There are different ways to play a fivestring (resonater) banjo, but the basic style in bluegrass (in other music styles also) is the three-finger style or Scruggs-style (developed by Earl Scruggs, see ‘Playing a banjo with five strings’). Playing Scruggs-style means playing rolls, specific right-hand patterns. There are a lot of rolls (variations), but they all come from a few basis patterns: the forward-roll, double thumb-roll, foggy mountainbreakdown-roll, backward-roll and forward-backward-roll (see picture for some basic examples). The melodynotes in a roll are being played louder (the thumbpick is an important melodynote-picker) and the rest of the notes serve as fill-in notes; together with hammer-ons, slides and pull-offs the rolls give the banjo a smooth, rolling sound. It’s not always easy for the listener to hear the melodyline in a banjosong, even when the melodynotes have more accent.
Example of song played in Scruggs-style
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