

I didn’t know you could get the Wegen BG in white. Mine are black. Maybe I can get a pink one to go with my Hello Kitty guitar :slight_smile:
I’m just taking a water break from mowing, but I went and listened to the first one. I am gonna go with Fender medium for #1. Going from memory, I’ll put the TD50 as #3 and Ultex 1.14 as #4.

BTW, it makes sense what you are saying about the thumb moving up near the palm. That must be tough. Hang in there. If rest doesn’t fix it, you can find a way. Tony Iommi lost the tips of his fingers and managed to make a pretty good living playing guitar. The neat thing was… no one could duplicate his tone.

#7

Also on finger injuries and playing, check out Django Reinhardt. The dude was elite and he played with two fingers on his fretting hand for solos. Listened to him for years and thought he was incredible before I found that out.

#8

good ear Mike! you nailed them all!

1 - Fender Medium
2- - Ultex 1.0
3 - Bluechip TD50
4 - Ultex 1.14
5 - Wegen
6 - Bluechip TPR-1R50

To me as I listened to myself play and afterwards I felt that the tone of 3, 4 and 5 were very similar with the tone of 1 and 6 being much different from the others. For me the bluechip TD50 was easy for me to pick out cause I was able to nail that Lester Flatt C run with it at the end a lot easier than the others. That’s probably the single most thing that stands out to me about the Bluechips, the way they glide across the strings, soo easy to get around with them.

Thanks for all the examples of people that have overcome their problems with their hands and have been able to adapt and overcome, as I search the web looking at posts saying the thumb and index finger hold is the only “right” way to do it your examples make me chuckle and give me hope. Who knows maybe I will come up with some way that will give me my own special brand of tone!

#9

Brad, watch Sam Bush play sometime! He holds the pick with 1st & second fingers against the thumb at about 90 degrees to the strings sometimes and no anchor and still plays super accurate & clean.

#10

— Begin quote from "fiddlewood"

Brad, watch Sam Bush play sometime! He holds the pick with 1st & second fingers against the thumb at about 90 degrees to the strings sometimes and no anchor and still plays super accurate & clean.

— End quote

Good call Dave. Although I don’t know what works for his hand, it looks like it could be done. Brad has a pretty nice motion with his hand and wrist. A little more solid grip would just make it better.

#11

That was a lot of fun bmorgan, thanks.

#12

Good job Bmorgan!

You’ve got everything going for ya with your sense of timing, sure you missed a couple of notes but your ability to find it then get back in time shows you are gonna be a heck of a picker one day.

The cool thing about music is that we all went through the exact same process (maybe not exact but close) and I can remember being able to play a song at a slow pace and it was funner’ than picking boogers…was hard to get there, in another year of playing that dude over and over you’ll get it right up there with the best pickers around! Now you’ll still look back and think “man I have not learned much” but you’ve learned a ton along the way. I look at it like “aging”…one day you look in the mirror and say “Damn I am getting old, how’d it happen so quick that I didn’t notice”…well just like playing music it is a slow process, same as aging, you’ll look one day and say “damn I’m a good flat picker now”

Keep at it!

Oldhat

#13

Nice pickin’ Brad! I too am guilty of holding my pick between my thumb and index and middle fingers. If it’s good enough for Dan Crary, how wrong can it be? I don’t pick at a flat 90 degrees to the string either, as the thumb surface of my pick is facing more towards the bridge (just slightly) so the pick hits the strings at a slight angle.