As long as I can remember I've liked to take pictures. Granted, I'm not good at it, but I do like to press the button and make the camera do that clicky sound. However, in the thousands upon thousands of pictures I've taken I found a few that I'd like to share, and you can find them on Flikr.
Perhaps I should have titled this post the LACK of Drinking Straw Quality Control! Where will this end? I'm 43. I've used drinking straws as long as I can remember. I remember using paper straws, but mostly plastic ones. For the better part of my life I've had pretty much no problems with a straw. Oh, occasionally I'd happen upon one that had been bent and cracked, but that was obviously not a QC issue.The most common mistake of the beginning banjo player is to play too gently. True, musical instruments require great care and special handling, but banjos should not be confused with these. There are three basic licks that are used in playing the banjo: the hit (abbreviated h in tablature), the harder hit (H), and the beat (B). Learn these three licks, and soon you'll be able to play anything! Remember -- Hit 'em again, hit 'em again, harder, harder!
Lesson 2: Stage Presence
A dignified stage presence will do more than anything else to create the impression that you are a serious, professional musician. This is to be avoided at all costs--you have a reputation to maintain, after all! While playing on stage, you should: (1) slouch, (2) drool, (3) pick nose, (4) bump fiddler, (5) cross eyes, (6) pour beer on self, and/or (7) stare off into space. The more you can do at once, the better.
Lesson 3: Tuning your banjo
Musicians make a very big deal about "getting in tune." Fortunately, you're a banjo player, and therefore need not be so hung up. There are three basic ways to tune a banjo:
Lesson 4: Tunes and Tablature
It's a well-kept secret that there are really only four tunes in old-time music: the G Tune, the A Tune, the D Tune, and the C Tune. It's an even better-kept secret that these four tunes sound exactly the same. Tablature is a simplified form of musical notation used by musicians to preserve music on paper. Avoid all tablature--you will get nowhere as a banjo player by imitating musicians.
Lesson 5: Drugs & Banjo Playing
Just say, "Why not?"
Lesson 6: Playing with Musicians
Playing with musicians is always scary for the beginning banjo player. You should not be intimidated, though, because musicians like to have a banjo player or two around. Even the most mediocre group of musicians will sound great by contrast when a banjo player is added. So get in there and start jamming!
Lesson 7: Banjo Paraphernalia
Lesson 8: Name That Tune
As mentioned previously, there are only four tunes, and they all sound the same. It is definitely uncool, however, to let on in public that you know this, so here's a list of titles for The Tune: Turkey in the Straw, Bug in the Taters, Bonaparte Crossing the Turnpike, Fire on the Mountain, Billy in the Lowground, Drugs in the Urine Sample, Christ on a Crutch, Monkey in the Dog Cart, Logs in the Bedpan, Ducks in the Millpond, Pigeon on a Gate Post, Water on the Knee.
Lesson 9: Three Myths Dispelled
Lesson 10: The Universal Banjo Tune
----H----B---h---B----------H-------B---B-H--------
--h---H--B---------B--------H---H---B-H-B---H------
---------B-----h-----B------H-B---------B-----H----
-----------h-----------h----------h----------------
------------------------------------------------B--
h=hit it! H=hit it harder! B=beat it!
This article was reprinted from the February 1990 issue of The Daily Clog, Julie Mangin, editor.
Over the years I've started a small instrument collection. The crazy part is I attempt to play most of these from time to time. I have very few (well none really) museum pieces. All are tools and all are fun to play!Originally posted February 19, 2006 — updated August 2026
I started playing banjo in 1977. I'm self-taught, mostly the old-fashioned way — listening and learning. I ruined more than a few records by dancing the needle across them, trying to hit that one particular spot again and again until I could figure out what I was hearing.
I soon found myself playing in the FFA String Band in high school. We played all over Georgia and even had the honor of playing at the FFA National Convention in Kansas City.
Over the years I've done assorted session work and played and recorded with a number of bands and musicians. While living in Athens, Georgia, in the late '80s, I even played banjo for the soundtrack of a FedEx commercial. I later played and recorded with Shady Hollow and Country Comfort, among others.
From almost the beginning, though, I've loved teaching people to play the banjo. At one point I had as many as 50 students a week. My writing about banjo eventually found its way into Banjo Newsletter, where my column, “The Workshop,” became a regular feature. I've also had the opportunity to teach at places including the Maryland Banjo Academy, Banjo Newsletter workshops, Steve Kaufman's Acoustic Kamp, and the John C. Campbell Folk School.
While in college in the early '80s, I took up clawhammer banjo. I started with a book I got from Grandpa Jones, learned the basics, and then spent hours trying to figure out “Soldier's Joy” from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Years later, I think I finally began to understand what I was doing. Somewhere along the way that work paid off: I won the Old-Time Banjo division at the Georgia State Championship in 1999 and the Tennessee Bluegrass Banjo Championship in 2005.
For several years I played banjo with the Hamilton County Ramblers, a Chattanooga-based bluegrass band with James Kee, Roy Curry, John Boulware, and Josh Hixson. We released our self-titled album in 2015, and I'm still mighty proud of the music we made together.
Then something happened that I certainly didn't anticipate when I originally wrote this bio.
In March 2006, just a few weeks after this page first appeared, I started putting videos on a fairly new website called YouTube.
There wasn't much of a plan. I was simply doing what I'd always done — showing people how to play the banjo.
Twenty years later, those little videos have grown into a community of more than 150,000 YouTube subscribers and more than 19 million views. People all over the world have learned their first banjo rolls, tunes, licks, chords, and probably a few bad jokes from me. Somewhere along the way people started calling me the “Bob Ross of Banjo,” which still makes me smile.
The technology changed, but I don't think my approach to teaching ever really did. I still want it to feel like we're sitting across from one another with a couple of banjos and I'm saying, “Here — try this.”
I've continued teaching at workshops and camps, making music, and trying to help people discover that playing the banjo doesn't have to be harder than it needs to be. In August 2026, that work even took me across the Atlantic to Liverpool, England, where I spent a weekend teaching banjo workshops.
And in 2026 I was named a nominee for the International Bluegrass Music Association's Momentum Award for Mentor of the Year.
That's a strange and wonderful thing to type.
When I wrote the first version of this bio twenty years ago, I was a banjo player and teacher who had been fortunate enough to do some pretty interesting things with music.
I still am.
The circle has just gotten a good bit bigger.
For those of you who may have missed the blog entry on Yoyoing.com, I spent the weekend in Nashville as a guest of the Grand Ole Opry.