Category Archives: Banjo

Banjo Update #5 – Field Work

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Now that Banjo Update #4 is out the door I wanted to discuss some additional Banjo-related activities that took place over the summer.

I spoke about the Ossipee Bluegrass Festival at length in July but I purposely omitted discussing the banjo as I felt it deserved its own blog.  This was at time when I had just gotten the hang of Foggy Mountain Breakdown, but any self-esteem I gained in my living room was quickly squashed by the virtuosic playing outside my tent.  I brought my banjo to the festival, but decided to leave all instruments that I am confident in playing at home.  In hindsight the accordion would have been an interesting mix to the late-night jams, but I certainly wasn’t special for reaching a self-described intermediate-beginner level at the banjo.

Ban'jo

Proper banjo instructions start with pronunciation

Up to this point I haven’t had a proper lesson or instruction at banjo stylings.  It’s always my concern that I will get into some bad habits early on that I simply can’t break.  Fortunately for me my first lesson pulled up next to our tent in the shape of an 18-year-old boy.  He pulled out his banjo, and his lady-friend pulled out their fiddle, and I knew that I should leave my banjo safely in its case unless I casually approach him seeking beginner advice.  It would take me a day and a half to get the confidence I needed to walk over there.  As for the stage performances, I payed very close attention to the hands of the banjo players that were prominent in each band.  What I noticed was that their right hand was barely moving.  You could hear the speed that was being produced, but their right hand was oddly still and the pickin’ was not exaggerated.  This was the first bad habit that I found I had fell into.  My right hand was flopping all over the place, almost as if it was getting a running start before jumping in.  While it often allowed me to play more quickly, it usually made for more of a hit-or-miss approach.

As the final day approached I walked over to our 18-year-old neighbor to let him know of my banjo trials.  He was nice enough and offered me a quick lesson.   I nervously played my version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown expecting a surge of critique, though no hippie at a folk festival is capable of being that honest.  He warned against my flaring fingers but seemed to suggest I was on the right track and suggested I practice more rolls (basically the equivalent of practicing scales on the piano, basically the equivalent of boring).  He also noted I was surprisingly good for only playing for a few months, which was really I wanted to hear.

Whenever I buy a new instrument I’m always quick to blame the physical instrument.  While it’s always my skill that’s the issue there has to be a case where someone buys a defective beginner instrument and the frustration that this causes results in them quitting.  For this reason I always want an accomplished player to play my instrument so I know for a fact that it’s my fingers that make the instrument sound bad.  I handed my banjo to the 18-year-old who quickly played a little ditty.  This certainly meant my banjo wasn’t defective, but he did suggest that I get it repaired.  It’s been sitting in my closet for about 14 years, and before that it was sitting in a pawn shop for possibly longer than that.  Tightening up the head and straightening the neck should improve my sound as I did notice it sounded a bit too tinny.

Pickin' Lessons

My 18-year-old teacher and I

The next field work was for my cousin’s wedding.  While I was comfortable playing the piano during the ceremony I was also playing the banjo during a mid-ceremony Dolly Pardon song.  Though I simply picked some chords in the lucky key of G it was the first time I played the banjo in front of an audience and the first time it was played in a group of other musicians.  It most impressed my grandfather who was quick to brag that I was playing the banjo the “real” way and not just strumming it like a guitar.  If he had kept up with my banjo updates he would have known that this was the Scruggs style.  Here’s the video:

This bonus footage was a sound check before my cousin filmed the wedding ceremony.  His direction called for me to make a creepy face.  While the banjo playing is flawed, though saved slightly by the churches natural reverb, my creepy-face performance is riveting.

Banjo Update #4 — Going for speed with Foggy Mountain Breakdown

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First of all, for clarification, that wasn’t me.  But here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the tune:

Many five-string banjo players[who?] consider “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” one of the instrument’s fastest and most rhythmically challenging pieces. Only very skilled five-string banjo players can play it at the same speed and beat that Scruggs can.[citation needed]

If I had read that before trying to play it I may have chosen something else for song #4 and day 90 something.  And yes, it’s only Wikipedia and some citations are needed.  I won’t let it go to my head, and I can’t yet play it near as fast or clean as Earl Scruggs or Steve Martin, but I have to admit it made me smile to read this.  I was expecting it to say something on how it’s a common song for beginners to learn.

Foggy Mountain Breakdown seemed less technical at a slower tempo than the last two exercises, but the last few weeks have been all about speed. When I first started going for speed I thought it may just be impossible, or I was approaching it all wrong. But, the age old idea of practice-makes-perfect is coming into play here and I’m beginning to impress even myself.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been listening to a lot of Earl Scruggs, for whom they named this style of banjo playing after. Even though this piece takes only a few seconds to play (if played fast enough) you can hear the Scruggs style throughout this song, as well as most of his other work. This classic bluegrass banjo turn-around is present in most all songs in his repertoire:

D| ----0--------0--------0-----0----- |
B| -------------|-------------------- |
G| -0--------2-\3--0--------0-------- |
D| -------------------2-------------- |
G| -------0-----------------------0-- |
    I  M  T  I  M  I  T  M  I  M  T

For those not fluent in Banjo tab, it’s the part at around 0:15 in the Steve Martin video that goes “do-doot da doot do”.  I’m familiar with guitar tab, but when I first saw this section I thought it was a mistake.  When performing a pull-off on a guitar you don’t (often) simultaneously hit an open string simultaneously with target note as you’re playing with one pick.  But with the banjo you’re playing with three picks and this style of pull-offs (or hammer-ons) seems common and gives it a more bluegrassy sound.

To alternate picking between the thumb (T) and middle (M) or index (I) fingers is natural.  Alternating between the middle and index fingers is not.  Any useful banjo tablature I’ve seen so far provides fingerings for these passages and they go out of their way to avoid  too much middle and index finger interplay without a thumb in the middle.  Unfortunately in the passage above an I-M-I sequence is required as it’s far better than the alternative; using the thumb twice in a row.  I just made up all of this banjo lingo, but it makes sense in my head.  I assume this is not uncommon and that my index and middle fingers will get stronger and more accustomed to playing licks without a thumb in the middle.

Tin Man on a Tractor

Now I know I've got a heart, 'cause it's breaking...

I have a new tendency to clench my teeth when playing lately.  I notice it only after a few minutes of playing when my jaw begin to hurts, but am otherwise unconscious of the act.

I know what you’re thinking.

There’s an easy joke here somewhere connecting this habit of mine to the stereotype surrounding the teeth of the average banjo player, or lack of.   However, y’all just offended me.

Everything above was written on July 1, 2010 but I never got around to recording myself playing it.  I had a clever idea of finding a arrow-through-the-head hat, which isn’t an item you can find easily at Target I discovered.  I went as far as buying an arrow at Walmart and creating my own, but I just gave up.  Honestly, I think it was the arrow idea that kept me from writing this for so long.  So here’s the video of 4-months-good at the banjo.  You’ll just have to believe me that it’s about the same as 1-month-good…

Banjo Update #3 — The Oh Susanna Hoedown

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I’m now 25 days good at the banjo but at this point it’s no longer worth counting as there were large stretches of days where I didn’t play at all.

The banjo picks came in the mail and while they didn’t make me the virtuoso I was hoping for, the benefits are already noticiable. First of all the thumb pick, while still plastic, is extremely heavy, thin and sharp. This makes for more accurate thumb picking but a more clumsy sounding thumb strum. It’s forcing me to use my other fingers to strum chords, or a combination of fingers and thumb.

The metal picks are smaller which minimizes the guessing game I referenced in the other banjo blogs. The sound isn’t notically different, but the different size seemed to reduce my stumbling when attempting to play with any speed. It may also just be the fact that I’ve been practicing a lot, who knows. I can’t watch the World Cup without a Banjo in my hand. When the World Cup ends in a few weeks I hope I don’t find that I can’t play the Banjo without Soccer. Maybe a Vuvuzela and Banjo duet? Dueling Vuvuzelas?

The song I learned for this update was Oh Susanna and it’s probably a step down in difficulty from “…Coming ‘Round the Mountain”. I didn’t create a video this time. Instead I poorly recorded the song with Garageband and my Mac’s built in speakers. I then recorded 4 additional tracks to create the questionably named Oh Susanna Hoedown; an acoustic guitar, accordion and mandolin.

I realized that I can’t play it at more than 80 BPM yet and it doesn’t really sound like a hoedown until you reach 120. I settled for 100 BPM but couldn’t quite keep up with the banjo. I stopped being concerned though and realized this is 25 days good, not concert good. I can’t do any better than this today, but there’s hope.

Oh-Susanna.mp3

Up next, the Steve Martin favorite Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

4-Days good at the Banjo

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It’s now been 4 days of Banjo playing and I continue to proudly hold the title of best Banjo player in my house.  Taking a similar approach as I did with the last excercise, I found a piece I liked and played it a few hundred times (in a row per sitting).  I have no idea how my wife can stand to listen to the same 20 second clip of music that many times without wanting to pry the banjo out of my hands.

The high-G continues to be counter-intuitive, and in this song it’s emphasized even more as the high G plays into the melody, not just as part of the roll.   Here’s what the song is supposed to sound like; She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.  It’s faster than I can imagine playing right now and if I attempt to play it even close to this speed I just trip over myself.  I’m quick to blame the fact that I’m still using the plastic picks and not the typical metal banjo picks.  It couldn’t possibly be that I’ve only played for 4 days.  Anyways, I ordered some metal picks from Amazon.com last night as no guitar store around here carries them.  I expect to be humbled by the fact that they don’t make me the banjo wizard I claim to be.

Here’s the pay-off of 4-days worth of banjo practice.   The World Cup jersey allows me to tag this blog with both Banjo and World Cup, hopefully making this the top search hit if anyone ever Googles “World Cup Banjo”.