banjo progress

[dragonlady7]

So Dude and I are taking banjo lessons. Initially he just came up with it as something for himself to do, but then I said I wanted to learn too, so he tacked me on. We own one banjo between the two of us, but we got two sets of picks. We'd figured the lessons would be one person learning and the other waiting, but the teacher has us both sit there, so we both get an hour-long lesson, instead of each separately getting half an hour. It's worked out great.
The only issue is that of course we can't both practice at the same time. But we've now, tonight being our second-ever lesson, mastered enough of the basics that he's starting to give us links to play-along videos and such. And I mentioned that I do have a guitar and I do know how to play two of the three chords we've learned on the banjo, on it. So he was good enough to pull one of his guitars out and show me the secret-- three of the guitar's strings are the same as the banjo's, so you can play a few of the banjo's chords straight on the guitar with no fingering changes, which means I could practice some of the rolls and such finger-picked on the guitar with a banjo style, if I wasn't going to strum across the extra strings. So that's great. I don't know about Dude, but it would motivate me more to practice if we could play together, at least a little.
And a major part of the practice at this stage is just improving the strength in my fingers and building up calluses. Dude's got huge hands so he has no problem with the fingerings at all, but my hands are little and soft.
So maybe we can jam in our living room. I just think that'd be fun.
We were learning how to slide between frets today and my middle finger feels like I've worn a permanent groove into it. I'm not going to mess with that guitar tonight. But maybe this weekend!

Comments

[buttonsbeadslace]

So much sympathy re: finger grooves. Actually, come to think of it, what are banjo strings like? Are they the same as guitar strings, where the metal wire wrapped around it gives it a rough texture, and your fingers make that little noise when you slide them lightly up and down the string? (Violin-family strings are also metal-wrapped, but they're much smoother.)

[dragonlady7]

They are the same as guitar strings, I think. Well... I mean, I know guitar strings can vary, some are all plastic and some are all metal and some are thicker and some are thinner. The banjo mostly has the very thin wire ones, but one of the strings is thicker and wrapped. (Also it's tuned so that the strings don't go in order from high to low like on a guitar, and I keep getting fucking confused about it. And like. There are two Gs and then there's a B and I just get lost. I should probably work on memorizing those.)

They definitely make the noise when you slide your finger. And it hurts like anything. My fingers are still sore today!

My goal is to work up calluses as fast as possible. The teacher said I'd have much better luck doing 10 minutes a day than like, an hour every other, so I haven't missed a day and I've been really trying to do at least 10 minutes of intensive fretting stuff, but it's still like. No progress. So I think I have to do more than that. Maybe I'll Google for tips.
(He also said "and no washing dishes!" but since we have no dishwasher and both of us are doing this, that's not gonna fly.)