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Jeff Norman 
Weekly Blog on Clawhammer Banjo

Making a clawhammer banjo pick

10/21/2017

7 Comments

 
About a week ago the unthinkable happened: I broke my banjo nail. As usual, I wasn't even playing when it happened - I just let it get too long and it broke when my hand slipped opening the fridge. Often when this happens, I'll just put the banjo aside for a bit until it grows back - after all, I've got a guitar, mandolin, octave mando, baritone uke, fiddle, etc. kicking around the house...little chance I'll get too bored! However, I've got a gig next weekend and, though my nail seems to be on pace to grow back by then, I thought I'd better have a plan B just in case. It's high time I figured out a decent pick option!

What makes a good banjo nail?
I thought I'd start here because its not a subject I see covered enough. Here's a picture of my nail as it currently exists (after about a week of regrowth):
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Figure 1 - A poor quality picture of the current nail on my index finger (taken with my flip phone).
If you squint you can tell that the white part of my nail doesn't actually extend past the end of my finger. This is the biggest problem at the moment - the shape is actually pretty good. I don't know if its because I've coaxed it this way over the years, but my nail kind of naturally grows into the right shape (note - this could be a chicken/egg thing...maybe I think that's the right shape because it grows that way and I'm used to it). However, if my nail doesn't extend past the end of my finger, I really can't get a crisp note. Below is a diagram of what my ideal nail looks like:
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Figure 2 - My ideal banjo nail shape. This time a flip-phone picture of a drawing...just didn't feel like dealing with my scanner today. A little blurry but I think it gets the point across.
A little explanation of the above shape. I've marked 2 areas on the nail (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock) that I use when I play. I use the 10 o'clock region to hit the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd strings. The sharp corner of the 10 o'clock region is especially necessary - after my nail hits a string, it slides off that corner and rings freely. In the past, I've lost that corner to pretty terrible results (that's actually what happened after Clifftop this year). I use the 2 o'clock region for the 1st string mostly because its feels kind of awkward to try to hit it with the 10 o'clock region. The string hits the nail just about where the arrow indicates and slides off the top (12 o'clock position).

Other players have differing opinions on what makes a good nail as well as how to use it. For instance, I know that Adam Hurt uses the 2 o'clock region for every string - his tone is phenomenal, so you'd better believe I've tried this too...however, it feels kind of awkward to me and I really can't play that way without concentrating - if I get into a groove I pretty quickly shift back to my old ways. I know that Walt Koken keeps his nail pretty short (possibly even like my current nail, shown in figure 1). His unique tone is pretty staccato and I'm guessing this is part of the reason. I've read that Mike Iverson uses 2 fingers - his index for strings 3 and 4, and his middle for strings 1 and 2 (no idea what side of his nail he uses in either case) - this would actually be a pretty comfortable arrangement and I'd consider trying it too if it didn't seem like such a pain to grow and maintain a second nail.

Finally - many people play without any nail whatsoever. Watching these folks, I notice that they really put a lot of force into their downstrokes and manage to make a good sound with the fleshy part of the finger. If you can manage that, more power to you but I cant seem to make it work too well! In the end, I just had to make a pick.

Creating a fingerpick to mimic my nail.
So there are a lot of opinions out there on how to make a fingerpick for clawhammer playing. Many people (including Grandpa Jones) flip standard fingerpicks backwards, perhaps cutting them down a bit. John Balch has a creative approach to making picks out of a ping-pong ball. There are a few purpose-made clawhammer picks out there but I've read positive reviews of Fred Kelly fingerpicks (which are actually made for guitar playing) and they're pretty cheap. I bought myself a few of them at Elderly last week - here are some pictures of one on my finger:
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Picture
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Figure 3 - side, top, and bottom views of a Fred Kelly Fingerpick.
Playing with these picks unaltered didn't feel quite right to me - likely because they don't quite match the shape of my "ideal nail" (FIgure 2) though they seem to work well for other players by all accounts. My solution was to cut one down, mostly using fingernail clippers, to match my ideal nail shape. Here's what I settled on:
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Picture
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Figure 4 - side, top, and bottom views of a Fred Kelly Fingerpick that I've cut to match my ideal nail.
The biggest improvement was definitely the "corner" at the 2 o'clock position which works a lot like my normal nail. I spent a couple hours playing on a friend's back porch yesterday with the pick. Honestly, while I still miss my nail, the pick sounded fine and after a while I was even kind of used to it. I found that a light touch gave me pretty good tone and plenty of volume. I did have to take it off for a bit and rub my finger between tunes - its possible that I should go up a size (from M to L) as my finger was getting a bit numb over time, but I erred on the side of tightness in order to avoid it falling off. Certainly tolerable for a couple of hours.

Its a relief to know that I should be all set to play my gig next weekend even if my nail doesn't grow back in time! I'll probably stash a pick in my case from here on out - even when my nail grows back, I may use the pick in big jams, where I tend to chip my nail by subconsciously hitting harder than I should for a bit of extra volume. If you've got opinions on picks, feel free to leave them in the comments - see you next week!
7 Comments
Geoff
10/23/2017 02:24:10 am

I've found my nails have got weaker and more vulnerable to splitting as I've got older. My priority is to preserve them for my guitar so I've tried various picks for clawhammer. Hate them all, but had to do something. I found Fred Kelly Freedom picks (a white one and a clear one for a spare) least bad and like you I've filed them down heavily so they're probably 1/16" shorter than yours and only just show over the end of my finger. I've also thinned them down as much as I could be bothered to do but the delrin is such a pain to work. I need a Dremel or something.
It's taken me a good few months to get used to them and I don't like the tone they produce, but I put up with it for learning stuff and save playing with bare nail for special treats.

Main point for me is what I call the Jim Clark syndrome. He was the best racing driver ever, but not a good development driver. He would quickly adapt to a poor car and drive round its faults. So I try to get used to adapting to playing in different ways and not getting totally reliant on one finger, one pick, one gauge of string, one setup etc. A bit like pianists are used to playing on different pianos. Unless it's Glenn Gould who was a tad picky...

Reply
Jeff N link
10/24/2017 12:29:33 pm

Hey Geoff! Sounds like we've had similar paths here - I cant tell if my nails are weakening over time but my guess is they will eventually so maybe I'll have to lean on the pick a bit more as the years go by. For now, as long as I keep it trimmed to a reasonable length, file down chips immediately, don't play too hard, and use fairly light strings, I dont have to worry about my nail too much...just let it get a bit long for normal life this go round : )

You're right that the feel of playing with a pick is less fun somehow - however, the tone I get is actually pretty good and I hope it will get better with practice. Many players with really great tone use picks (often I've figured this out after noticing how much I like their tone); for example: Arnie Naiman, John Balch, and Mark Olitsky all use picks (and I'm sure there are many more). Mark's tone especially is just fantastic - I heard him a bunch at Clifftop this year and was absolutely mesmerized.

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Geoff
10/25/2017 03:28:29 am

Couple of useful nail care tips from my classical guitar teacher that I could pass on. To help avoid chips and snags, use only a diamond cut glass nail file, not emery or horrors those metal ones. Buff out ridges on the body of the nail with one of those 4 sided abrasive blocks and use the same thing to polish the edges. Optional extra- a coat or three of Sally Hansen’s Hard as Nails does help strengthen the nails and comes in clear or rather fetching pink. It wears off fairly rapidly with clawhammer use though. Your partner can no doubt advise on where to buy such things. I’m always browsing the nail care sections in the shops.

Spare a thought for Julian Bream who used to drive his agent nuts with his two main hobbies of gardening and rebuilding old cars. Neither great for nail care.

I think my resonator guitar with 15-56 gauge strings is my biggest problem. I can’t play guitar with fingerpicks At All. Heaven knows I’ve tried for 40 years or so.

Cliff
11/1/2017 09:36:52 pm

As part of his 2017 lessons subscription Lukas Pool put up a video tutorial showing how he fashions a false nail using a cut piece of a ping pong ball that is shaped and then glued over his index finger. I haven't tried making one for myself yet but I'm intrigued because the resulting nail seems durable yet is thin.

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