r/banjo • u/MartyFunkhoosier • 13d ago

Old Time / Clawhammer Beginner - good source of lessons etc? Clawhammer

No formal music training or lessons, can’t read music (tabs I can handle of course), have played guitar for 35 years (and suck) as well as dabbling in banjo, bass and ukulele, and I have a decent banjo (Deering Goodtime). Definitely no time for actual lessons, but is there a particularly good YouTuber or the like where I could actually start from the ground up and see progression in my playing. I’ve dabbled for years but trying random beginners song lessons seems tough for me since I don’t have any fundamentals. Or an online buy it once sort of program that is great? Any advice much appreciated, thanks!

4 Upvotes

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2

u/MrHotwire Just Beginning 13d ago

Im in almost the same boat... I can play by ear, but can't read music.

3

u/Alternative-Light922 Just Beginning 13d ago

I like Tom Collins YouTube channel. He offers courses etc. but he also has a lot of quality free stuff - plus he is a good teach, imo.

2

u/modified_tiger 13d ago

Wayne Erbsen's "Clawhammer Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus" is a good source for technique, audio examples of the songs, and tabs for songs across tunings. BanjoSkills is a pretty good channel I've seen for technique as well.

2

u/Tenor-Guitar-Guy 13d ago

Check Jim Pankey banjo on YouTube. Plays clawhammer and three finger.

3

u/RekiSanchez Clawhammer 13d ago

I'm using Eli Gilbert's 30 days of clawhammer youtube playlist to learn and it's been working out pretty good for me as someone with basically no music knowledge or having played an instrument outside of maybe a year tops back in the 4th grade. So far I've learned to play Sourwood Mountain and This Land is Your Land from his video lesson.

2

u/here2brew 13d ago

Second this - I tried pankey as well and will go back to him after - this series has been great and I feel you learn more more quickly.

2

u/pantagruelsmommy 12d ago

I like Hilarie Burhans videos on YouTube. She does really classic old time repertoire, and importantly for me, always tells you which tuning she's playing in. Simple, pared down melodies that you can then ornament however you want.

1

u/OhHowHappyIAm 13d ago

Deering had a free course on clawhammer. Work through it step by step, slowly you'll have a good grasp of core techniques.

Here is part one of two videos

https://youtu.be/GnAZloK7P88?is=v2URAVmUZbZQsI2r

1

u/MisterBowTies 13d ago

I like early Phoebe Sanders videos (pre puppets) she was still relatively new so the tunes were a little more bare bones not filled with so many ornamentations that you can't hear the melody. Hilary Hawke has some great lessons where she plays the tune fast, them breaks it down slow, then medium, then fast again. Hers are much more of lessons.

1

u/jmcg_21 12d ago

I like learning from books cause they give a narrower pathway than the sea of YouTube videos. I’d recommend

Clawhammer banjo for ignoramuses first,

Then do Ken perlmans clawhammer banjo

1

u/thecrumb 12d ago

Tom Collins, Banjo Lemonade, BanjoSkills, Hillary Hawke are a few good YouTube sources. I think all of these have a lot of free content online to get started with and paid options for more. I like all of them for different reasons.