Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Over-thinking Everything!

#1

I am loving the course! Just for grins, here’s what I know so far:

  1. There are no shortcuts. I have spent a lot of time with professional marathon canoe racers & learned how little things make big differences. When the banjo pros show you a little thing, pay attention! It’s more beneficial than the flashy thing.
  2. Don’t be afraid of your banjo. The Steve Huber videos taught me this. Go ahead, unscrew what you can unscrew, then put it back together again. As you better understand what the banjo is, you will be better able to make friends with your banjo and play nice with each other.
  3. Don’t over-think what you are doing. I had a bit of a buzz in my banjo. Following Steve Huber’s advice, I was able to pretty much eliminate it…until two days ago. A buzz was back & worse than ever, only it did not happen all the time.
    Very frustrating. So I started thinking and thinking and thinking abut how I could eliminate it. Should I tweak this or that? I kept picking and buzzing while thinking about rods & rims and frets & tail pieces. It wasn’t until I got way deep into the weeds that I realized the cause of the buzz.
    A button on my shirt cuff would contact the head and vibrate! I had a button buzz, not a banjo buzz!
    The simple solution was to roll up my sleeves and get back to practice!
6 Likes
#2

Have you ever been playing in front of people, in the middle of a break, and start thinking “How do I know what it is I’m doing here… I mean, how do I REALLY know how to do all this stuff?” and then you start pondering the Meaning of Banjo in relation to your Human Existence and maybe if they’re gonna serve some more of that tasty barbeque after the gig.

1 Like