Part II

Let’s Pick! The Basic Ingredients

In this part . . .

Clawhammer and bluegrass styles are the two most popular ways of playing banjo today, and I cover both approaches in this part. I help you to find a comfortable right-hand position and present the basic picking patterns used in bluegrass and clawhammer banjo playing. You can then make your playing sound more authentic by incorporating left-hand slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and chokes, and even discover how to find a melody on the banjo and play it by using either clawhammer or bluegrass techniques. This part closes with beginners’ bluegrass and clawhammer versions of four popular banjo tunes.