CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
5-String Banjo Instructor (notes to How to Play the 5-String Banjo) — Folkways Records
- Key
- seeger1954-banjo-instructor
- Authors
- Seeger, Pete
- Issued
- 1954
- Type
- pamphlet
- Publisher
- Folkways Records
- Publisher place
- New York
Raw CSL JSON
{
"URL": "https://folkways-media.si.edu/docs/folkways/artwork/FW08303.pdf",
"note": "Notes copyright 1954, 1962.",
"type": "pamphlet",
"title": "5-String Banjo Instructor (notes to How to Play the 5-String Banjo)",
"author": [
{
"given": "Pete",
"family": "Seeger"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
1954
]
]
},
"number": "FI 8303",
"publisher": "Folkways Records",
"publisher-place": "New York"
}
Claims
-
In Pete Seeger's 1954 instruction, frailing is a way of strumming the banjo in which the player picks down on a string with the back of the fingernail of the right index (or middle) finger, then with the same fingernail goes down across the top strings, and then sounds the fifth (thumb) string with the thumb; left-hand hammer-ons and pull-offs can be worked into the pattern. Seeger calls frailing the best way of playing many fast square dance tunes, such as "Cripple Creek".
"Here's a new way of strumming the banjo, called 'frailing'. On music paper the notes you are playing may look the same, but they sound differently. "Try picking down on the 3rd string with the fingernail of your right index finger (or middle finger) - the back of the fingernail . . . now hammer on with your left hand. . . then with that same back of the fingernail, go across the top three strings. . . and thumb the 5th string ... "Now, frailing is the best way of playing a lot of fast square dance tunes. Here's the tune "Cripple Creek"."
-
Seeger introduces three-finger picking as a style for driving square-dance rhythm best heard on the records of Earl Scruggs, noting its syncopated brilliance. His basic exercise is an eight-note pattern in which the middle finger, thumb and index finger pluck single strings in turn, with the thumb repeatedly sounding the fifth string.
"And for a driving square dance rhythm it's hard to beat the syncopated brilliance of a style best heard on the records of Earl Scruggs, these days. It involves three fingers of the right hand in picking. Try this: (1) Pluck up on the 1st string with your right middle finger. . . . . (2) Then sound the thumb string. . . . . (3) Then with your right index finger play the third string. . . . . (4) Then with your middle finger the first string. . . . . (5) Thumb the fifth string. . . . . (6) Then with your index finger play the 2nd string. . . . . (7) Middle finger plays the 1st string. . . . . (8) Thumb the 5th string."
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