Strumming Hand Position

How to Make the Claw Shape and Use It to Strum the Banjo

The Claw shape we make with our striking hand is the most important part of clawhammer banjo. Make a letter C with your strumming hand and extend your thumb. Keep your index, middle and ring fingers together. You’ll need to maintain this shape when playing and not uncurl your fingers as you strike and strum the strings. Adding muscle tension while maintaining the C shape will add volume to your strum. This is because you are increasing resistance when striking. Maintaining the C shape with a relaxed hand will yield a lower volume, the loose muscles act as natural shock absorbers when striking. Of course, adding arm speed or using a slower arm speed will also affect your volume.

You can test and exercise the muscle tension in your hand by making the C shape and pressing on your fingernails with your other hand. This is an isometric exercise. You could also do it by setting your hand on a desk or your leg and doing a kind of finger pushup but on the backs of your nails. Watch the video for a demonstration.

Most clawhammer players grow their nails out a bit to strike the strings. It doesn’t take too much length. Use a nail file for a round shape or square even shape for striking. Some people can’t grow their nails out because of their daily lives or brittle nails. Sometimes biotin or nail hardener oil can help. You might want to look into getting a clawhammer pick or a fake nail from a nail salon as another option.

Next up, we'll begin to put all this together and begin strumming in time.