Purists may not like Slowhand Banjo.  In the back of my mind I can hear them now dismissing it with a sneer as “emo-hammer.”  I am sympathetic since I love the clawhammer sound which is capable of a range of sounds from the wind-in-the-tall-grass whisper of simple frailing to the the Bach-like precision and a driving rhythm of melodic clawhammer.  I do not see Slowhand as ever replacing that sound, but as a supplement.  Still, let me anticipate the complaints by addressing questions that the devoted clawhammer player might ask.

 

Isn't the banjo a rhythm instrument?  Okay—I know it is a drum, but once the great manufacturers such as Henry C. Dobson, S.S. Stewart, A. C. Fairbanks, William A. Cole, and  Fred Bacon got done with it, the drum was attached to a carefully calibrated fretboard with smooth mechanical tuners and in many cases was metal-clad or equipped with a tone ring which give the drum a rich, melodic sound.  It is interesting to me that the jazz guitar was listed as a rhythm instrument, too—until Wes Montgomery got ahold of it.

 

Doesn't the banjo play well with others?  Yes, it is lovely with a fiddle, but to me it is best as a solo instrument.  Generally, I find jams and gatherings with lots of banjos, guitars, and fiddles sawing away at once pretty boring musically.  I prefer my spot by Butternut Creek where I can play the banjo for hours alone letting the instrument teach me what it can do accompanied by the sounds of birds and water rushing over stones.

 

Can you play chords on that thing?  Often chords are dismissed by old-time players not simply as frills but as a violation of the soul of the banjo.  It is true that with modal songs chords modernize the sound in a way that undoes the traditional sound, and for these tunes I use modal tunings with open strings as drones rather than chords to preserve that old sound, but the vast majority of songs, many perfectly suited to the banjo, are not modal, but in major and minor keys, and chords are a beautiful addition.

 

What have you done to the fifth string?  In traditional clawhammer the fifth string drives the rhythm and is sounded with each down stroke.  It is a rich and distinctive sound—like the drone of cicadas and tree-frogs on a mountain evening—and I often still use the constant background ring as part of this new technique when it sounds appropriate, but in Slowhand the fifth string is generally not used as a metronome.  It is, instead, the chanterelle, as S. S. Stewart called it, the “little singer” adding an accent note when it is needed.

 

Don't you know when to put that thing away? Pete Seeger was fond of saying that the banjo player should realize that there are some songs where the banjo is out of place.  When these come up the polite player puts the banjo back in its case, but I am finding that the banjo repertoire can be greatly expanded.  One of the joys of Slowhand for me is that I can now play songs I have loved all my life as solo instrumentals on my banjo and they sound great.