What is Clawhammer Banjo?
Old Time Music
The clawhammer style of playing the banjo is the most common
way to play the banjo in Old Time music. Old Time is a folk
tradition of music common in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
It has its roots in Scottish and Irish fiddle tunes, English
ballads, and African-American rhythms and minstrel shows.
The two primary instruments in an old time string band are
the fiddle and the banjo, often backed up by guitar and bass.
Less frequently you'll hear other instruments such as mandolin,
autoharp, dulcimer, and harmonica in a band.
It is music that is strongly associated with square dances
and other forms of Appalachian dance such as flat-footing
or clogging. In keeping with this association, it is usually
relatively simple, strongly rhythmic, and repetitive. Most
old time songs usually consist of an A and a B part, each
of which is repeated twice, over and over with a minimum of
variation or improvisation. Though there are other ways to
play the banjo in the old time tradition, such up-picking
(a la Pete Seeger), and two-finger or even three-finger fingerpicking
styles, clawhammer remains the most popular, probably because
of its strongly rhythmic character.
You'll sometimes hear mountain folk refer to Old Time as
"old-timey" music, often to distinguish it from
more modern forms of music popular in rural America such as
pop country and bluegrass . . . which brings us to our next
topic.
Scruggs' vs. Clawhammer
Clawhammer banjo is distinguished by a "frailing"
pattern in the right hand. In this pattern, the back of the
index or middle fingernail plucks a melody note or strums
on each beat, while the thumb plays between beats by plucking
the fifth string (and occasionally other strings). It is not
usually too flashy, but it is strongly rhythmic, and this
makes it very good for the string band music played at square
dances.
With the advent of electronic amplification and mass media
such as radio and television, mountain music moved away from
its traditional role accompanying dances and play parties,
and became more strictly performance-oriented. In this context,
there was more room for experimentation and improvisation.
Bill Monroe soon began electrifying country music audiences
with his jazz-influenced, highly syncopated renditions of
old time tunes and a new form of music was born called bluegrass--named
after his band, the Bluegrass Boys. In bluegrass, band members
got a chance to solo during lead breaks, and this encouraged
a new, more improvisational style of banjo-picking popularized
by Earl Scruggs. This new Scruggs' style of playing the banjo
used very syncopated, fingerpicking rolls to enhance the hard-driving
rhythms of bluegrass music. Musicians who play in the Scruggs'
style most often use fingerpicks and a banjo with a resonator.
To understand the clawhammer style it is helpful to contrast
it with its main rival, Scruggs' Style fingerpicking. The
two styles often play the same tunes, but in very different
ways. Listen to these two versions of the traditional tune
Cripple Creek, both played by Russ Boyd.
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