Hey guys/gals! Just want to say Hi first of all. I've been kicking around the idea of learning the banjo for a few years, and this last Friday I decided to jump right in and start. I picked up an old used Global banjo from a local guy to learn on. I know it's not the greatest of banjos from what I've read, but it's a banjo none the less and it was priced reasonably. I picked up some new strings for it (2 were missing and the remaining of unknown age) and picked up a snark tuner so I could get it tuned properly, then checked the bridge position via the 12th fret harmonic. Overall it's sounding pretty good now to my untrained ears.
Picks were a little harder to work out - I've always known I had slightly big thumbs, but apparently I've got absurdly huge thumbs. The first two music stores only had plastic thumb picks, but their large size wouldn't even go past the tip of my thumb and onto my fingernail. The third music store I went to had metal thumb picks so I was able to bend one of them to fit my thumb. In a couple minutes i had the finger picks bent to fit my fingers and I haven't really experienced any trouble with them as far as being loose or cutting off circulation.
For now I'm just going at practicing some basic rolls. I figure this is a good place to start because it gets me used to holding the banjo and lets me work and trying to train my hand to stay put and learn where the strings are without having to look. If there's a better way to start out, please let me know. For now I think it's going reasonably well considering I've only practiced for about 1.5 hours total time (45 min per day so far). I'm still trying to figure out the best positioning for my right hand (as to how much curve in the wrist and the exact angle I should be picking at the strings) and most notably - keeping my ring finger planted!
I'm not sure how long it takes to learn it, but I'm looking forward to the day when I can play foggy mountain breakdown- I love that tune!
This is a great site and it looks to be filled with many friendly and helpful people. I look forward to any help I can learn from you all over the coming months/years!