Editing Scruggs style (section)

{{Short description|Banjo playing style}}
{{ref-improve|date=May 2016}}
[[Image:Banjo forward roll on G major chord.png|thumb|right|300px|Forward [[banjo roll|roll]] on G major chord in both standard notation and banjo [[tablature]], [[accompaniment]] pattern characteristic of Scruggs style<ref name="Davis">Davis, Janet (2002). ''[Mel Bay's] Back-Up Banjo'', p.54. {{ISBN|0-7866-6525-4}}.</ref> {{audio|Banjo forward roll on G major chord.mid|Play}}.]]

'''Scruggs style''' is the most common style of playing the [[banjo]] in [[bluegrass music]]. It is a [[fingerpicking]] method, also known as '''three-finger style'''. It is named after [[Earl Scruggs]], whose innovative approach and technical mastery of the instrument have influenced generations of bluegrass banjoists ever since he was first recorded in 1946. It contrasts with earlier styles such as minstrel, [[Banjo#Classic_era%2C_1880s–1910s|classic]], or parlor style (a late 19th-century finger-style played without picks), [[clawhammer]]/frailing/two-finger style (played with thumb and nail of the first or middle finger), [[jazz]] styles played with a [[plectrum]], and more modern styles such as [[Keith style|Keith]]/melodic/chromatic/arpa style and single-string/Reno style. The influence of Scruggs is so pervasive that even bluegrass players such as [[Bill Keith (musician)|Bill Keith]] and [[Don Reno]], who are credited with developing these latter styles, typically work out of the Scruggs style much of the time.{{fact|date=September 2023}}