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Bob Carlin - In The Tradition | Introduction to Irish Banjo
WARNING – COULD BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH!

Introduction to Irish Banjo

by Frank Nordberg

Irish traditional music seems to be the only non-US music style that features the banjo. There are actually a number of different banjo styles in Irish/Celtic music, but usually when banjoists want to learn the "Irish banjo", they're thinking of melodic playing the way Barney McKenna of The Dubliners fame does it. I like to call this "fiddle style" since it's very much based on the way traditional fiddlers play. It's a very simple and extremely effective way to play, guaranteed to give both you and your audience lots of joy!

The instrument
If you're really serious about Irish banjo playing, you want to use a tenor banjo and you probably want to string it up with heavy strings and tune it down to GDAE - one octave below a mandolin or a fiddle.

But for simple tunes like the one I've included here, any banjo and any tuning will do really. You won't have much use for the fifth string of a five-string banjo or the sixth string of a guitar banjo, but those extra strings won't do any harm as long as you don't play them.

The technique
The basic idea is that you play the tune and nothing but the tune. Oh, you might add some ornaments (actually quite a lot of ornaments sometimes - hopefully we'll come back to that in a later article) but no chord notes or anything like that!

You really need to use a flatpick. Fingerpicks or bare fingers simply won't give you the right sound and feel. Choose a medium to heavy pick. I prefer good old-fashioned celluloid picks myself, since those modern picks made from fancy materials with fancier names often aren't smooth enough, but other players disagree.

The right hand position is often a surprise for banjoists used to other styles. You rest the little finger on the banjo head close to the bridge, the underarm (close to the wrist) on the banjo rim or armrest and play close to the bridge moving almost only your wrist. It may seem a little awkward at first, but once you're used to it, the position allows you to pick very fast and still maintain control and proper accentuation.

The first tune
I would definitely recommend you start with a hornpipe as your first tune. Hornpipes are relatively slow and simple and generally much easier to master than jigs and reels. Here's is a very simple and well-known one. If you have any experience with any stringed instrument, you should manage this quite easy. If you don't you should go to the Absolute beginners lessons at Irishbanjo. com and start there.

I've included a number of different tabs for different kinds of banjos here. They all sound exactly the same . Here is a midi file if you like to listen to it.

The Author
Frank Nordberg is a guitarist/banjoist/multi-instrumentalist from Norway. He has no connections to Ireland and probably shouldn't go about telling people how to play Irish but he does anyway since nobody else wants to do it.

He works as a guitar teacher and freelance musician in Bodø, Northern Norway, and is the webmaster of a number of music sites including Musica Viva, The Irish Banjo and The Blues Banjo.
http://www.musicaviva.com
http://www.irish-banjo.com
http://www.blues-banjo.com