Welcome to 5^th Saturdays at the Two Way Street Coffee House!  Saturdays are special!  An Welcome to 5^th Saturdays at the Two Way Street Coffee House!  An extra Saturday in a month comes around only a few times a year, so we decided to commemorate each one with a special event.  5^th Saturdays in 2025 occur in March, June, August and November.

For our March even, Two Way Street Coffee House, in partnership with the Plank Road Folk Music Society, is pleased to present two clawhammer banjo workshops with Ken Perlman on March 29, 2025.  The basic clawhammer workshop runs from 11am – 1pm and the intermediate clawhammer workshop runs from 2pm – 4pm CT.

This event will be in-person or virtual attendance.  The admission price is $25 per participant and will be limited to 25 in-person attendees for each workshop.

The registration deadline is March 25, 2025.  

Ken Perlman is a pioneer of the 5-string banjo style known as melodic clawhammer; he is considered one today’s top clawhammer players, known in particular for his skillful adaptations of Celtic, Appalachian, & Canadian fiddle tunes to the style. He has toured throughout most of the English-speaking world and in Western-Europe, both as a soloist and – for over fifteen years – in a duo with renowned Appalachian-style fiddler Alan Jabbour. An acclaimed teacher of folk-music instrumental skills, Ken has written such widely used banjo instruction books as Clawhammer Style Banjo. Melodic Clawhammer and Everything You Wanted to Know About Clawhammer; he has been on staff at prestigious festivals around the world, and he is currently director of three music-instructional camps: American Banjo Camp, Midwest Banjo Camp, and Suwannee Banjo Camp. Also an independent folklorist, Ken spent close to two decades collecting tunes and oral histories from traditional fiddle players on Prince Edward Island in Eastern Canada. His most recent solo recordings are Frails & Frolics and Northern Banjo; his recordings with Alan Jabbour are Southern Summits & You Can’t Beat the Classics; his latest books are Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo and Cape Breton & Prince Edward Island Fiddle Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo.

Workshop #1 Basic Clawhammer Banjo:  Improve your clawhammer technique – or learn it from scratch – and learn some great banjo songs & tunes. We’ll make sure your basic mechanics and “bumm-diddy” strum are on track, integrate fretting-hand techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, & slides, learn how to play in a few different banjo tunings, and introduce the “drop thumbing ” technique (using the thumb on the long strings of the banjo). Instruction will be via demonstration, ear, and tablature.

Workshop #2: Intermediate Clawhammer Banjo: Learn or perfect the skills you’ll need to explore both “traditional” & melodic clawhammer. We’ll start with a thorough exploration of drop-thumbing & double-thumbing; develop the ability to drop your thumb to any string at any time, use your picking finger and thumb to play any combination of strings in any order, and to use double-thumbing both for rhythmic accents and for creating runs of melody notes. We’ll also explore fretting-hand fingering strategies and ergonomics, hammer-ons and pull-offs involving all fretted notes, “alternate-string” pull-offs (where you pluck one string and then pull-off another string), and basic strategies for exploring the fretboard and achieving syncopated rhythms. You’ll learn some old-time fiddle tunes melodies that illustrate the skills just taught. Instruction will be via demonstration, ear, and tablature.

After you register and purchase your tickets, you will receive a receipt from Paypal.  Email questions to [email protected].