Claw Hammer (trying to be fun again but of course serious)

How did you guys ever get the hang of it.

I am in my second week of claw hammer.
I am finally getting a tiny bit of accuracy when hammering strings.

But now I find I can no longer think: Mary had a little a little lamb.

I must now think :

ma chicka - ry chicka- had chicka a little chicka lamb chicka-

Am I at least close to the right track?

wab223 said:

How did you guys ever get the hang of it.

I am in my second week of claw hammer.
I am finally getting a tiny bit of accuracy when hammering strings.

But now I find I can no longer think: Mary had a little a little lamb.

I must now think :

ma chicka - ry chicka- had chicka a little chicka lamb chicka-

Am I at least close to the right track?

Click to expand...

Yes, it sounds like you are. You're playing the "boom-chicka-boom-chicka" or "bum-diddy" pattern, which is a very common pattern in clawhammer. It has a strike on the first quarter note and then the "chicka" or "diddy" represent a brush and thumb for the next two eighth notes.

However, most clawhammer banjo teachers recommend that you start thinking early on about using your thumb after the "bum", too. You won't always use it there but it's good to be able to do it right away. The rhythm you'd get then is "bump-a-diddy". In that spot, you'll either leave it blank, or you'll use your thumb on one of the inner strings to get an extra melody note. You might also do an ASPO or ASHO (alternate string pull-off or hammer-on) instead of using your thumb, but again, getting your thumb ready to go is a good strategy.

Using your thumb on both the 2nd and 4th eighth notes is sometimes called "double thumbing". I learned about it in a banjo book by Dan Levenson - I like a lot about his teaching methodology, even though my physical approach to playing clawhammer banjo is rather different (my technique is modeled on the playing of Adam Hurt, who I've studied with for several years).

Bum-did-dy. I've fiddled around with clawhammer and I'd still like to learn it but I have yet to devote serious attention to it. Striking the back of your nail for the "bum" down stroke makes absolutely no sense to me. To me, it's so counter-intuitive and such an inefficient movement to strike the first string on a down stroke ("bum") only to have to quickly bring the same finger up to down stroke again on the other strings. ("did") When I dedicate myself to learn it I'm going to do the "bum" first string on an upstroke placing my finger in perfect position to do the "did" down stroke. With what little practice I've done so far it feels so much more natural and easy and my thumb falls naturally into place to do the "dy" stroke.

Its way harder than it looks. I initially found just striking the strings, the boom, extremely difficult. Now its just very difficult.

But the speed that others are playing is deceptive. I am not trying to rush but at the minute I am strumming about a tenth of the speed I need to for the simplest tune.

I think this is a strum that could take someone like me a long long time. I kinda wondered if others go through this.

I did purchase the Aaron Keim PDF and am watching various you tubes to help get the hang of the basics.

wab223 said:

How did you guys ever get the hang of it.

I am in my second week of claw hammer.
I am finally getting a tiny bit of accuracy when hammering strings.

But now I find I can no longer think: Mary had a little a little lamb.

I must now think :

ma chicka - ry chicka- had chicka a little chicka lamb chicka-

Am I at least close to the right track?

Click to expand...

I was thinking about your question a bit more, and I realized that I'd missed an important point. You shouldn't have to change the melody (or the rhythm of the melody) in order to make it clawhammer. So if you have to slow down "mary had a little lamb" to fit the "chika"s in there, that's not quite right. Instead you want to keep the melody as intact as possible and use some combination of strikes from your clawhammer finger (index for me, middle for others), drop thumbs, brushes, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to get the rest of the melody. A clawhammer banjo player might not play every melody note (although I tend to play most when I can), but to strategically replace some with brushes, syncopation, and 5th string thumb notes (that'd be the 4th string G for the uke).

Yes, claw hammer strumming is challenging, and I have been struggling as well. I read somewhere that you will only master it if you really want to. It took a solid week of practice before I felt even remotely coordinated enough to keep time with it. Changing chords was impossible! Just keep with it if you want to learn it. You’re already making progress!

Mark.T said:

I was thinking about your question a bit more, and I realized that I'd missed an important point. You shouldn't have to change the melody (or the rhythm of the melody) in order to make it clawhammer. So if you have to slow down "mary had a little lamb" to fit the "chika"s in there, that's not quite right. Instead you want to keep the melody as intact as possible and use some combination of strikes from your clawhammer finger (index for me, middle for others), drop thumbs, brushes, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to get the rest of the melody. A clawhammer banjo player might not play every melody note (although I tend to play most when I can), but to strategically replace some with brushes, syncopation, and 5th string thumb notes (that'd be the 4th string G for the uke).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I am probably trying to run before I can walk.
It feels daft to say it but I really don't think I am ready for Mary had a little lamb at this point.

I am using Aarons book. I have a lot for respect for Aaron and boy can he play. But I am just not gelling with the content of the book at the minute. That's just the way things go sometimes when you are learning something new. I am sure I will come back to it later and light bulbs will come on.

I need to knuckle down and get a better grasp of the strike, strum and pluck combinations I guess.

thanks.

RMT said:

Yes, claw hammer strumming is challenging, and I have been struggling as well. I read somewhere that you will only master it if you really want to. It took a solid week of practice before I felt even remotely coordinated enough to keep time with it. Changing chords was impossible! Just keep with it if you want to learn it. You’re already making progress!

Click to expand...

Those are encouraging words. I think. At least I am not the only one.

I came up with the idea of just practicing the bum chi-cka with "what shall we do with the drunken sailor" using chords Dminor and C. I was already playing it using thumb pluck and finger strum which was what got me interested in claw hammer (kind of) in the first place.
I think this might work for me for a while until I can add new tunes in a couple/few weeks.


thanks.

It is percussive (like a drum) more than a strum. Lil Rev does a great YouTube instructional video that finally got my mind around it. Thinking "strum" means you are not going in the right direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxVtV2wojyo