Dave Hum's Picking Style

Dave Hum takes charge of his banjos. When I first learned how to drive a car as a 17 year old teenager, an older friend of mine took me out to a big empty parking lot in Chicago, after it had snowed. He instructed me to drive ahead and then slam on the brakes to go into a skid. He had me intentionally doing 360 degree spins in the snow, sliding and getting a feel for the car. That did more to help me learn how to drive than anything else, because I learned to control the vehicle, and not to let the vehicle control me!

Likewise, I think of that often as a good illustration of learning to play the banjo. Dave picks the strings with a strong grip, determination, mastering his instruments, and it is heard in his eloquent majestic performances. I really love when Dave rides up and down that 1st string while doing triplets, which you can hear a lot in Mason's Apron. When he finishes there is a loud applause from all onlookers, paying tribute to a master banjo player!

On November 1, 2020, Dave Hum posted the following explanation in the Banjo Hangout of why he doesn't rest his finger in the banjo head as do most other players...

Banjo players often comment that I don't rest one or two fingers on the drum head, so I thought I'd let anyone else who is curious know the reason why.

Since 1990 I played resting my pinky on the head for stability - however - in October 2009 I came down with septacemia and was diagnosed with multiple myeloma which is a form of blood and bone cancer - I lost the tip of my index finger on my picking hand and my fingers are left permanently curled so I can't rest my pinky and play comfortably in this position without the picks getting caught up in the strings - the webbing between my fingers has risen which restricts movement and the nerve endings in my fingers are damaged so I have areas of numbness.

I realised then that the only way forward was to learn a new technique that still enabled me to play wearing fingerpicks and to be able to use the 3 main styles of playing that I employed i.e. 3 finger style (Earl Scruggs) - Alternating Thumb and Index or Middle (Bill Keith - Melodic) - and single string style (Don Reno).

After trying different approaches I settled on having a floating hand (like a guitarist) and sometimes resting the thumb base of my palm above the bridge for support as this is the technique I use when I'm playing up the neck and I taped the fingerpicks to my index and middle fingers to stop them falling off. Taping them also enabled me to fashion the index fingerpick so it stuck out more than usual to compensate for the loss of the tip on my index finger - It took me almost a year to feel comfortable with this new technique and get the speed and timing back - but so far so good! Nowadays I don't need the tape as I put velcro inside my picks and this holds them on. More recently I have had some tumours showing up and one was in my skull - thankfully some radiotherapy zapped it away but it has affected my eyesight and I now have to wear an eye paych from now on as I only have the use of one eye,

I have included some pics here in the photo section of my Banjo Hangout homepage that shows my right hand with the picks on - and also a splint that was made for me by a hand physio team at hospital to try to stop my fingers curling into a fist.

I hope by sharing this info it will give inspiration and hope to any other banjo pickers out there who may be experiencing the similar difficultys that I have come up against.

I have a 2 Albums of popular bluegrass and celtic tunes available on CD at http://www.davehum.com

Or if you would like to download an album or individual tunes in MP3 format click here http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/DaveHum

I am also now offering a FREE download of my third album which is quite different from the traditional approach.

The album "TRAVELLING LIGHT" is a culmination of 15 years as when I have had spare time between learning, busking and videoing 5 string banjo tunes I have recorded original compositions which have more of a unique contemporary approach.

Thanks for all the support from BHO members.

Dave Hum

Facebook Page : http://www.facebook.com/davehum.banjoplayer2

I needed to remove the link in Dave's preceding quote to his jukebox page, because after his death some ungodly people linked it to a smut website. That is so wicked when ungodly people hijack the website of decent God-fearing people. I did report the matter to a Moderator in the forum.

I have studied Dave's picking closely and he is incredibly skilled at single note playing. I believe this carries over from his skills on the mandolin. I bought a mandolin just for that purpose, so I could learn to play single notes better. The proper technique to pick the mandolin is up, down, up, down, up, down on single note progressions. Dave does that a lot on the banjo, like on Arkansas Traveller and also in Arkansas Traveller 2 (which you can see very well in these awesome videos).

I actually watched a video today, where Peter Seeger (1919-2014) said that when he first taught banjo back in the 1960's, he taught his students chords. But today he said that he did it wrong! He said that now he teaches his students to first focus on playing single strings. The chords will automatically come later. I fully agree with Peter. Dave Hum is masterful at single string playing. I went to read up on Pete Seeger, when I read that Dave Hum studied from his courses and admired him as a musician. If Dave learned from him, then so should I.

Dave Hum (1966-2012)