Keith style

The Keith style of playing the 5-string banjo emphasizes the melody of the song. Also known as the "Melodic" or "Chromatic style", it was first developed and popularized independently by Bobby Thompson and Bill Keith in the early 1960s. It is used primarily by bluegrass banjoists, though it can be applied to virtually any genre. Most banjoists who play Keith style do not use it exclusively, but integrate it as one aspect of their playing, a way of adding spice to the more common 3-finger style of Earl Scruggs.

The Keith style is a fingerpicking style played with picks on the thumb, index and middle fingers. It centers on playing scales in a linear fashion. This contrasts with "3-Finger" or Scruggs style, which is centered on arpeggios, or chord tones played in rapid succession. Generally speaking, in the Keith style the fingers of the picking hand alternate between strings, rarely picking the same string twice. Frequently open strings are alternated with strings that are fretted halfway up the neck or more. These aspects contrast with "Single String" or Reno style, which also emphasizes linear (playing the same string multiple times) playing. In Reno style, however, scales are played out of closed-chord positions, where the entire scale may be played without moving the fretting hand up or down the neck, by moving from the lowest to highest string in a linear fashion. In the Reno style, the index finger and thumb generally alternate while picking, and often pick the same string two or more times in succession. One aspect of Keith style which makes it difficult to learn is that one often moves to a higher note in the scale by picking a lower string, albeit fretted to give the higher note.