Recorded Oct 5, 2020

Based on a very simple element called a "skip-stroke" or "ghost brush", here's a step-by-step method that covers everything from shuffle endings and pushing the beat to complex rhythmic patterns, the "Turkey in the Straw" lick, and full-fledged ragtime. If you already own or have an interest in Ken's new book Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo, this is the clinic for you!!

Includes unlimited access to clinic video plus an 8 pp. pdf with tab for all tunes, exercises and musical illustrations.

Recorded Oct 19, 2020

Ken presents strategies for getting comfortable venturing up the neck with impunity: position playing, understanding the fingerboard, "trick" fingering strategies, "Keith-picking," movable chord shapes, and melodic fingering shapes. Fretting the 5th string and using movable shapes incorporating a fretted 5th string will be front and center.

Includes unlimited access to clinic video; you will also receive via email a 10 pp. pdf with tab for all tunes, exercises and musical illustrations.

Recorded Nov 9, 2020

Playing pull-offs properly is a real art, and mastering this skill is absolutely essential to becoming an accomplished clawhammer player. Ken starts by breaking down and analyzing the movement itself; he'll then explore open string pull-offs; pulling-off from one fret to another; obtaining multiple pull-offs from a single plucked note; mastering triplets and ornaments; and playing alternate-string pull-offs (plucking one string, then pulling off another - usually higher - string).

And yes, we also encounter and discuss hammer-ons along the way!

Includes unlimited access to clinic video; you will also receive via email a 9 pp. pdf with tab for all tunes, exercises and musical illustrations..

Recorded Nov 21, 2020

A lot of people say you can't play 6/8-time tunes in clawhammer style, but - having mastered that art decades ago - Ken shares with you the system he developed. He'll break down 6/8 time and show how basic clawhammer techniques can be adapted to play it, teach some very simple jigs, and then explore a series of increasingly more challenging ones. By the end of the session you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

Includes unlimited access to clinic video; you will also receive via email a 9 pp. pdf with tab for all tunes, exercises and musical illustrations.

Learn how to play all the common rhythmic figures you'll encounter in 3/4 time tunes. We'll try them out on a few simple melodies, then learn some beautiful waltz tunes in a variety of tunings. If you can count to three (and restrain yourself from continuing on to four), you shouldn't have any technical problems playing waltzes; you just have to jettison the idea that "bum-diddy" is the foundation of the style (in other words, you don't have to follow every downstroke with a brush-thumb).

Level: Intermediate & Up

Prerequisite: at a least one year playing experience; you should be pretty good at drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs

Drop-thumbing is the art of using the thumb (T) on the long strings of the banjo (as opposed to using it on the 5th string). In double-thumbing, T moves alternately between one of the long-strings and the drone-string. In this clinic, you'll learn foolproof methods for mastering drop-and double-thumbing, and learn to perform both of these techniques on every string and in every possible string combination. You'll also learn fretting-hand adaptations that make passages calling for drop- and double-thumbing come out more smoothly. Prerequisite: roughly six months playing experience; you should already be relatively comfortable with the basic clawhammer motion.

Ken explores several strategies for embellishing a melody, creating interesting tune variations, or coming up with a good, solid break. Among areas explored are triplets and grace notes; changing octaves; applying rhythmic "push and pull" (syncopation), and using arpeggios and major-scale based formulas guided by the underlying harmony/chord structure, converting diatonic melodies to pentatonic, and more.  Level: Intermediate and up. Prerequisite: at a least one year playing experience; you should be pretty good at drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs.

The aim of this workshop is showing you how to capture the authentic hard-driving sound of Celtic and Canadian reels with special attention to tunes from Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. Ken works in detail "The Black Mill" and "Pigeon on the Gatepost" and also illustrates a few others - "Homeward Bound," "The Northside Reel" and "Brenda Stubbert's Reel." Level: Intermediate to Advanced Prerequisites: drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs

Fiddlers on Cape Breton and PEI play lots of jigs that originated in Scotland and Ireland, but there's as whole class of whimsical, happy-go-lucky 6/8 tunes that is unique to the region. You'll love these! Ken teaches "Belfast Jig" in detail; also featured are Jackson's Jig. Tea Gardens Jig and John Dan MacPherson's Jig. Level: Intermediate to Advanced Prerequisites: drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs

You can't play a Cape Breton style medley without understanding marches and strathspeys. We'll learn how to play the Scotch snap and some characteristic rhythmic figures from strathspeys on banjo, and try some simple examples of both genres. Particular attention is paid to the Scottish strathspey, "Cutting Ferns" but we'll also look at the Marches "Glencoe March," "George V's Army" and "Stella's Trip to Kamloops," and the strathspey, "Glengarry's Dirk." Level: Intermediate to Advanced Prerequisites: drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs

Although in clawhammer we generally change tunings for each key, there are times when you might not want to do this – say, if a tune has an internal key change, or if you want to play a medley that features tunes in different keys. This class shows you how to play in alternative keys for both G and double-C tunings. In G-tuning, we’ll look at how to play in the keys of C and D. In double-C tuning we’ll look at how to play in the keys of G and F (if you customarily tune double-C tuning up two frets and call it “double-D”: note that the keys you’ll be learning to play in are A and G). Level: Intermediate to Advanced Prerequisites: drop-thumbing, hammer-ons and pull-offs

Analogous to crosspicking on guitar or mandolin, in the arpeggio technique you obtain a series of two or more notes by dragging the picking fingernail from string to string in a controlled manner (think like of it as a broken brush in which you stop on each successive string for a full beat, half a beat, or some other time interval). We'll look at several useful applications of this technique, including the Galax lick, arpeggiated triplets, the full clawhammer roll, certain types of syncopation, and upwardly moving runs of notes. Level: Intermediate and Up Prerequisite: Drop-thumbing; hammer-ons and pull-offs.

Henry Reed (1884-1968), grew up in Monroe County, WV, spent much of his adult life just over the state line in Glen Lyn, VA, and - over the course of a lifetime - amassed a huge repertoire of great tunes. In the mid-1960s, a young would-be folklorist and budding fiddler named Alan Jabbour collected well over 200 tunes from Reed on tape, and these tunes – popularized by Alan’s Hollow Rock String Band, the Fuzzy Mountain String Band and others – launched the old-time music revival. During the roughly 15 years that Alan and I toured together, he taught me dozens of Henry Reed tunes note-for-note and I’ll now share some of them with you. Among the tunes we’ll look at are Reed’s exquisite version of “Shady Grove” (not at all like the entry-level banjo tune), “Ducks on the Pond,” (a totally different tune than “Ducks on the Millpond”) “Texas” (AKA “New Castle”), and “Christmas Morning.”

Bluegrass fiddle tunes have a flavor all their own, which can be hard to capture in clawhammer. This clinic will unlock the secrets of playing such favorites as “Jerusalem Ridge” (played just like Kenny Baker), the John Hartford version of “Squirrel Hunters,” “Leather Britches,” “Dixie Hoedown,” “Clinch Mountain Backstep” and others. Some techniques I'll draw upon are alternate-string pull-offs, fretting the 5th string, and clawhammer "Keith-picking" (obtaining runs of consecutive melody notes across the strings instead of up and down on the same string). Levels: Intermediate and Up Prerequisites: Drop-thumbing; willingness to venture above the 5th fret!!