Instructions for instructions

June 15, 2007

Keith writes:
Do you have any advice for how a complete beginning should make use of your materials?

(there is also a small collection of text workshops on archive.org)

Do you recommend any particular order of progression? Things to avoid until a certain level of proficiency is achieved? I’m just looking for some general guidance based on your experience as a teacher.

Frailing is a technique. Nothing more and nothing less. If you learn the mechanics of the basic frailing strum and a couple of chords you can play and sing thousands upon thousands of folk songs.

The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo was written as a handout for a high school banjo club. It was written so that the kids would have something to go back to for ideas over the entire course of their banjo journey. As I say in the introduction:

take your time with this book. Get a technique or a lick out of it. Then get lost for a while and “Don’t come back until you can do like we showed you.”

The same can be said of A Book Of Five Strings, our videos and the daily workshops. Get a technique or a lick out of it. Then get lost for a while and “Don’t come back until you can do like we showed you.”

This is folk music. There are no methods. We have concepts and techniques. Everything else is unique to the individual. Make the technique part of your life. Play songs that you like. Jam with people you enjoy being around. Let your life experiences shape your music.

In other words, follow your heart.

I’ll keep putting out instructional stuff. A project like The Folk Song of the Day is more about illustrating how a few simple skills can be used to play a whole bunch of songs than it is about learning an individual song.

When it comes to using any of our stuff, just get a technique or a lick out of it. Then get lost for a while and “Don’t come back until you can do like we showed you.”

Posted by Patrick Costello
Filed in Banjo
3 Comments »

3 Responses to “Instructions for instructions”

  1. dickedie Says:

    June 16, 2007 at 4:47 am

    Dear Patrick,
    I’m at a bit of a loss to understand you. You closed down HowandTao.com because you were ruining your health by over working. 3 months later Tangier Sound has become a remarkable resource. It has a ‘Daily Frail’ podcast which is daily, it has daily videos which are simply excellent, regular instruction discourses like this one, it has become 2 way with the comments section, everything is accessible at any time and can be downloaded from Archive.com. In every way it is better than howandtao. Surely your work rate has gone through the roof! This site has become a stunning resource for everyone interested in the banjo. The lessons are coming so thick and fast that I’m still a month behind trying to consolidate.

    Again thanks for all your work but please remember to take some down time and keep the health good. I’m sure that everyone who uses Tangier Sound feels the same.

  2. Patrick Costello Says:

    June 16, 2007 at 9:10 am

    It really hasn’t been much work running this site – and since I am using free hosting for everything (a big thank you goes out to WordPress, YouTube and Archive.org) there is nothing to get stressed out about in terms of bandwidth or hosting fees.

    The Daily Frail is recorded and tabbed out off the top of my head when I first crawl out of bed every morning (“start your day the banjo way!”) and The Folk Song of the Day is set up with the camera (the Canon XL1 we bought back when we were filming interviews on the road) mounted in a fixed position on my desk so all I have to do is grab an instrument, push my chair in front of the camera and hit “record” on the remote control. Editing and processing the audio and video is so easy with Linux (thanks to the folks who created Kino and Audacity) that none of it seems like work.

    I guess I just found my rhythm.

  3. Karl Pitwon Says:

    June 17, 2007 at 2:58 am

    HI Patrick and Dad

    Enjoyed this weeks lessons especially the one by dad, so important to get this basic frail right. I notice your dad permanently rests his thumb on the face of the banjo to start the basic strum ……. how important is this as I am tending to have my thumb raised…..
    do I need to revert back to the way your Dad shows us

    regards Karl


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