One middle finger exercise you might be familiar with is commonly used to indicate displeasure with a person. Giving somebody the finger is easy to master - make a fist, stick up your middle finger, done. The middle finger exercises I am talking about are more to do with the five string banjo and are also more difficult to master. The middle finger is usually played after your index finger, but when you have to play your middle finger in different places it gets a little tricky. The goal of a good banjo player should be to have complete control over his picking hand and be able to pick almost any pattern with ease. Although this is a pretty lofty goal, you can at least try to be a better banjo player and use your middle finger to create some new rolls.

The first exercise will put your middle finger right to work. The middle finger plays half of the notes in each measure and has to be strong to make this roll sound good, so take it slow.

Middle Finger 1

Have a listen to this roll:

Our next exercise takes the same pattern and puts it to use with an F shape chord. Just form a G chord and start picking, being careful to keep your tempo nice and steady.

Middle finger 2

Press play to hear the example above:

Practice this roll until it is sounding smooth and you can play it without too much effort. This roll can be used when you are playing backup - try to replace a measure of backup rolls with this new one. But, as always when you are playing backup - don’t compete with the lead instrument.

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