banjohope - Posted - 11/18/2009:  07:27:50

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Hi, did Scruggs developed , or created the Rolls ,on his own, or they existed in some " primitive" form. Thanks.

trapdoor2 - Posted - 11/18/2009:  07:45:08

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The specific movements (ie, some pattern to picking 5-strings with three fingers) existed, probably from Day 2 of somebody noodling about in fingerstyle on a 5-string banjo. We suspect this might have occured as early as the 18-teens but no actual documentation exists for fingerstyle ("guitar style) until the 1850's.

Arpeggiated chords (forward roll) have been around since the beginning and were pretty common to backup (2nd banjo) styles of the Classic Banjo period (1870-1920). A form of the alternating thumb roll can be found in Joe Morley's (English Banjo player and composer) music as early as the 1880's. His composition, "A Joy Ride" (ca 1890's) is full of pattern-picking over chord progressions.

That said, just because the elements were there doesn't mean that Earl didn't come up with something unique.

===Marc

"If banjos needed tone rings, S.S. Stewart would have made them that way."

Ronnie - Posted - 11/18/2009:  07:55:59

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There were a good many 3 finger pickers in North Carolina before Scruggs. Snuffy Jenkins and Mack Woolbright come to mind. You can compare Earl's 1960 Home Sweet Home to Woolbright's 1928 version and they are very similar. Earl expounded on banjo picking he had heard as a child,and didn't actually invent the style, even though he put a lot of his own ideas into it. He was certainly a pioneer in exposing the style to the public, and is worthy of our respect.

www.bobbythompsonbanjo.com

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Edited by - Ronnie on 11/18/2009 07:57:32

R Buck - Posted - 11/18/2009:  07:59:36

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Think about it. Earl grew-up during the "Swing era". I sounds like he incorporated the syncopation of that music and put it in his rolls. Forty years ago I was told to play the rolls like the old big band number "In the Mood". If that ain't swing, then it don't mean a thing.

RobBob
Music; the best way to count time. It is a journey not a destination.
www.blueridgerounders.com

Nosferatu - Posted - 11/18/2009:  08:07:05

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Earl says the he was playing 'Ruben' and before he knew what was going he was picking like he does now.

Thank you,
"Count" Hugh


"I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain." -- Jonathan Harker, Dracula

timifill - Posted - 11/18/2009:  08:22:06

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Earl's short autobiographical essay in his banjo instruction book has a nice account of the story Nosferatu mentions. He was so excited when he discovered, seemingly by accident, how well the technique worked on Ruben that he played it over and over to impress his older brother, who disappointingly replied, "Is that all you can play?"

Rich Weill - Posted - 11/18/2009:  15:16:32

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According to banjo book author Bill Palmer: "In 1965, I visited Earl at his home in Madison. This was where he told me that he had never heard of a 'roll' until Bill Keith told him about them. He said that he basically played the melody with his thumb or his index finger, whichever seemed best, and filled in the gaps with whatever was left over." http://www.billpalmer.com/advent.html

I don't see this as necessarily conflicting with the "Reuben" story. It's the difference between playing melody notes and chord fill using three fingers, and thinking specifically in terms of pre-arranged roll patterns. The two aren't the same.

72chevy - Posted - 11/18/2009:  16:37:28

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He also mentions on the Three Pickers CD that other family members played clawhammer but his fingers kept wanting to "wiggle"

Paul Ryan - Posted - 11/18/2009:  19:32:31

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Didn't Scruggs initially use a thumb and index, then progress to the 3-finger style since it was faster? .

kjcole - Posted - 11/19/2009:  09:58:53

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RobBob hit it. Scruggs took the 3-finger styles he was hearing as a child and adolescent, infused it with the rhythmic ideas from swing and jazz, and played it with impeccable precision and feel. You don't have to go any farther than Farewell Blues from the early years with Lester and the FMBoys to know that he was paying attention to swing during his teenage years -- we're talking the big band era after all. I don't know if he had much familiarity with the earlier picked 'parlor' styles and classical banjo, of which there were some pretty skilled players demonstrating great technical sophistication.

He really exploded on the scene through the exposure of playing with Monroe, and rapidly matured in his playing. With Monroe he was the young phenom with the radical and fast style that most had never heard before. It is safe to say that once word got around the audience came to hear Scruggs - he should have had equal billing with Monroe. Kinda neat - Bill brought the blues (starting with his Jimmie
Rodgers covers) and Earl brought swing/jazz, and we all know the result. I've always wondered what role Earl had in the development of Monroe's 1946-and-on signature up-tempo approach to southeastern string band music that became part of the defining sound of his new style we now call bluegrass (the high-lonesome stuff really came later, didn't it?).

Kelly

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Edited by - kjcole on 11/19/2009 10:05:21

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 11/19/2009:  10:54:45

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quote:

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Originally posted by Rich Weill

According to banjo book author Bill Palmer: "In 1965, I visited Earl at his home in Madison. This was where he told me that he had never heard of a 'roll' until Bill Keith told him about them. He said that he basically played the melody with his thumb or his index finger, whichever seemed best, and filled in the gaps with whatever was left over." http://www.billpalmer.com/advent.html

I don't see this as necessarily conflicting with the "Reuben" story.

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Quite so. Try asking someone with no formal education how he uses verbs, adjectives, and so forth, and he won't know what you're talking about. But that doesn't mean he isn't using them.

IIRC, Bill Evans once told me that some early blues banjo player (Gus Cannon?) was using what we'd recognize as a forward-backward roll (TIMTMITM), back in the 1920s.

SandyR - Posted - 11/19/2009:  13:39:23

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In the Palmer anecdote mentioned above, the most important thing to me (in terms of Earl's playing) is that while the word "roll" works well for what the fingers are doing, repetitive roll patterns (as systematized in banjo instruction) can be counterproductive in developing smooth, creative banjo picking. "Filling in the gaps between melody notes" is a broad but accurate way to talk about what Earl does. Lack of systemization is key.

quote:

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...Bill brought the blues (starting with his Jimmie Rodgers covers)...

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Also with the Clyde Moody blues numbers ("Six White Horses," "Dog House Blues") as well as his own instrumental, "Tennessee Blues," in the first RCA session (10/7/1940).

Flying Eagle - Posted - 11/20/2009:  07:22:18

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quote:

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I've always wondered what role Earl had in the development of Monroe's 1946-and-on signature up-tempo approach to southeastern string band music that became part of the defining sound of his new style we now call bluegrass (the high-lonesome stuff really came later, didn't it?).Kelly

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To me that's simple - Earl's banjo playing was the catalyst that made Monroe's music become the "style we now call bluegrass." Earl's banjo picking was the critical mass that caused the Big Bang.

Roll Player - Posted - 11/20/2009:  10:12:24

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quote:

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Originally posted by SandyR

In the Palmer anecdote mentioned above, the most important thing to me (in terms of Earl's playing) is that while the word "roll" works well for what the fingers are doing, repetitive roll patterns (as systematized in banjo instruction) can be counterproductive in developing smooth, creative banjo picking. "Filling in the gaps between melody notes" is a broad but accurate way to talk about what Earl does. Lack of systemization is key.

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IMO, Sandy is right on target. The roll concept, as it is usually used in books and by instructors, puts too much emphasis on one measure patterns. Musical phrases often come in longer or shorter lengths, and if your thinking is too caught up in the 8 note roll approach, it can be very difficult to adapt to shorter or longer phrase lengths.

Art

Kenneth Logsdon - Posted - 11/20/2009:  11:10:22

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Amen,Is true I believe... never did like the term "rolls".. when transcribbing and tab came along, much effort went into developing and making the music fit it, the pattern that was established that is..
Not the other way around, that is making the illustration fit the music as it was actually played, which doesn't fit the neat roll and metro concept as accepted today.. How many newbies faces go blank if you bring up playing on top of the beat? big time or little time? Spacing? And as Tom said, the all important Phrasing??

pcfive - Posted - 11/20/2009:  12:13:19

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One thing that differentiated Earl's style from earlier guitar-style banjo playing was that he used metal strings and metal picks, and a resonator banjo. As far as I know, he was the first to play very loud, so the banjo could really be heard above the other instruments. Before that, I think, banjos usually had gut strings. The classical banjos never had metal strings, and neither did the old time banjos.

I think so anyway, could have remembered it wrong.

Flying Eagle - Posted - 11/20/2009:  14:13:25

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I don't see anything wrong with the term "roll". A beginner uses the basic roll structures to learn how to play a pattern of notes with proper timing and hand position. When you're playing a song, you don't always play the basic rolls verbatim, but you are playing what amounts to permutations of those rolls that can include the melody and the notes that go around it to make the flowing right hand pattern that defines Scruggs-style banjo playing.

It seems that I remember Wernick's book starting with the basic roll structures - forward, forward/backward, thumb in/out, FMB. I think that's the best way to introduce right hand technique and the concept of timing. You have to learn that stuff before you're going to be capable of playing a melody in any way other than just picking out single notes.

JW

The KIDD - Posted - 11/20/2009:  15:29:58

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Yeah Jim, my first intro to TAB was Petes book. I was SO thankful all the rolls were in full measure form unlike alotta books. It made combining them for backup much easier and related to vocal phrasing in a more acurate way.I dont know how many students Ive had to straighten out on different configs of the fwd roll becuase they had no clue where the measure or phrase started or began due to the infinite group of 3 going through their head. We dont use just the word "roll". WE say fwd roll motion alotta times when dealing with a partial grouping, OR just very simply , "you'll fill it up with 4 notes of fwd roll" and its usually obvious which config it is. I think when students start understanding how rolls carry melody, which ones are better for doing so on which strings, which ones are best to carry it in a "Bounce" , ones better for driving melody. and the special roll configs for COMBINING them like the fwd bwd #2..I call it the THUMB SAVER to get ya out of a fwd roll and the T off the 5th back into melody territory like in FMB..But yeah F E , I think too many people think they'll automatically wieve melody into full roll patterns in their written form from single notes...That would be like spelling out a whole paragraph in cnstnnts , then going back and addin vowels... (not verbs)

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Edited by - The KIDD on 11/20/2009 15:34:06

DaveInCA - Posted - 11/20/2009:  20:06:33

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When you listen to Snuffy Jenkins you realize that the 3-finger style was already pretty well developed prior to Earl. Here are some snippets of Snuffy: http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Blueg...p/B000009Q3G

Earl's version of Sally Goodin is verrrry similar to Snuffy's.

Dave

Richard Dress - Posted - 11/20/2009:  20:31:51

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Yeah, that looks like the 1960s. What did Snuffy sound like in 1940?

SandyR - Posted - 11/21/2009:  00:33:19

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Flying Eagle's post above misperceives what I was trying to say and have always said about the systematized, repetitive roll patterns and their deleterious effect on pickers, long past beginner stage. The misperception is predictable enough because this learning style is as ingrained as it is. I did not say there's anything wrong with the term "roll," but rather that there is something wrong with how it's applied to learning and playing. I remember I once took over a number of banjo students for a teacher who had left a music school. It was remarkable how TIMTIMTI had, to a person, colonized their minds. It took a lot of work to break through this rote-learned mindset and showed me the clear danger of letting people go too long and too deep into something that should never become so ingrained if they don't want their playing to sound like a typewriter. I had particular success with one student who was very motivated to understand the basis of Earl's picking style—he went well beyond me in this regard and really got a great feel for the freedom that Earl enjoys precisely because he doesn't rely on "roll patterns" to any great extent. I'm well aware that this viewpoint doesn't coincide with the majority of bluegrass banjo teaching methods, but the way I hear it, what Earl does is use pieces or sections of all kinds of rolls and directions to fit between melody notes, and does so in a way that makes the timing work out—whatever that requires—and also satisfies his own naturally elegant and creative liking for different things all the time. For rolls with students, I emphasize all the rolls—but continuous ones, without locking their thinking and physical memory into "patterns." I think it works out a lot better that way. If one of those pattern phrases is needed, it can be constructed as necessary from pieces of rolls. I'd rather see them do that than the reverse; IMO, breaking out of those tightly-organized patterns to try and become smooth and free requires too much back-pedaling effort.

Rich Weill - Posted - 11/21/2009:  06:20:59

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Sandy, your point is extremely valid -- but let me just mention a few things on the other side. For many of us, our goal is to have some fun on the banjo. To get together with friends, pick some songs, make some music, and have a good time. We want to be able to play some interesting bluegrass rhythm over a chord progression, weave in a recognizable melody when our turn comes around, and add some licks and ornamentation, if we can, to give it a little kick. Those may not be lofty goals, but they're reasonable ones and they're ours.

Rolls can be an essential building block to achieving this. They help us develop good timing, keeping the length of each measure the same so we stay in sync with the others and change chords at the same time. And if we learn enough of them -- both 8-note and 16-note rolls -- to the point that the patterns become instinctual, if we recognize them as finger patterns that can be played over an even greater number of string patterns, and can get a feel for where melody notes fit neatly into each, they allow us to play those interesting rhythms and weave in those recognizable melodies.

Are there more sophisticated ways to play the same music? Undoubtedly. And once the roll-learning seeps into the subconscious, I have no doubt that less pre-programmed patterns can emerge there as well. But I see nothing wrong with giving players who would be very content to reach the level I have described the rudimentary tools designed for their far-more-rudimentary goals.

If their goals go higher, then perhaps an entirely different course of study is required. But I'll be happy just to do the simple stuff well.

Flying Eagle - Posted - 11/21/2009:  07:41:44

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Sandy, I'm really not sure what your hang-up is on this subject. Please go back and read what I said. The basic roll patterns are a starting point; they are not the ending point. I thought this was pretty clear:

"When you're playing a song, you don't always play the basic rolls verbatim, but you are playing what amounts to permutations of those rolls that can include the melody and the notes that go around it to make the flowing right hand pattern that defines Scruggs-style banjo playing."

When I was about 4 years old, my parents started reading the "Curious George" and "Babar" books to me. You know what I'm talking about - "The ball is red". "See Spot run". Those books provide a basis for equating letters to sounds (phonics) and beginning to recognize patterns in words. If you stop learning with "Curious George", then sure... you'll never read beyond a 1st grade level. The point is, no one is supposed to stop there. It sounds to me like the banjo students you're describing stopped at "Curious George" when they should have gone on to "The Hardy Boys". That failure to follow the logical learning progression doesn't cause "Curious George" to have a "deleterious effect" on young readers.

I'm not sure that we disagree on this... but then again, I'm not sure I'm pickin' up what you're layin' down.

JW

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 11/21/2009:  07:56:43

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I understand what Sandy is saying, and agree with him. The tendency to equate "roll" with "single measure of eight eighth notes" is (as I've seen in other BHO threads) increasingly prevalent. I suspect that comes from the use of tablature in instruction. Now, showing beginners specific one-measure patterns can be a very useful thing when you're trying to get them started, but it needs to be done in a way that leaves them ready to recognize the longer and shorter patterns that are a part of Scruggs style.

Flying Eagle's point is a good one, but to extend his analogy, I'd say the problem is that too many teachers, once they've taught Curious George, don't know how to get their students to appreciate what the Hardy Boys books are all about.

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Edited by - Ira Gitlin on 11/21/2009 12:50:14

KI4PRK - Posted - 11/21/2009:  09:35:41

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quote:

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Originally posted by pcfive

One thing that differentiated Earl's style from earlier guitar-style banjo playing was that he used metal strings and metal picks, and a resonator banjo. As far as I know, he was the first to play very loud, so the banjo could really be heard above the other instruments. Before that, I think, banjos usually had gut strings. The classical banjos never had metal strings, and neither did the old time banjos.

I think so anyway, could have remembered it wrong.

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There were lots of banjo players using resonator banjos pre-Earl. They were invented, I believe, originally for Tenor & Plectrum banjos to make them louder in jazz bands, at a time when the 5-string was on the decline, and then somebody said "let's stick 'em on the 5-strings too". Charlie Poole, Wade Mainer, Johnny Whisnant, & many other hillbilly banjo pickers from the 20's & 30's used resonator banjos. The exact same is true for steel strings. Also, many banjo pickers used finger picks, starting in the late 20's, although probably a few used them earlier; Wade Mainer, Roscoe Holcomb, Johnny Whisnant, Sam McGee, JC Sutphin, &, of course, Snuffy Jenkins. All except Mainer & Holcombe were 3-finger pickers. Only Whisnant, McGee, & Mainer were recorded during the 30's, although it's well documented that the others were playing in their styles pre-Earl.

According to "Can't You Hear Me Calling", a biography of Bill Monroe (which I've heard from a reliable source has a lot of mistakes, but this I don't believe is one of 'em since I've heard it from many other individuals also), Bill met Don Reno in the mid-40's, jammed with him, and Don was playing 3-finger banjo, complete with rolls, finger-picks, reso-banjo, & bluegrass tunes. Don was all set to play banjo with Bill, then got inducted into the Army. Enter Earl in '45 & the rest is history.

That said, show me a banjo player with the taste & timing of Earl Scruggs, & I'll show you an unappreciated banjo player!

73, Brennen

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Edited by - KI4PRK on 11/21/2009 09:39:24

Flying Eagle - Posted - 11/21/2009:  14:28:23

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ira Gitlin
...showing beginners specific one-measure patterns can be a very useful thing when you're trying to get them started, but it needs to be done in a way that leaves them ready to recognize the longer and shorter patterns that are a part of Scruggs style.

Flying Eagle's point is a good one, but to extend his analogy, I'd say the problem is that too many teachers, once they've taught Curious George, don't know how to get their students to appreciate what the Hardy Boys books are all about.

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So, in other words this isn't really about whether the basic roll patterns are crucial to the instruction of beginning student; it's about whether the students go on to learn how the many variants of those basic roll patterns are used to play virtually all of Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo. I'd say that has to do with the competence of the instructor and/or the diligence of the student.

SandyR - Posted - 11/21/2009:  14:58:33

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"Hang-up"? That doesn't sound especially polite. A fairer thing to say would be "different approach." Actually I didn't expect a lot of concurrence; more surprising is when someone sees this the way I do. I don't agree that "variants of those basic roll patterns are used to play virtually all of Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo," although that is how it's often taught. I would agree with that sentence if the word "patterns" is removed and "roll" is pluralized.

Flying Eagle - Posted - 11/21/2009:  19:04:18

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Sandy,

I apologize for using the term "hang-up", and I'm sorry to have offended you. Please forgive me.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this topic. Whoever is right, I just want to see beginner players use the most helpful tools to get them ready to make great music. So, use rolls, don't use rolls, whatever. Just get 'er done!


JW

SandyR - Posted - 11/21/2009:  20:23:10

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It's a different viewpoint, not a matter of who is "right." To clarify: I prefer emphasizing continuous rolls to "roll patterns." I've seen them cause problems, sometimes subtle ones, for many players (myself included at the beginning; I wish I'd realized the value of straight continuous rolls back then). Some people can avoid those problems. Others can't. I find success by stressing rolls over the patterns. And to come back to the beginning of this thread, this is in reference to the way Earl plays, to my perception. That's all.

banjohope - Posted - 11/21/2009:  22:21:59

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Hi SandyR, can you explain please what you meant " continuous rolls",. Thanks.

SandyR - Posted - 11/21/2009:  22:41:30

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Just a plain roll (forward, backward, split, square, etc.) without a "set pattern" to it. In other words, TIMTIM endlessly instead of TIMTIMTI endlessly. (Of course, not really endlessly.)

jethrobodine - Posted - 11/22/2009:  06:43:02

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quote:

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Originally posted by SandyR

Just a plain roll (forward, backward, split, square, etc.) without a "set pattern" to it. In other words, TIMTIM endlessly instead of TIMTIMTI endlessly. (Of course, not really endlessly.)

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Sandy, maybe I'm retarded (looking over my shoulder for PC police) but is this what you are saying? To be started and/or stopped anywhere needed reguardless of where it falls in a given measure?

"......forward roll is best thought of, NOT as a particular eight-note (one-measure) pattern, but as a river without an end. Begin it on any finger, continue it for any length of time.

...TIMTIMTIMTIMTIM...."

Quoted from Ira: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/163290

scott

minstrelmike - Posted - 11/22/2009:  07:22:45

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I teach rolls as right hand patterns which treats them as a starting point, not an ending point.

First you start by strumming with the right hand to get rhythm at speed.
Once you've got rhythm in your right hand, the 'square rolls' pretty much fall into your lap.
Once this happens and if you've got the forward roll up-to-speed (by practicing plucking any strings but not worrying about doing any left-hand fingering), then you can try playing your "rolls" over the chords to the song and see if you can get the melody.

That's the _starting_ point for learning rolls in my approach.

I use the idea of rolls to shortcut what Earl did.
But I don't shortcut anything else. He did not figure the rolls out slowly and then bring them up-to-speed and I have never seen that work well for a student. What Earl did was already have simple songs up-to-speed and then he figured out how to get three-fingers in there at speed.

Teaching what Earl did by using rolls is a good idea; a good starting point even though He didn't think of it that way at that time.

But teaching folks to do rolls slowly with complicated left-hand fingering isn't the way to teach rolls or teach music in my opinion.

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Edited by - minstrelmike on 11/22/2009 12:11:39

Kenneth Logsdon - Posted - 11/22/2009:  11:42:39

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Good post Mike... Even with the disadvantages of todays methods, They still are wonderful compared with the old H & P method (hunt and pick) we used to have to use.. But we gained an advantage I think by going by the sound rather than rote memorization.. Most of us oldtimers can hear it and pick it.. And I for one have absolutely no idea what my right hand is doing.. just listening to the music.. not thinking..??

SandyR - Posted - 11/22/2009:  14:00:59

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quote:

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...is this what you are saying? To be started and/or stopped anywhere needed reguardless of where it falls in a given measure?

"......forward roll is best thought of, NOT as a particular eight-note (one-measure) pattern, but as a river without an end. Begin it on any finger, continue it for any length of time.

...TIMTIMTIMTIMTIM...."

Quoted from Ira: http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/163290

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Yes—or anyway, that's what I hear Earl doing with his rolls. The key thing is "anywhere needed": it's dependent on the requirements of melody and time. When Ira says "any length of time," I think his meaning would coincide with this. It doesn't really mean "endless"—that's just a way to differentiate from chopping things up into 8-note segments. (I understand those emerged as a way to help beginners, and they may help some; it's just that my experience shows them to not be helping, even decades later. Perhaps the problem would've been resolved with the intervention of a teacher, but not everybody had one. I've understood Earl's approach better after taking the "endless river" approach than ever before.)

minstrelmike - Posted - 11/22/2009:  15:23:32

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There are multiple ways to think of rolls.

1. The fwd can be thought of as 3 kinds: tm tim tim, tim tm tim, and tim tim tm
But these are 8-stroke rolls.

2. You can also extend the roll endlessly or into an easier 16-point one: tm tim tim tim tim tm

3. The FMB roll IM TM TIMT is also a forward roll :
string two rolls together: tm tim tim , tm tim tim
then start in a different spot: : tm tim t | im tm tim t | im

Mike Moxcey

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 11/22/2009:  16:27:45

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quote:

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Originally posted by SandyR
The key thing is "anywhere needed": it's dependent on the requirements of melody and time. When Ira says "any length of time," I think his meaning would coincide with this. It doesn't really mean "endless"—that's just a way to differentiate from chopping things up into 8-note segments.

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That's exactly what I meant.
--IG

SandyR - Posted - 11/22/2009:  18:06:16

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But it's probably a minority viewpoint, as exemplified by the prior post. Many people think of "roll" as synonymous with "roll pattern." It seems we just have to live with this dichotomy and all go on picking!

writerrad - Posted - 12/30/2009:  20:33:05

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Earl Scruggs like Bill Monroe has always tried to enshroud his method of playing in unnamable past antinquities, while appropriating an enormous amount of claims to the distinct originality of his playing. He is even less likely than Monroe to discuss the real roots of his banjo playing. and the propoganda machine--in part an education machine directed by Louise brilliantly and to the credit of the banjo, "
Earl and the world--centers on his invention,.

However, bluegrass as it was called recorded and most centrally celebrated by the Opry Performances of Earl, Lester, Big Mon etc in 1945-1947, more influential than the records, was the culimination of a long series of changes in Southeastern country music and in banjo plahying that had been percolating since the late 19th century.

The brand of three finger picking Earl uses and his music is directly descended from, is an attempt to apply the variants of classic banjo and classic inspired banjo that were intensely popular in the South and North Carolina Piedmont (Earle lived near the border of these states in this area and never lived anywhere near the Appalachians like so many banjo greats) in the early 20th century when classic banjo dominated world banjo playing and was intensely popular in cyclinder recordings. At the time banjo playing was not seen as a chiefly Southern, southeastern, "hill billy" opr country music. The center of banjo playing internationally was among the elite banjo makers, banjo composers, and banjo virtuosi and recording artists who performed in the major Northeastern Cities and in the United Kingdom. Philiadelphia, London, or Boston, not to speak of New York and Chicago were more central to the banjo world than anyplace in the South.

A layer of such three finger banjo players were among the first musicians that Earl listened to live and on records, people who were friends of his father and people whom he listened to as a young banjoist, and whose music he can still exactly emulate today.

What these Southeastern players, particularly in Carolina did, was to adapt this style of banjo playing to the more African American originated music that hitherto had been identified with clawhammer banjo playing and two finger style banjo playing. These banjo styles involved a completely different role for the thumb, as a time keeper and synchopation maker,completely duifferent from classic banjo style where the thumb does not alternate, does not take leads on its own, but is assigned the low C and the G strings to note.

Earl accurately depicts this style when he says he did not see himself playing rolls until he met Bill K probably in the 1960s, that he just saw himself playing the melody. Previously, Earl has made other remarks like very many good string players about the primacy of melody in his playing. In classic banjo, a musician learns to play melodies and approaches the banjo as a lead instrument, with banjo parts often being modeled after second violin parts or even lead violin parts in the old classic banjo orchestras.

If you listen to the second CD of Bob Carlin's Carolina Banjo CD (not the instruction DVD but the rounder banjo collection) you can hear 1930s and 1940s North Carolina banjoists moving up in the direct that Earl established the acme of. The music was getting faster, blusier, and the level of instrumental technique was sky rocketing, and while remaining rooted in the merged Southeastern white and African American traditions, the role of improvisation by banjoists and other instrumentalists was becomiong more and more influenced by dixieland and swing jazz.

What is important--besides his own individualo genius, artistry, and his immaculate taste and brilliants--about Earl is first he moved the music to the G tuning which has much better open string first position power than the C tuning that classic banjo was centered on. He still took the banjo up and down the neck and also having to put up with Monroe's demands for playing in whatever key suited his voice, his singers voices, and his tendency to move songs up in key to outdo singers he had fired or had quit him, but he rooted the music in G tuning and in first position playing by Capos where necessary and maintained the twang and action of thumb playing two finger and claw hammer banjoists, though I have no doubt if Earl wanted to in his prime and even his "sub prime" he could have played a lot of tunes without playing one first position note. But if he did that, there it would sound different.

In that wise, it is interesting that Earl claims he developed his style playing Rueben in the D tuning over and over and over. This is the old time way of playing the tune in clawhammer. May NC finger style banjoists including the last generation of Black banjoists play this tune in G especially when playing finger style.

The open D tuning is probably one of the oldest banjo tunings, probably more common when banjos usually had four strings. It is very bluesy and not too far from a lot of the bluesy capacities of the guitar, especially in the two top strings being tuned a fifth apart. Like Open G, and again unlike the previously standard banjo tunign of C, it is quite easy to create the bluesy licks and pullons and pull offs with resonance on the open strings.

So Earl's style is a culmination of two separate but related banjo traditions. One coming from classic banjo, the other coming from traditional and probably African originated two finger and clawhjammer, all of this with the surrounding influences for country music in the 1930s and 1940s of its greater influence by pop music in general, Jazz and Jazz offshoots liek Western Swing in particular.

Earl crystalized what a whole series of banjoists like himself were headed to, he foudn the luck of playiong ina band with two other great geniuses that moved him forward Mr. Monroe and Lester Flatt whose guitar rhythm was a important stage in the evolution of Earl's picking from the time they were with Bill Monroe.

Much of the proof of this was the rather quick explosion of other banjoists who played Bluegrass banjo and the fairly rapid conquest of professional string band music by scruggs like banjo playing and bluegrass. This hardly speaks to Earle's claim of his invention of the style, as opposed to its emergence from a combination of dominant music influences and performance trends among Southeastern Country and String band musicians in the 1930s and 1940s.

Again, none of this can take away from Earl's particularly special brilliance, artistry, and vision. In the 45 years that I have known his music, 30 of which were spent before I ever [picked up the banjo, I have constantly found his playing an inspiration beyond the question of music,k but into what constitutes beauty, greatness, and just plain fun. I have tried to use his playing arpporach to analyze literature and to explain writing approaches to my friend swho write and my students.

But he too was a product of history, not simply a genius who pulled his playing out the blue

writerrad - Posted - 12/30/2009:  20:53:04

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Just one small comment on the rolls versus non rolls debate. From Childhood Earl learned music on a very high and intense level. If you go to his web site, you can read about as children him and his isster and his brother doing things like starting out playing together, then going around the house in opposite directions, practicing, practicing until they were always in the same exact time on the tune when they met again. I say this as senior citizen who cannot stand up and play the banjo for mkore than a few minutes!

He obviously developed a clear musical mastery of the keyboard and music, and learned a form of banjo that was essentially melody oriented, rather than rhythm or riff motivated, even if this is what he excelled at when he made his band recordings starting in 1945. Riffs and what we call rolls for someone like that, were more attempts at playing melodies counter melodies, etc, rather than the execution of modulized segments of music as most of us see rolls.

A good analogy is the greatest soloist in Swing Music Lester Young. Most of Lester's tunes involved variations on the melody and then the chord structure based on attempts to create a new melody with the same structyure as the old, but as Lester put it, "telling more of a story."

As his style of sax playing caught on and a more developed form in large part inspired by his playing called Bepop, emerged, players who attempted to imitate Lester developed the idea of playing "lines." They developed a collection of "licks" (I do not knwo the jazz term" based on harmonic variations on the melody, and learned to put them together. Paul Quichette who was the closest to lester among these players (Lester even gave him his saxophone saying if he wanted to sound lik ehim he could do it better with his (Lester's) saxophone) and when Lester would not or was not in good enough health to rejoin basie, he hireQuichette to play Lester like and Lesters tunes int he band, played a collection of such lines, like rolls, that were assembled to sound like Lester.

Perhaps only the great Stan Getz matched Lester in his real attempts ot play true alternativge melodies, rather than lines. There is a great aircheck of Getz playing with the Basie orchestra Birdland sometime in the 1950s, which can only be called the best ribute to lester without lester ever recorded.

Most of us learn this kind of banjo playing by learning rolls which also has the purpose of putting together the muscle memory required to approach the greatness of bluegrass banjo. Sometimes, teaching us to do things may not be the most accurate way that the creators of the music went about getting to it, even if it is more accessible and might be a good short cut if we had to start over again.

Dustyone - Posted - 12/31/2009:  08:40:17

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I remember reading a Snuffy Jenkins interview? he said that he got the 3 finger roll from Smith
Hammett who got it from a African American .