Learning to play Banjo
The Wonder of Being a Beginner No matter how long you play, you will always enjoy a never ending supply of wonder and discovery.
During our busy working lives, it is often difficult to combine hard work with remembering to “stop and smell the roses”. We all have friends who one day “wake up” and lament, ‘wow, my kids are teenagers and I don’t even remember them growing up’. As beginning banjo players, we all tend to be very impatient with our progress. We want to be able to play like the professionals we hear, but be able to do it NOW! While this desire is natural, and is part of the natural drive we all have to work hard so we can “move ahead”, there is an aspect of being a beginner that we don’t want to lose.
Discovery…one of the great enjoyments in life is discovering new and exciting things. It can be discovering new restaurants, new books, new songs or new mathematical equations. But for the banjo playing beginner, almost every moment of banjo practice brings new discoveries. Every lesson can show us a relationship between chords, or picking patterns, or how the banjo responds to a certain kind of strum. Just like watching a child grow, your skill and awareness grows every time you pick up your banjo. At times, it can feel like watching your fingernails grow; you know they’re growing, but you can’t see any movement! At other times, you experience dramatic sweeping awareness that catapults you into a frenzy of discovery both thrilling and sometimes overwhelming.
However, when we work slowly and steadily at developing our ability, we make discoveries constantly. These are precious moments that will actually “spur us on” and keeps our enthusiasm flowing. I think the very best way to put ourselves into a “method” that helps keep us on the “discovery path” of enthusiasm, is this old adage:
“When you practice slowly, you learn fast. When you practice fast, you learn bad habits.”
By practicing slowly and not “pushing” to play “up to speed” or “faster than we are able”, we allow our muscles, nerves, tendons and ligaments, to catch up with our desires. We know what we want to be able to do. Sometimes, we might even know how to do it. But knowing and doing are two very different things. Slow, relaxed practice, gives the body time to catch up. But along the way to “catching up”, the discoveries we make keep happening. It might be a tiny, subtle awareness of how your thumb-pick feels on the third string and the fourth string. It might be how the banjo sounds different when you fret with your middle finger or pinkie. Whatever the discovery, and no matter how seemly small, these are the great joys of learning to play the banjo. We should treat ourselves to these gems every day. Why not? Once you have your banjo, it’s about the least expensive hobby you can have and your discovery path is life long. As long as you play the banjo you will be discovering and exploring.
Children learn new things every day of their growing lives. One of the great joys of youth is in self-discovery and learning about the world. Too often, adults feel they’ve seen it all, or done it all; well not in banjo playing. No one living has ever played every combination of notes, at every speed, every melody, every chord or every song. Maybe this is not possible, but it illustrates that in the world of banjos, there are no musical limits, there are no limits to the discoveries that are available. During a recording session, a famous artist was asked, “Is this practice?” The artist answered, “They’re all practice!”
So, enjoy the wonder of discovery when you are getting started. Know that every minute of slow practice on your banjo takes you to a new level of skill with new ideas making their appearance at every turn. It’s true for the beginner and it’s true for the master. No matter how long you play, you will always enjoy a never ending supply of wonder and discovery. How could anything be better?
