Weekly Improvement Thread - Feb 2nd 2025
Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of February!
A new month in front of us to conquer.Poster caption: "Youth - to the stadiums!"
Good luck with your goals!
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I've been consistent with running lately and back on my stretching game. Right now struggling to write a song.
good job keeping limber!
What instrument are you playing? I'm always struggling to finish a song. Most of the time I write 70% of a song, get bored by it and move on without finishing it
I play clawhammer banjo. I tend to approach my songs lyrics first and build off from there. It's missing another verse and some embellishments, but I'll get back to it after the remaining 12+1 I need to work on.
That's wild to me, I always write all instruments for the song and then try to fit the lyrics on top.
The banjo is such a great instrument. I might fuck around and buy one. I already play the guitar so I figure it shouldn't be too hard to learn it. Do you have any tips for buying a first banjo? What is the difference between a clawhammer banjo and a regular one?
So if you want the best bang for your buck, Deering's Goodtime models are the best out there. Their starter instruments are amazing for the price, but their high end models are where you're best off going to a different company. They're also a Scientologist company, so feel free to buy it used. Washburn also does a good job on the cheap end, and their six-string banjotars mean you wouldn't have to learn a new tuning. It seems like I'm spending a lot of time on money, but unlike the guitar--where $200 will get you a solid instrument--the various parts in most banjos means you want to clear the $400-500 range for a new instrument.
Clawhammer is just the style. It's a strumming style involving your fingernail and thumb. Scruggs is the Bluegrass-style where you play with fingerpicks. There's numerous other styles, but those are the most popular. For Bluegrass you want a super loud instrument, so you'll want a "closed-back" resonator banjo. For other folk styles, open-back is preferred, but not necessary.
You'll likely want either a five-string or a six-string as mentioned above. While four-string banjos exist, they're unheard of for most clawhammer styles. That's more of a ragtime or Irish Trad. kind of style.
In my opinion, one of the best online sources is Brainjo. But if you want to just strum some basic tunes out the door, the book Clawhammer Cookbook is solid for the first 20 or so pages before it goes to shit. Pete Seeger's book is also solid, but it's out of print to my knowledge. For Bluegrass, Scruggs wrote and excellent book and most of the standard shelf material is solid enough.
Any other questions, feel free to ask. I'm sort of obsessed with this instrument, as you're generally forced to when learning something a bit more niche.
