Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Pick direction is so important!

#1

You know how you know some knowledge, but it isn’t real until you experience it? That just happened to me. I understand that pick direction is important, but I’ve never really payed a lot of attention to it (I’m a banjo picker, after all. Picks only go in 1 direction. :blush:) The project I’m working on has some mandola in it, so I don’t have any tab to reference. I listened to and tabbed out this little 2 bar run and thought I had the pick direction right. I practiced that little run for hours and couldn’t play it cleanly.

This morning I realized that the run actually starts on the last beat of the previous measure, meaning that I had every pick direction exactly backwards. I switched them around and within 5 minutes, the run sounded clean.

Talk about driving home a point!

2 Likes
#2

Ha! I thought the title was about putting finger picks on backwards! I played guitar first, and somehow I naturally found the right pick direction, and played everything properly. I don’t even really look at Ben’s pick directions anymore. But I did occasionally get it backwards after making a mistake, and that would totally wreck it

#3

I’m not gonna lie. The first time I put finger picks on, I put them on backwards. I felt stupid when the guy at the store grabbed my hand and turned them around. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
#4

Well, not according to @BanjoBen :slight_smile:

1 Like
#5

What does that mean?!? Does he wear his picks backwards?

1 Like
#6

I think I tell the pick story in this interview:

1 Like
#7

Yep, you sure did. I was asking if that’s what little @Maggie meant by that

2 Likes
#8

It was indeed. I was gonna post that video but Ben beat me to it. Ya gotta respect the guy that would admit that. Sure is a great story.

2 Likes