Andy Chase

I'm glad I learned frailing first, because the Scruggs style is hard... there's no getting around it, no matter how eager I am to be good at it right now, which of course is usually the reason a person decides to learn any instrument.

"Geology is the study of pressure and time. Thats all it takes really... pressure, and time." -Frank Darabont, paraphrasing Stephen King in his screenplay for Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

I began taking banjo lessons again last week. Whereas in the summer of 2002 I took a total of five lessons in the frailing style, this time around I'm pursuing the three-finger, Earl Scruggs style. The style most commonly associated with bluegrass music. The one you probably know from Deliverance or pretty much any mainstream media depiction of anything having to do with the rural south.

I'm glad I learned frailing first, because the Scruggs style is hard... there's no getting around it, no matter how eager I am to be good at it right now. Wanting to be good at an instrument, of course, is usually the reason a person decides to learn it, assuming they haven't been required by their parent to arbitrarily pick one.

I had Cripple Creek more or less down within just a day or two after my first lesson back in 2002. In its most basic form, frailing is a much simpler style, although players like Ken Perlman have done mind-boggling things with it.

This time I'm faced with hours and hours of practice before I can hope to rattle off a tune with the staccato speed and syncopation that seems so effortless for experienced players.

I think the moment of realization of what is involved in becoming good (whatever your personal definition of good is) at an instrument is where a great many people give up... it was where I gave up on piano after five or six lessons in high school, and where I would have given up on trumpet if getting braces hadn't forced the issue for me. I remember a general feeling of the effort not being worth the reward, and lessons and practice became more of a grudging duty than a pleasure.

Although I can currently barely make my way through Peter Wernick's plain vanilla arrangement of "She'll be Coming Round The Mountain", I don't have that sinking feeling of futility I did with piano and trumpet. I'm still more excited than anything, because this is a thing that I want. I've got a better banjo to learn on this time, a good teacher, and as much time as I need to learn my instrument... what is there to be frustrated about?