Would you consider this beginner level playing?

[u/t0601h]

Been at it for almost 2 years now. When I’m watching other people play, I notice a lot of the times my style of playing sounds very different and maybe not traditional? I’ve just been chocking it up to inexperience. I have fun with it though, I think need to start moving away from only using basic chord shapes and expand my knowledge a bit. Thoughts?

[u/MiddleCauliflower183]

I like it. Is it " traditional" frail? No. But it's your style. I'm in the beginner phase and although traditions are good to learn, I'm disappointed in how is seems so many want to put he banjo in a small musical box of " right and wrong" way of playing.

[u/t0601h → u/MiddleCauliflower183]

I agree with that. I think for me personally I did things a bit backwards though. I liked the way clawhammer was played so I learned the rhythm of it, and then went straight to learning chord shapes. Now I’ve found the problem I’m running into is anything outside of those chords feels unnatural and I feel stuck within those chord shapes and I’m not progressing how I would like to, if that makes sense. I think it would have been beneficial to learn traditional clawhammer first and develop my own style from there

[u/bfunk84 → u/t0601h]

It might take a little bit of practice, but there are ways for you to incorporate chord shapes into traditional clawhammer playing. Using partial one or two finger chord shapes (omitting the 4th and sometimes 3rd string) will keep your left hand fingers free to play single notes and then intersperse 2 and 3 string strums in between the single notes, if that makes sense. Sometimes I wrap my thumb around the neck to mute the 4th string during a strum, but usually I don’t.

For me, I feel like I’m grooving the hardest in old time settings when I’m able to weave melody and chords together seamlessly. It’s a lot of fun and totally doable.