Got Pick Noise? The Solution Is In Your Hands

Two metal fingerpicks plucking several times per second at five vibrating strings made of steel. If that's not a recipe for disaster it's at least a prescription for pick noise, the unwanted high-pitched "zing" that occurs a millisecond prior to the intended beautiful banjo note your fans so adore.

Pick noise results from slowly approaching an already vibrating string with your pick, causing the string to eventually stop moving. Between the time of initial contact by the pick and the time when the string has completely stopped vibrating, the short-lived, sizzling, metal on metal sound of pick noise occurs. Your thumb pick can add its own colorful buzz to this mix.

And what can you as a banjo player do to exorcise these demons? Awareness is the first step. You may not have even noticed that you've been contributing to the current unprecedented level of pick noise the planet is experiencing. Not to worry, the solution is in your hands.

Listen closely to the sound coming out of your banjo when you play. If you hear anything but the pure, unadulterated tone of one banjo note after another - if you hear anything resembling old AM radio static - anything like a drop of water hitting a red hot skillet - anything like a baseball being hit with an aluminum bat - you get the idea.

Location, Location, Location

When you kick off Fire Ball Mail or Blue Ridge Cabin Home, where is your right hand? If the point where your picks touch the strings is more than about two and a half inches from the bridge, you're playing in an area where increased pick noise is likely. The combination of your right hand being too far away from the bridge while your left hand is working within the first five frets (as in plenty of open strings and low notes) is an invitation that pick noise will be more than happy to RSVP.

It's easy to allow your right hand to slowly creep away from the bridge and toward the neck. And it's easy to get used to the tone you produce when your hand is four or five inches from the bridge. But from the listener's vantage point, in front of the banjo, the sound is a muddy mess punctuated only by the zing, zing, zing of - you guessed it - pick noise.

To remedy the situation, move your hand closer to the bridge so that you're picking on the section of the strings that offers more resistance to your picks. After changing the location of your right hand, you may feel that your banjo now sounds too thin, too tinny, too bright. But I assure you, from the listener's position, the full spectrum of the banjo's sound is coming through loud and clear.

Slice Through The String

Now that your right hand is in a better position to reduce pick noise, let's focus on the movement of your index and middle fingers. If you've ever seen the swing of a pro golfer teeing off and driving a ball 200 yards, then you'll have an idea of what I'm getting at when I say you need to "slice through the string" with the motion of your finger.

The movement needs to be so fast that, in less than the blink of an eye, your metal fingerpick has gone from being poised to strike the string to resting on the other side of the string, having already plucked it. Your goal is to have your fingerpick pass through the vibrating string so fast that the duration of the initial metal on metal contact is so brief as to be inaudible.

The speed at which you slice through the string is independent of the tempo at which you are playing. For example, set your metronome to 60 beats per minute and play one note per click. At that tempo, where there is a full second of time between finger movements (that's an eternity for us banjo players), the speed with which you pick the string still has to be really fast if you are to sneak past the vibrating string without triggering the alarm.

On The Other Hand

Finally, consider the left-hand's counterpart to pick noise. What happens when you play, for example, the open 4th string, and then your left-hand middle finger slowly, gradually, eventually makes its way toward the vibrating string in an effort to play a hammer-on at the 2nd fret of that string? I'll get into that topic in a future post. In the meantime, you've learned how to make your banjo sound better by making your banjo playing sound better. It's been a good day.