I sort of farted around with five string banjo for years, playing my lazy imitation of a Pete Seeger-style strum. But when I got serious about banjo and decided that I wanted to be good enough to gig out on it, it required serious work. When I looked at the instrument objectively, I realized that the way for me to be most effective would be to become fluent at the clawhammer style.
The Scruggs three finger style is great, but it can't really stand alone; you need at least a rhythm guitarist and preferably a full bluegrass band to play it properly. A lot of what goes on with Scruggs style is off the beat and on top of that solid rhythm, not creating the rhythm itself.
But clawhammer works just fine either solo or in a group setting. Since I've always worked as a solo act as much as I have in bands and duos, it made the most sense for me to learn clawhammer.
Being a singer as well as an instrumentalist, I wanted to be able to accompany my voice.
So that clawhammer style is what I worked on. I play a whole bunch of instruments besides banjo, but getting that clawhammer right hand motion down was probably the single most difficult stringed instrument technique that I've ever had to learn.
But I worked at it and worked at it, and then one night - BOOM! - I had it down. From there I just took off.
The fretting hand stuff on five string banjo, by comparison, is almost ludicrously simple. But what the picking hand has to do is both complex and challenging.
Good luck with it!
Wade Hampton Miller
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