Banjo Learning Advice

Subject: How to Play Banjo Chords
Difficulty with chords

Question: Hi, I am a beginner/newly intermediate banjo player and am having a
very difficult time with chords.

My Response: Do you have the book I wrote, The Banjo Encyclopedia?
If you do already, I'll tell you some good pages to study, If you don't I would recommend getting it, It has a lot of information on chords and should help you with your progress.

Student Response: Yup, bought it at a festival - I would appreciate the study pages ;-)
I am also going to purchase your Backup books 1 and 2. Thanks for the help!

My Response: Work on chapter 9, try to take your time and read the text that goes with the diagrams etc. Work through at least through page 127. Banjo chords are much easier than guitar chords to fret and with some practice you should have no problem. One thing I've noticed with students that are behind on their chord changing abilities is simply lack of time spent on it. That could be considered overly simplistic, but with banjo playing it's easy to consumed with picking and it simply isn't as much fun to practice left hand challenges. Take your picks off if you have to and spend more time on it. Also, as I suggested above, study the method I am teaching for learning and memorizing the chord shapes and locations, I believe it will really simplify the whole process.

Thanks again,
Sincerely,
Ross Nickerson
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