That’s the plan: 1 hour of banjo practice, every day, for 1 year, starting today. The fastest way to learn how to play banjo, or in my case, to level up my banjo playing, is to practice every day.
The more you can practice, of course, the better you will get. So I’m aiming for 1 hour a day, which will be quite the challenge.
I have a 7-year old daughter, AND I have an evil Canadian wife! I have a full-time job outside of Banjo Mountain. How will I overcome these challenges to practice a full hour every day? That, I will share with you, dear reader.
At a minimum, I will write about my experience once a month. I will post videos so you can see my progress. I will share my plan of attack and execution each month. I will share the most significant challenges and how I got around them.
Bullshit, you say?! Maybe. In January 2020, I decided to learn how to play the guitar. I had tried a couple times before and never got past 5 open chords. I can now play guitar and play quite well (if I say so myself – pat, pat). But I did not practice for 1 hour a day, and I did not make a public commitment.
So this is a commitment to you: that in the hopes of inspiring you to play every day…in the hopes that I might pass on tips and tricks for how to keep your practice going…I will practice every day and 1 hour per day.
I’ve never really introduced myself to the Banjo Mountain community: My name is Judd, and I built Banjo Mountain bringing the genius of my teacher John Rosen to the web. Any picture you see of a middle-aged man hiking with a banjo in beautiful nature on this site, that’s me! My favorite place to play the banjo is in nature, particularly National Parks and State Parks. My wife and I try to travel each month, so I’ll be sharing a travel series with you, too, as I play banjo across the country.
I’ve been working on Banjo Mountain for 5 years in the hopes of helping people learn banjo and to do that full time. I love the banjo and Banjo Mountain. I hope you love it too.
So… it’s 7:38am PST. I’m not hungover because I went to bed at 9:30pm last night. So I’ll start by figuring out when I’m going to practice today and what precisely I’m going to practice on, and get after it! Grab your banjo and practice! Even if for 10 minutes
Happy New Year.
-Judd
Latest From Our Blog
What I Learned from Practicing Banjo for 1 Year
TOTAL PRACTICE FOR 2022: 343 HOURS So close. The goal was 365 hours of banjo practice for 2022. 343 hours isn’t bad right? Wrong. I’ll get there shortly. The purpose was to level up my playing, share my journey and perhaps most useful to you, share any practical...
How To Practice Banjo While Traveling
I've been traveling for the past six weeks (roughly): Four weeks driving up to Oregon, where I have family and dear friends, and then onto Vancouver, Canada, where my wife's family lives. Then two weeks to the green, luscious island of Kaua'i. It was tricky getting...
How to Play Banjo at a Bluegrass Jam
In this lesson, John lays out the key things you need to know to play banjo in a bluegrass jam. He covers things like "How to find the key of the song", "the importance of chord inversions", "using other players' fretboards as a guide" and several other tips on how to...