pcfive - Posted - 05/20/2009:  09:56:20

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I have played banjo for about 6 years, but only started systematic focused practicing 5 months ago. I got my bluegrass banjo a year ago (I played an open back before that, and it did not sound like bluegrass). I have played at monthly jam sessions for 2 years. I played guitar for several decades before I started banjo.I have memorized about 10 or 20 or so songs, by tab and/or by ear, a couple of them quite long and (to me) a little difficult. For example, Under the Double Eagle and the Bells of St. Mary's.

I have 5 or 6 books, including the Scruggs book, Splitting the Licks by Janet Davis, Hot Licks for Bluegrass Banjo and Gospel Tunes by Alan Munde.

I practice with a metronome for the songs I have memorized, at 130-140 bpm.

I have no idea if I am anywhere near competent or not. I am able to play backup at the jam sessions without causing people to cover their ears and run away. On some days when I'm practicing I think I sound great, other days I think I am no good and have no talent and will never get better.

But either way, I love playing banjo and will keep at it as long as I live.

My question is: Recently I studied Splitting the Licks and memorized the last song Under the Double Eagle (partly from the book and partly my own ideas). That was my last major project, and it took weeks. The book helped me understand how to integrate Scruggs and melodic styles, which is my goal.

I feel like I have accomplished a lot in the past 5 months and now I want to keep on going forward in the direction of competence. Sometimes I feel like I have to get another book, such as the Banjo Encyclopedia, but other times I think I should continue working with the books I have and trying to perfect the songs I already know. And do more listening and more playing by ear.

If I buy another book I know I will get obsessed with the book for a while. If I don't buy another book right now maybe I will be better off. But maybe I should get another book right now.

So, I wonder if i should get another book and dive into it, or wait a while and do more listening and more playing by ear. If I should get another book now, what should I get?

Thanks for any advice!

pcfive

John Allison - Posted - 05/20/2009:  10:14:18

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IMO, I would forego getting another book at this point in time and do more listening and playing by ear. There seems to be a lot of emphasis recently on using tablature only as a learning tool for learning those songs that you can not or do not know the melody to as opposed to using it totally. There is a lot of focus on singing (or at least humming the song) and learning to play the song from that. This tends to release the individual from the clutches of tab and promote individuality and creativity in the individual. In a way it is like the pianist who has studied piano for years. He may be one of the greatest concert pianists that ever graced the stage but he is not typically the pianist that can sit in the bar playing the piano hour after hour and doing one request after another (never heard it before but if you can hum it or whistle it, I can play it). I am probably going to get a fair amount of criticism for this approach but, if I were you, I would definitely do more listening nad more playing by ear.

Froggie
"Courage is Fear that has said its prayers.

minstrelmike - Posted - 05/20/2009:  10:28:07

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I would start going thru books of songs, not books of banjo techniques.

I don't think anyone should take lessons for more than 6 months at a time. This includes lessons from a teacher, working thru a book, or listening to a DVD. You need some time to incorporate your learning and you also need to focus on what _you_ know in order to advance. Otherwise, you always play what others tell you to and never think or listen for yourself. Take a break (one month or more) and focus on songs for awhile, then go back thru your current books to see what makes more sense, then see what book will make the next most sense for your path.


Mike Moxcey Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
http://moxcey.net/mike/minstrel/index.html

pcfive - Posted - 05/20/2009:  10:37:11

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Do you have a suggestion for song books? Maybe I should get a bluegrass fiddle or mandolin book?

pcfive

Trewq36 - Posted - 05/20/2009:  10:43:58

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Actually John I second that. Playing by ear that is. One of the best excrises my teacher gave me.
Start with songs you know like Happy Birthday ( although I realized when I got to the "insert name" part I had never really heard it done right).
With "Camp Town Races" I always thought the last phrase, "Somebody bet on the bob tailed nag" was "Ah Damn I lost". While trying to do it by ear I realized the race was yet to be run and the singer was calling for more money to go into the pot. Totally changed the way I was trying to play it.

Things one never sees in the tab.

Never play the same thing once......yoR

KI4PRK - Posted - 05/20/2009:  11:22:36

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If you like "Under The Double Eagle" and "The Bells Of Saint Mary", check out some Don Reno stuff. I believe Don was the first to record that stuff in a bluegrass setup. Don Reno is so unique he should be present in every bluegrass banjo pickers library IMHO, but you sound like you're getting dangerously close to becoming a Reno picker I joined the dark side about 6 months ago, and I haven't looked back - I play with noticeably more Reno influence than scruggs.

Like you I also play a lot of melodic. I rather dislike adding it to standard classic bluegrass numbers, but my favorite instrument is the fiddle (even though I don't play), and I love doing fiddle tunes a lot so I play a lot of those tunes melodic style. It's worth learning melodic style in several keys. I play commonly (out of open G) in A, D, G, C, F, and Bb. I know one tune in E (Dry & Dusty) and part of one in Eb (Clinging Vine). It's really fun to be able to jam on fiddle tunes without having to slap that capo on, and since you're playing the melody anyway, you don't need all those open strings in your home key.

I learn a lot of fiddle tunes from a Mel Bay book (in standard notation, NOT tab) called "The Craig Duncan Master Fiddle Solo Collection", written for the Fiddle. It was deemed accurate enough from an experienced bluegrass/old time picker, so it may be worth checking out. Speaking of Old Time, if you can stand it, learning fiddle tunes from Old Time fiddlers is an excellent way to add variety to your repertoire. I pick several different OT banjo styles, so I listen to old time a lot. The influence is noticeable in some of my tunes like Done Gone and Cumberland Gap.

73, Brennen

pcfive - Posted - 05/20/2009:  11:48:51

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KI4PRK,

Can you explain a little about how Reno style is different from Scruggs style? I still want to get better at Scruggs style, but for some reason I gravitate towards some other things. I love playing melodic (I almost have a long version of Sailor's Hornpipe memorized), but it doesn't really lend itself to jamming. At least not for me, since I still don't know where all the notes are without thinking long and hard.

I am going to search youtube for some Reno style.
Thanks.

pcfive

thetexan - Posted - 05/20/2009:  11:49:26

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quote:

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I have no idea if I am anywhere near competent or not. I am able to play backup at the jam sessions without causing people to cover their ears and run away.

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You will be playing backup for 90 to 95% of the time you pick the banjo with others. That makes backup the essential, primary focus of banjo play. You will not be neglecting solo practice because what makes you a great backup artist is essential for becoming a great lead artist. You have not yet, and can not put in too much time on playing backup. I would concentrate on perfecting that for now. Learn everything in Janet's Backup Banjo. And, most importantly, begin to listen to great backup masters on CD's and study what they are doing. Meanwhile keep learning everything you can about backup. Here is a repeat of a previous post to another player with similar issues that may be of help.



What most of us would give for 2 or 3 hours a day!

If you have that kind of time then the problem is structure, systematic practice and method. As one gets better at anything it is necessary to zero in on the small stuff.

Take learning to fly. In the beginning training is concentrated on major areas of needed improvement. Then as the student gets closer to checkout, the training becomes more intensely concentrated on small details and nit-picky stuff, always aiming to find areas of needed improvement and fixing them.

Be sure you create for yourself a systematic, methodical approach to your studies now. Find areas of needed improvement. Here are some that I can tell you you need and I dont even know you.

1. Timing. I bet you dont use a metronome. Get one and spend 100% of your practice time using it.

2. Fluency in chord transitions and transitional licks and notes.

3. Improper right hand posture and finger attack. Fix that now while you still can!

4. Note clarity. Your notes are not as clear as they must be, and if you dont believe me I dare you to record and listen to yourself. You'll be amazed.

5. Your pluck-offs (what most call pull-offs) do not create two distinct notes. What have you been doing with your time?????

6. Up the neck rolls patterns and notes are not crisp, clean, sharp and fluid.

7. You dont know nearly enough chord transitions and transition notes. Practice that for the next 100 hours.

This is just a start. If I came and evaluated your play I could easily come up with a dozen more, just for starters. You need to start looking at you own play more critically and finding areas of needed improvemnt and start using practice drills to fix those problems.

Do all of this systematically. Make lists. Assess where you are now. Make a list of what you know. Chances are you dont know that stuff as well as you think. Then study until you do.

Now would not be a bad time to add learning some scale knowledge. Learn what notes make up the chords and scales for the major keys and where those notes are on the neck.

When you get all of this done. Come back and I will have another 3 or 4 hundred hours of homework for you to do!

2 or 3 hours a day....are you kidding me? If you arent getting very proficient by now it is only because you arent knuckling down.

You can do it! You are just a few hundred hours away from being a great player if you systemitize your training.



tex

"You will make your reputation on what you do with the banjo 95% of the time rather than what you do with it 5% of the time"....tex's 3rd Law Of the Conservation of Banjo Knowledge in the Universe.

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Edited by - thetexan on 05/20/2009 11:58:41

Texasbanjo - Posted - 05/20/2009:  12:03:24

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Just to add to what has been said: go to jams, work on your backup at jams and at home. Work on hearing the melody to tunes (vocals are a good way to start) and then picking out those melodies and then integrating bluegrass rolls, licks, slides, hammers, etc. The more you go to jams, the better your ear will be able to hear not only chord changes but melodies to songs you've never heard before - and be able to grasp those chord sequences and melodies. Better than any book you can buy.

When practicing at home, if you have some sort of software that plays chords, such as Band in a Box, that will help you a lot on learning to play by ear -- it plays the chords, you play the break or the backup. You can loop it over and over and itll never gripe at you like people would at a jam (G). Seriously, great learning/teaching tool.

Let''s Pick!
Texas Banjo

pcfive - Posted - 05/20/2009:  12:08:50

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Thanks for all the advice tex, however I already do most of your list. I realize I need a lot more work (but who doesn't?) and have every intention of continuing to plunk away at it. I even said in my post that I use a metronome at 130-140. I record myself almost every day (that keeps my ego in its place!). I pay very careful attention to right hand position and tone. I have a basic grasp of music theory from playing guitar all my life. I am able to work things out by ear, but need more experience at it because my arrangements tend to be boring. One reason I use tabs a lot is they give me ideas for interesting licks, which I would never figure out just from listening.

I need to improve my understanding of where all the notes and chords are (standard G tuning, I mean). I am fine in first position and not too bad in second, but higher up than that I start getting a little lost. It will mainly take continued practice and experience.

pcfive

SandyR - Posted - 05/20/2009:  12:47:44

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quote:

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I am going to search youtube for some Reno style.

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Not that videos aren't great—they are—but I lament the seeming disappearance of folks learning by listening. Get some classic recordings by Reno & Smiley! You won't be disappointed. There's a lot to enjoy aside from or along with the banjo work.

millennium3 - Posted - 05/20/2009:  17:27:56

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Thanks to all the replies here. Just a note to say a lot of others, like myself, have gotten a lot out of them.

Crutch

steve davis - Posted - 05/20/2009:  18:48:07

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Nothing wrong with books.Not so much lesson books as song/tune books like Tony Trischka's
fiddle tune book or all the great tabs in the "Masters of the 5" book.I like to browse through old
issues of BNL and run through stuff.I often find ideas in tab that make me think of something
else,altogether and turn into something original.



Pool

KI4PRK - Posted - 05/20/2009:  20:10:50

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quote:

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Originally posted by pcfive

KI4PRK,

Can you explain a little about how Reno style is different from Scruggs style? I still want to get better at Scruggs style, but for some reason I gravitate towards some other things. I love playing melodic (I almost have a long version of Sailor's Hornpipe memorized), but it doesn't really lend itself to jamming. At least not for me, since I still don't know where all the notes are without thinking long and hard.

I am going to search youtube for some Reno style.
Thanks.

pcfive

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Reno style differs from scruggs style in several ways, some subtle others blatant even to the un-banjo educated. First, the rolls are different. Reno never used the backwards roll, the TIMTMITM forward reverse roll, or the alternating thumb roll. I guess he just didn't have any use for the first, for the second he just went TIM TIM etc. except with the first T on an inside string and the 2nd T on the 5th string. For the last he usually just went TITI. He used a couple rolls that Earl didn't, however. First is the TIMI, which he used a lot. The second, which I believe he only rarely used, is the MIMT roll.

Other techniques outside of rolling are present. Single string work being the most prominent, which Earl used very infrequently and only in brief passages (the only noteworthy example being Pike Country Breakdown). Reno used it a lot starting around '60. It means picking the same string twice, but 2 8th notes (at the same speed as rolls). The pattern is a TITI pattern usually, some people use the middle on the 1st string but I don't believe Reno did (I like to). He used single string mainly as flash, using a lot of licks and simply playing them over a chord progression, but single string has the potential to carry as much melody as Melodic style. Look for "Arkansas Traveller" and "Fisher's Hornpipe" on youtube (interestingly, he does Arkansas Traveller in G, an unusual key as it's usually in D. He also does Fisher's Hornpipe in F, which is the traditional key though starting around the 30's I believe D has become the most common key for that tune).

Single string is not difficult — you've probably done it accidentally while practicing! The left hand is somewhat more challenging than the right, but it should be a breeze for a Guitar flatpicker (Reno was an excellent and trail-blazing Flatpicker), and not too hard for a mandolin picker.

Another technique Reno used was thumb-brushing to play double stops (again taken from his guitar picking — his nickname was "King of the Flatpickers", as a matter of fact). Here he'd rest the side of his hand on the bridge, and use his thumb to play double or triple stops. He could vary the tone brilliantly depending on how much pressure he put on the bridge. It's really cool, check out "I know you're married".

Those are just a few Reno idioms. You really need to contact Jason Skinner, here on the hangout. He is the expert as far as Reno style is concerned. Jeremy Stephens is just as good, Jason may be a better teacher though. Jeremy is awesome but he doesn't get on the hangout much. There is certainly a lot to Reno style, and remember to NEVER limit Reno style to Reno tunes!

I would also agree that Melodic style is not that useful for your average jam. Fiddle tunes aren't played much, so even though I've worked out Beaumont Rag in F well for example, it'd be rare to find that tune in a jam even in the more common key of D or C. It's a shame that fiddle tunes are largely left alone except for a select few, but it's the truth.

73, Brennen

djgretzkypup - Posted - 05/20/2009:  20:47:53

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Throughout the years, I have accumulated books and tabs as reference materials. I suggest that you keep up with exactly what you are doing. It sounds like you have a well structured plan for practicing and playing the banjo. Use your time wisely, as it becomes very limited at times. Focus on playing music and less on learning one song after the other. In other words, you sound like you have developed a good set of tunes to work on. Develop them further by working on your technique. Work on you theory, scales and chord structure. Make sure you spend enough time on your back-up technique, as well as working on your lead play. Good luck.

Banjophobic - Posted - 05/21/2009:  06:50:51

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PC
Sounds like you have a good plan and are covering alot of essential area-backup,ear training,playing with others,improvising. I know that you've been playing "6 years" and it seems like you should be making big leaps in you development by now; thats a common sentiment amongst players at this stage. For most, playing this amount of time is just a good starting point, in the big view of your banjo journey. At 10 yeas you will be amazed how far you've come from this point today. Its a never ending jurney and there are always the times when, to quote you, "On some days when I'm practicing I think I sound great, other days I think I am no good and have no talent and will never get better."
This happens to every player and is a natural part of the process.
My best advice is to keep challenging yourself. Set higher, but realsitic goals. Find players who are more advanced than you, to pick with, when you can. Get in a band if possible as this will improve you group dynamic abilities and is one of the best things for your playing.
Keep on keeping on!

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Edited by - Banjophobic on 05/21/2009 06:53:11

Richard Dress - Posted - 05/21/2009:  08:17:26

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PCFIVE,

You didn't put up a sound file which is a necessary thing for a question like yours. I can relate what you are saying to my own experience, but I can't be sure. This is my guess: you have stalled out on the art side of the equation and to compensate you are falling back on money and technique. This is very common choice of a lot of pickers and it is a dead end. Money and technique by themselves will get you nowhere, musically.

BTW, the equation is music=art+technique

The mathematics is funny because increasing technique with no art does not make music. Also lots of art and no technique won't be music. You need the right balance which is a lot of art and a little bit of technique.

pcfive - Posted - 05/21/2009:  08:32:38

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"you have stalled out on the art side of the equation and to compensate you are falling back on money and technique."

Well that's an opinion but I disagree. I said I at least partly arranged most of the songs I learned. I do not feel I am stalled out or in a dead end. But thank you for your opinion.

I like getting ideas from tabs. I practiced classical guitar for many years, so I do have a habit of reading music. But I have also been learning how to jam, for the past 2 years. And when I was playing classical guitar I also wrote my own compositions, so I wasn't merely playing stuff already written.

I think you just analyzed me all wrong, because writing and arranging music has always been a passion of mine. It's one reason I love bluegrass banjo, because we get to express our own ideas.

But I happen to like tabs a lot. Maybe there is some anti-tab bias going on, for those who never used them and don't approve of them. But it is wrong wrong wrong to assume everyone who likes to read music is not artistic.

pcfive

pcfive - Posted - 05/21/2009:  08:35:52

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Thanks for the explanation KI4PRK. I have listened to some of Jason Skinner's youtube videos and I really like that style. I don't want to completely switch though, just maybe integrate some of the techniques. I have run into single-string passages in some melodic/Scruggs tabs, and have been struggling with them. I am getting better at alternating index and thumb on the low D string, which I used to find impossible.

pcfive

pcfive - Posted - 05/21/2009:  08:42:42

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"song/tune books like Tony Trischka's fiddle tune book or all the great tabs in the "Masters of the 5" book.I like to browse through old issues of BNL and run through stuff.I often find ideas in tab that make me think of something
else,altogether and turn into something original."

Yes I am feeling a craving for that fiddle tune book. But I better stay away from it for now, because I would get sidetracked and it would not help me with jamming. Can you please tell me more about "Masters of the 5?" I would like to own a book that includes most of the great versions of the classics.

A book like Hot Licks for Bluegrass Banjo is, I am sure, very useful, but not much fun for me. I prefer learning licks in the context of an expertly-arranged song. I don't want to read them without playing, and it's no fun to play through the Hot Licks book.

And I must say again that wanting a great book doesn't mean all I ever want to do is play someone else's arrangements. It means I want to learn from experts. And, of course, that means I have to listen to experts playing whatever I am trying to learn.

pcfive

Richard Dress - Posted - 05/21/2009:  08:48:58

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"Well that's an opinion but I disagree." - PCFIVE

As I said, without a sound file it can only be a guess.

Good Luck

pcfive - Posted - 05/21/2009:  10:23:52

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I think some helpful responders thought I was posting because I feel discouraged and frustrated, and assumed that I am at a dead end right now. But I didn't mean that at all. In fact I am probably feeling too good about my progress since I started focused practice and using a metronome. I know where I have some weakness, but i don't think it's anything serious or insurmountable. If I could do this much in 5 or 6 months, I can do a lot more in another year.

Anyway, I just posted because I have a craving to buy a really great book with lots of beautifully arranged songs. But maybe I should wait a while and focus on what I have been learning, as well as more listening and playing by ear. Either way, I do want to get another book and one that is comprehensive and generally acknowledged to be great.

So that's why I posted this.

pcfive