Bluegrass banjo players would be quick to point out that “folk” style banjo is completely different than “bluegrass” style banjo. What’s interesting about bluegrass banjo is that there are categories linking right hand technique to famous players, i.e., “Scruggs Style,” “Reno Style” and “Keith Style.” Personality linked technique is somehow revealing because nobody really has a market on common string technique. Banjo instruction is largely devoid of accepted music basics such as theory, sight reading (as opposed to tablature), and the practice of scales and arpeggios, is virtually nonexistent. These  instruction methods are common on all other instruments and are the tools and foundations of personal style – not personalities or technique. It’s why it could be argued that in terms of instruction, five string banjo is still at a “folk” instrument level of development and is the reason it is relegated to the “miscellaneous” category of musical instruments.

The joke goes something like this:

Q: “How do shut a banjo player up?”
A: “Put sheet-music in front of them!”

Because bluegrass instruction books teach the same old “tablature and roll” methods introduced in the mid-sixties, we now have a “tablature and roll cult” which values imitation over creativity. Although imitation is an important element in the process of learning, bluegrass banjo instruction teaches only rote imitation of virtually the same musical cliches invented by Earl Scruggs some 50 years ago. This is, of course, with the exception of notable banjo musicians who have creatively progressed to a more distinctive personal style.

In most bluegrass banjo instruction books, the student is instructed to repeat three and four note right hand, open string arpeggios called “rolls,” ad infinitum, without any meaningful rhythmic context or musical application. Metronome instruction is never mentioned nor included. These “rolls” are described in some books with curious little names which rival ones given to quantum sub-atomic particles: forward, backward, square, inside, outside, etc. They have become the musical atoms that make up right hand instruction in the bluegrass banjo universe. Ironically, if you survey the actual music of Earl Scruggs, such repetitive rolls are not to be found. There may be elements of banjo rolls, but his right-hand playing is far more varied. Why? Earl Scruggs’ playing was never “roll” driven, but rather melody driven. Scruggs never actually used tablature or rolls himself.

The drilling of repetitive ”rolls” leads some students to infer that they are some kind of musical “filler” or “bubble wrap” to mechanically stuff around a melody rather than the mere physical conditioning exercises they were originally designed to be. Applying “finger rolls” to a melody in a backwards attempt to find some imaginary shortcut to a great finger style arrangement misses the whole point of the melody. Students become stuck on tab, finger roll regurgitation, cliches and real no understanding of what is really going on musically. And after years of instruction, they wonder why their playing sounds nothing like their favorite recordings.

Great bluegrass banjo playing is characterized by creatively allowing the melody to direct right hand patterns so as to frame and enhance a melody’s uniqueness rather than burying it in repetitive redundancy. Varying and tailoring right-hand patterns to a melody is an art and a skill based upon musical taste and finger-independent control rather than repetitive “finger roll” muscle memory. It is a skill that results directly from rhythmic practice with a metronome – the same kind of basic musicianship that is ignored in bluegrass instructional materials.