Banjo with James H.

I started off with violin at the age of four, and picked up mandolin, guitar, and banjo in my teens. I focused on small ensemble playing, especially competitive string quartet. I bounced around from band to band and touched a lot of different genres. Classical gave me extremely solid technical foundations and practice methods, jazz gave me music theory, I learned rhythm from transcribing math rock guitar solos. I started playing folk music with a Klezmer band on the streets of Chicago -- my first experience making money with music. From there, I branched out into Balkan, Irish, and American folk. As I got older, my interest in the banjo became an obsession as I discovered players like Noam Pikelny, Jens Kruger, and Wes Corbett. I ultimately ended up devoting the majority of my energy to it and it has become my primary instrument. I was a FreshGrass Banjo Award finalist in 2017, and you can find some videos of my playing on jameshanford.org.