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.