Right Hand Position

So I've been learning banjo (I know boo right) and I've been trying to transfer my skills between the two instruments. With banjo your hand stays in one position near the bridge. I think this is mainly because 5 string banjo is supposed to be all picking. I've heard it said on uke that you should try and find your uke's sweet spot which is generally near the neck. I've been watching some of my uke heros' (Jake S. AG etc.) hand positioning and it would seem they switch from what looks like their sweet spot to a spot closer to the bridge when they want to do picking. The reasoning behind this (as far as my guess is) is that you want as much as a vertical motion to your picking as possible so that your fingers don't hit strings that are already vibrating and thereby stop them. You can't really do this near the neck because the continuation of the frets will keep you from pulling under and up on the strings. You also don't wanna strum nearer the bridge because the strings want be able to vibrate nearly as well when pull near the point where their attached and you end up with a "reedy" sound. Any thoughts on this?

examples of picking position

example of strumming position

Well said to my mind, that's what I do myself; strum around the middle of the scale (or up or down as needed for a change in the quality of the sound as desired), but fingerpicking is as shown. Course I know beans but do know you can also fingerpick up and down a bit for the same reason. Seems to me from the pretty much nothing I know about banjo is that the player would want particularly want consistency of placement because of using a pick or two and the speed.

But that's pretty much just agreeing with everything you wrote. :agree:

Teek said:

Well said to my mind, that's what I do myself; strum around the middle of the scale (or up or down as needed for a change in the quality of the sound as desired), but fingerpicking is as shown. Course I know beans but do know you can also fingerpick up and down a bit for the same reason. Seems to me from the pretty much nothing I know about banjo is that the player would want particularly want consistency of placement because of using a pick or two and the speed.

But that's pretty much just agreeing with everything you wrote. :agree:

Click to expand...

heh, I'm glad to hear that. After change the style I've been using the past year I got kind of dismayed about maybe learning things wrong again, since now I'm somewhat struggling with songs I already know which is kind of depressing

I'm actually strumming and picking at the same spot (around the 14th fret; tenor). I guess the frets could get into your way but so far I didn't have any real trouble with it. Maybe fingernails do also play a role here. I keep mine quite short, otherwise - I can imagine - you might easier run into problems. But I think it's basically a matter of habit in my case. I think the advantage might be that you don't have to switch positions when switching between strumming and picking. But with picking around the soundhole you have the advantages described by you, I guess... but to quote Teek: "Course I know beans" ;-)

I'm no expert, that's for sure, but I do fingerpick and strum. I pick and strum over the sound hole. Am I sure that's right? No, but it's working for me. I have tried finding my ukulele's sweet spot but haven't found anything on the neck that sounds better than strumming over the sound hole.

I think it all depends on the tone you are trying to achieve. You get a more mellow fingerpicking tone near the fretboard and it's more bright and loud near the bridge (at least it seems that way to me).

It's all a matter of physics and string tension...don't take it personally, lol...

On banjo ukes you would strum over the neck for the parts of the song that you are singing over and over the skin for the strummed solo sections...simply for louder volume, also with advanced playing you can get a drum noise off the skin with your fast strums.

Finger picking, over the body...just means you have a place to rest the fingers you are not picking with, for a little extra control...I think you can see jake doing this in the photo....though what I do when I pick with all my fingers???
Have to go check!