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travis_towle - Posted - 02/18/2007: 19:58:51
I have heard this can be done. Does anyone know where I can find more info on how to do it and techniques on the style to make the BLUES sound on a banjo? I have a 5 string and play Scrugs Style now.
Travis E. Towle
I am LOOKING for a great condition USED Morgan Monroe Riverking and Admiral Banjo !!!
winnipegbanjoman - Posted - 02/18/2007: 20:44:53
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Foggy Mountain Special is a blues progression, and it is a Scruggs classic.
If you had to, you could overlay the banjo lead on lots of blues songs -- and in The Essential Earl Scruggs album, Earl does that in at least 3 tunes.
Nestor
fivestringmac - Posted - 02/18/2007: 21:26:21
You might want to check out Pat Cloud. He is quite well known for being able to play all kinds of music styles, including blues and jazz.
http://patcloud.com/
travis_towle - Posted - 02/18/2007: 22:16:14
Sweet - I just shot Pat an e-mail. BUT keep on postn, I need as much info as I can on this subject!
Travis E. Towle
Topeka, Kansas
785-357-1004
I am LOOKING for a great condition USED Morgan Monroe Riverking and Admiral Banjo !!!
flatfoot - Posted - 02/18/2007: 22:44:38
.
>>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Foggy Mountain Special is a blues progression, and it is a Scruggs classic....>>>>
It takes much more than an blues progression to qualify a song or a singer as belonging to the blues genre. Blues has its own modes, harmonies, rhythms and esthetic. It is possible to trace some elements of bluegrass and oldtime playing to African sources, but blues diverged from these sources generations ago and now has little in common with these other styles, especially as manifested on the banjo.
,
I'm learning how to tune the strings
I'm learning how to frail
And how to sound like Earl Scruggs
The bluegrass holy grail.
winnipegbanjoman - Posted - 02/19/2007: 01:11:57
Point taken. Thanks for the link to the video clip, too. That reminds me, there's a chapter on playing blues in Pete Seeger's book.
pweller - Posted - 02/19/2007: 11:15:07
Look up "Dock Boggs" on YouTube. Boggs was a banjoist from Virginia who played a mix of blues and Appalachian music which was all his own style. It's really bluesy and sort of haunting.
banjofanatico - Posted - 02/21/2007: 02:49:04
The blues is a style of music - like jazz, classical, country, flamenco, etc. and so can be played on the banjo just like those other styles.
David
Tom Hanway - Posted - 02/21/2007: 10:28:23
quote:
Originally posted by travis_towle
I have heard this can be done. Does anyone know where I can find more info on how to do it and techniques on the style to make the BLUES sound on a banjo? I have a 5 string and play Scrugs Style now.
Travis E. Towle
That's a GREAT question but a HUGE topic, because the blues is so many different sounds, styles and sub-styles, depending on artist, instrument, era, region, rural or urban, American, British, European and so on. There's country blues, urban styles, rhythm 'n' blues and jazz (which incorporates blues) to consider. There's blues in bluegrass, just as there is gospel in bluegrass. Some of the gospel in bluegrass is blues-based in terms of chords and harmonies. A good place to begin for *acoustic* 5-string is to listen to country blues guitar licks and bass lines by players from all the *regional* styles. There is no universal (definitive) BLUES sound. There is no single strand or thread.... It's more subtle and complex than that. It's like cooking sauces or stews. It's all about the ingredients and how they're mixed together. It cannot be reduced to one recipe -- there are many regional tastes and styles of cooking up the blues. Let's assume we're staying on an acoustic banjo.... Singer-composer Taj Mahal (originally NYC) is a blues and folk banjo player as well as country blues guitar master. Try learning his stuff to get a feel for his downhome music, tunes like "Fishin Blues" and "Cakewalk into Town". For banjo, listen to Don Reno play "Green Mountain Hop", akin to "Black Mountain Rag" (Blues) which is very bluesy. Listen to Raymond Fairchild too. He's very bluesy. There's also so many Southern styles which can be grouped by region and state, for example, Texas (e.g., Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker), Mississippi (e.g., John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Skip James), West Coast (Jesse Fuller, Jorma Kaukonen), Piedmont (Big Bill Broonzy, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, Merle Travis and Sam McGee - both blues and early country guitarists, et al.), and of course the "Delta" players (Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson et al.), also other related blues artists and styles who've gone on to explore other music. Don't forget Elmore James if you want more urban sounds and of course blues and rock guitarists like B.B. King, Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton (try the solo on "Lay Down Sally)", Buddy Guy, Jerry Garcia and too many others to list here. Rock'n'roll guitar can inform a bluegrass banjoist. Rock'n'roll has a lot of blues influence and in terms of chord structures and licks ... IT is very close to bluegrass in some respects. Bluegrass is like a seed to rock'n'roll! Jim & Jesse McReynolds did an album of Chuck Berry covers in the early days. Try learning the chords and boom-chuck rhythm to "Maybelline" by Chuck Berry if you don't think this makes sense. "Maybelline" is easy and natural for bluegrass musicians. It's very bluesy and boogies along quite nicely. Learn the songs of the some of the early blues guitarists on the banjo, get some of the guitar licks and jam with the old recordings. That's a university training and it cannot be found in books or through tab. You have to play it. I just got back from Edinburgh, Scotland, where among many sessions I played, was a blues session at the Royal Oak, one of Edinburgh's premier folk singing and traditional music venues. On every Thursday night is the Chilli Dogs, who play American blues and rhythm 'n' blues on acoustic and electric instruments. I found that my Chuck Berry guitar licks (transferred to banjo) came in quite handy on many standards. I did not play Scruggs licks, though they would have been quite at home with Foggy Mountain Special or Don Reno's "Double Banjo Boogie" (another 12-bar blues progression). For a laugh and a real challenge, learn how to play "Johnny B. Goode" on the banjo. There's a lot of blues in that and cool techniques for banjo. Bend the strings (as double-stops too). Learn "Blues Stay Away From Me" by the Delmore Brothers for a sweeter country approach to blues and duet harmony. That might be the easiest place to begin, and it's a great song, in any style. Good luck and see you at the crossroads 'round midnight. Badbelly Cheers, Tom http://www.tomhanway.com/
Edited by - Tom Hanway on 10/25/2008 19:58:05
microtone - Posted - 02/27/2007: 08:42:49
I asked this sometime back - basically I learn blues progression & it variants & learn some blues scales
I learnt chords to various songs - some very simple like lead belly - listen to different styles
Armed with this little bit of knowledge I then just experimented a lot - if something sounds bluesy stick with it -
I'm all for a bit of theory but I learnt a lot improvising on my own to get a blues feel or style
Of course pitch bend is really cool and works fantastic with a bluesy style - I haven't seen any systematic theory for
pitch bending but there are penty of notes up from the frets that sound as good or better then the fretted notes
I'd say just get bending and try to "feel"/hear whats happening
Edited by - microtone on 02/27/2007 08:44:03
microtone - Posted - 02/27/2007: 08:46:20
I see you have a banjola like me - sounds pretty good for blues - I guess you have heard Pat clouds blues banjola - pitch bending is great with the long sustain you get with the 'jola
SonicGrass - Posted - 03/02/2007: 12:57:39
Check out the Del Mccoury band, one of my favorite bleusy bluegrass bands. Try the album Deeper Shade of Blue.
The thing ya can't remember tells the thing ya can't forget -Tom Waits
Edited by - SonicGrass on 03/02/2007 12:59:23
joeytg - Posted - 03/10/2007: 11:08:11
I was just surfing the web for the exact same topic, "blues on banjo". new to banjo here but really getting addicted. always loved blues, traditional robert johnson and rock & roll/metal with blues sounds. and everything in between.
anyway, i stumbled on this great site, musicmoose.org. they have a lesson with QT movies of blues playing on banjo.
just saw it today so not sure how indepth it all gets. but the one lesson was great.
check it out:
http://www.musicmoose.org/content/view/288/
Pluto - Posted - 03/10/2007: 14:22:52
You might go pick up an audio file of a blues classic like Stormy Monday or whatever 12-bar blues speaks to you and just play along, until you can pick out the melody, and you'll eventually start to see which notes of the blues scale they tend to emphasize, and which chords. George Harrison's For You Blue is a blues, and Lennon's lick is a simple walk thru a few 7th chords, easy to play on banjo, and you could embellish it more to incorporate your style of picking. I think that's the best way to learn the blues, is to listen and play along. But if it's tab you seek some blues tab in TEF format can be found at http://freetabs.org/listtabs.htm .
Pluto - Posted - 03/10/2007: 15:16:11
Here's another resource for you. One of the fun musical traditions of the 12-bar blues is the blues turnaround. It's played over the last two or three bars of the 12-bar form before starting it all over again from the top. Also a good way to finish your break and signal whoever's next to take their turn. I collected a few of the classics here. I borrowed these turnarounds from various songs and transposed them to standard 5-string tuning (DGBD). It is a TEF format tab file:
http://tinyurl.com/357mkv
Doing that gave me a lot of insight into the blues form. Well, one particular flavor of it anyway. Enjoy!
scotty22 - Posted - 03/19/2007: 00:35:04
All of my blues on banjo had been country blues on 5-string like Boggs, Holcomb and modal stuff. When I heard a recording of "Mood Indigo" by the Preservation Hall Band, it inspired me to get a tenor banjo. That got me heavily into four-strings and now I'm into playing the standards. I listen to Billie Holiday almost constantly -- particularly the first five or so volumes of the Essential Billie on Columbia with Lester Young, et al. (especially vol. 4). And the later Verve sessions with Mal Waldron on piano.
banjofanatico - Posted - 03/19/2007: 18:56:48
I started getting into four-string tenor banjo recently,as well. Unfortunately, my cheapo $150.00 model broke a couple weeks ago (the headstock snaped off when it fell down on the floor) so I have to find another. Look at this clip I came across:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzDU15nyFkU
David
scotty22 - Posted - 03/19/2007: 20:24:15
I think those guys know how to play. Thanks for the clip.
rwkuta - Posted - 03/20/2007: 10:23:28
If anyone is interested I have a sound file on my homepage called Banjer Blues which is just some blues licks I'm playing against a standard 1- 4- 5 ...............I guess its blues..??? I felt sad when I recorded it ......I think that counts
"Obsession is a great subsitute for talent" Steve Martin
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists...5033&alid=-1
Joe Jakonczuk - Posted - 03/26/2007: 15:40:39
I play Deep Ellam Blues and maybe Worried man Blues qualifies. The "In the Mood" rolls works very well in backing up the singer. My friend sings several blues songs like "Little Bitty Shoes" with most of them from the 1930s.
jojo25 - Posted - 03/27/2007: 17:21:14
my 2 cents worth
learn a 12 bar blues...you can do it in any key you choose
in the key of E it would be
EEEE AA EE B A EE
in G
GGGG CC GG D C GG
12 bars Joe, 12...duh what an idiot!...me that is!
this isn't the only blues form...but it is a very common form
good luck and have fun
Banjonically yours
Joe
Edited by - jojo25 on 03/31/2007 18:04:20
writerrad - Posted - 03/28/2007: 13:21:34
It strikes me as odd that anyone would question how to play blues on the banjo. I got a banjo after 35 years of guitar playing and I was able to perform the blues a few days after I had the banjo though it took me a year or two to learn how to frail. Blues is a form of music and it is an African American form of music. The banjo was invented by African Americans and retains a specific African American style. As such it is really easier than many other instruments.
Almost every form of old time banjo is mixed with blues, or at least every recorded kind. The blues arose sometime between 1870 and 1895, but it didnt have much geographical spread until the 1890s and the early 20th century. By that time blues was at the center of both folk music by Blacks and many forms of commercial popular music. Thus it would be very hard for it not to be reflected in five string banjo playing.
The blues utilizes a certain scale of notes, although that is optional. These notes are easily done on the banjo especially in the open tunings, although I dont know any tuning that is hard to play the blues on. The basic frailing and clawhammer rhythms are condusive to blues playing and adding in blue notes are condusive to getting a bluesy effect in old time music and of course in bluegrass.
Whatever the origins of the blues, it is clear that one of the origins of the blues was old banjo songs that are almost like blues. I just heard an interview a folklorist did with African American banjo player and drummer Lucious Smith who played in Syd Hemphill's string band between the early 1900s and Hemphil's death in the l960s or 1970s. The interviewer asked him to play a blues, and Lucious starts to play Cindy. Many of the old time tunes like that are just a little ways musically from the blues.
One of the central components of Bluegrass is adding Blues in firmly as the base of the music, although that had been done by the first great Country star Jimmie Rogers 20 years before Monroe cut loose with his own band. Big Mon always said his own music was a combination of what he learned from two men, Uncle Pen Vandever and Arnold Schwartz, an African American fiddler and guitarist and bluesician who was also the inspiration for Merle Travis's style.
I tell blues guitar players to listen to Earl, especially his early work for some definite blues. His first solo on Heavy Traffic Ahead is nothing but the blues, I shouldn't say nothing but because Earl is a genius and probably would add something special to music if he just stood on the stage and breathed!
Blues is all around. Pat Costello Jr's approach is good on the video, but he has a maniacal approach that everything has to be played in G tuning, including songs in the keys of D or C or E, so he's great on the G songs, but when he tries to transpose D songs like Stackolee and do them in a G tuning in the key of D, it loses.
The guitar is the central instrument of the blues. Many traditional guitar blues, particularly but not only delta blues are done in open G, or open D, the same tunings as used on the banjo. Even guitar played in the standard tuning is the same as the banjo on the fourth, third, and second strings. A lot of what you hear on Guitar blues can be directly moved onto the banjo.
However, my own love for blues on the banjo moves toward using the banjo as a banjo, not as a guitar. Nice blues patterns can be played with a frailing rhythm. So much of blues is involved in Bluegrass, that no bluegrass player even a rank beginner needs much instruction on playing blues.
It is all there. Part of the problem is that too many of us know tab only and learn songs through tab. The way to learn folk music and especially the blues is through playing and knowing the music from inside. Do a google search on the blues scale and and the banjo and you will find about 10 different places where the blues scale is explained for the banjo neck. Play this over and over, and then think of adding blue notes into songs to make them blues.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
ndlxs - Posted - 03/29/2007: 12:13:39
I still think Dan Gellert's Backwater Blues from Kicking Mule's vinyl "Old Time Banjo in America" is the best I've heard. Mike Seeger playing Roll and Tumble too.
Andy Alexis
Sacramento, California
"The Pearl of the Central Valley"
Buy my CDs:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/pineycreek
and
http://www.offtocalifornia.com
writerrad - Posted - 03/29/2007: 13:47:36
Mike Seeger playing Roll and Tumble too[/quote]
Yes, hearing that on the web site (not sure if he ever put it on a CD) was what got me to get a banjo along with Cece's book. Little did I know that 5 years later Mike would be playing slide banjo on my banjo!
Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
Banjo - Posted - 03/29/2007: 15:52:25
This book has a few good blues tunes in it.
"GIECO, ------- So easy a Banjo Picker could do it...............................Maybe."
writerrad - Posted - 03/31/2007: 14:37:09
I am going to be giving workshops on blues and the banjo at the Mars Hills Old Time Week camp/school/etc in North Carolina near Asheville in June. I am very needy of suggestions, proposals, questions, that folks have about this. What would they want explained if they went to such a workshop. What advice would they give. What do you want to know. What don't you want to know.
I want to know what anyone here thinks about this, not just folks who are expert on the blues. I would particularly want to know what folks who don't know much about the blues or never play it on the banjo think about such an enterprise.
Help!
Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
banjoghost - Posted - 04/01/2007: 19:33:22
check out taj mahall's banjo tunes, the black banjo songsters cd, the altamont cd, etc. there are a handfull of current guys doing banjo blues, though the names escape me at the moment. also dock and roscoe. blues is like banjo, learn a few basics and if it sounds good, it's right. what kind of blues do you want to play? check out muddy, john lee hooker( the old recordings, 40's and 50's) for wild and beautiful open tuning guitar stuff. as someone posted above, the open tunings are standard to the genre. also, remember that there is nothing as dull as a human jukebox. i have a friend who is a great guitar player but he plays everything note for note from classic recordings. while i wish i could too, i can just play the records. you gotta put yourself into what you play. listen, practice and learn. playing out is maybe the best way to advance your skills, or at least make them solid. then let that brain thing and those fingers do the rest. that is all.
banjoghost - Posted - 04/01/2007: 19:36:06
ooops, double post. also read nick tosche's book on emmett miller, puts the whole american music thing into perspective. the only race that owns a music is the human race. amen.
writerrad - Posted - 04/02/2007: 12:02:34
quote:
Originally posted by banjoghost
also, remember that there is nothing as dull as a human jukebox. i have a friend who is a great guitar player but he plays everything note for note from classic recordings. while i wish i could too, i can just play the records. you gotta put yourself into what you play. listen, practice and learn. playing out is maybe the best way to advance your skills, or at least make them solid. then let that brain thing and those fingers do the rest. that is all.
These words are so good they need repeating. Too much of the banjo world is people trying to exactly repeat everything on tab. That is not how this music was created or played. Some folks are nuts. About 3 years ago when I didnt know anything about playign banjo and most of what I knew was dead wrong, I was playing something and a jam and someone, who I know is not stupid, came and asked me if I had tab for what I was playing. None of the old time musicians we model after played anything the same twice! Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
banjovy - Posted - 04/02/2007: 13:24:11
I'm happy to say I've been off the tab for 1 year now. Its almost like AA. Hello my name is Rick Lawrence and Ive been off tab for a year.
Banjophobic - Posted - 04/03/2007: 10:00:43
To understand blue theory,you can delve into the basics of the blues scales,pentatonics,etc. But to really play the blues and 'get it', you must learn how to FEEL the blues and put that mood in your playing. You must listen to great blues players and soak up not only the licks, but the FEEL. Knowing how to find the notes in important yes, but knowing when to play a note is more important in blues. One note can speak volumes more than a bunch of licks. As bluegrass banjo players, we have to be conscious of that. Truth is, to really get blues, you must listen to the great african american blues artists. We owe them such a huge debt of gratitude for infusing western,white musci, with african sounds. What a great thing that was! I for one, as ahuge blues fan and try to incorporate blues ideas on banjo whenever appropriate for the music I am playing. As a kid , I got to jam with the Foddrel Brothers, near Stuart Virginia. It was amazing to hear and watch those guys play piedmont blues and sing. They allowed this skinny white kid with a banjo,no less, sit in and attempt to play blues on his banjo-haha. If you ever get thew chance to sit down and learn form a real blues player, you'll never regret it and it will transform your thinking-
banjovy - Posted - 04/03/2007: 12:46:52
Just dont think because one plays a blues scale or minor pentatonic that one can "play" the blues. That annoys me so much. To me, to be a real blues player(im not) one would have to totally focus on just blues. Live it, immerse in it, etc. Its a way of life.
Bobbythomsonfan - Posted - 04/03/2007: 19:29:18
quote:
Originally posted by banjovy
Just dont think because one plays a blues scale or minor pentatonic that one can "play" the blues. That annoys me so much. To me, to be a real blues player(im not) one would have to totally focus on just blues. Live it, immerse in it, etc. Its a way of life.
That applies to all types of music. Bobby Thomson was the best
SusieQ - Posted - 04/11/2007: 03:16:21
Hi Travis,
I know this is a 2 month old topic, but I'm new, and blues is what I play on the banjo. It's been easier to find music lately--with contemporary bands now using the banjo more--but basically, I transcribe guitar riffs to the banjo. My husband thinks it's funny, but I love it. I haven't figured out how to submit tab yet, would you/anyone be interested if I couldI brain-muscle it out? I've also worked out the banjo to "How We Operate" by Gomez.
S
writerrad - Posted - 04/11/2007: 08:44:26
Well, listening to African American blues is what I do. I think if you listen to the older piedmont style blusicians and also the Memphis players like Furry Lewis and Frank Stokes, you are going to find a lot of similarity with banjo playing, or at least the older types of finger style banjo player as played by African American and African American influenced playing.
There are probably several roots for blues guitar playing. One of them is the old parlor and other finger styles of guitar that were used in the 19th Century, but probably more important was the influence of banjo playing. Many of us conjecture besides the clearly African derived down picking such a claw hammer, there were African traditions of finger style banjo that were transmitted to the US too and were no doubt passed on to blues guitar.
We should say that besides down picking on instruments by the Akonting, many African lutes, especially the socalled griot instruments involve either finger picking or plectrum picking. Many of these instruments have the kind of combination of brushing and picking with the index finger and using the thumb a lot as some of the old time banjoists did and as many of the earliest blues guitarists did.
Many folks believe that Piedmont guitar playing and blues guitar playing come from banjo style. I must say that since I began thinking about that firmly, my blues guitar playing which antedates my banjo playing by 35 years, has improved, because I try to base the rhythm (what I have always been weak on in finger style blues) on the concept of a strike, brush and thumb to get the brush.
Claw hammer provides a good basis for blues playing. Today folks have a distorted vision of the blues. We think of a single blusician playing a guitar or piano in a venue where the audience sits and listens.
However, the active venue for blues playing in the tradition has always been playing for dancers and usually a blusician playing with another guitarists or in a band that might include fiddles, mandolins, plectrum banjos of various kinds, and a bass.
Keeping a regular beat going for dancers is really a requirement for blues playing as it is in clawhammer.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
writerrad - Posted - 04/11/2007: 08:54:47
One more thing, in response to some of the posts.
There is one thing where if you want to become an expert player of African American blues styles, you have to study the music and determine the feel of the music. That is true for all music. If you play only old time music and you want to play bluegrass or vice versa, you have to study the music and absorb the tradition. Blues is no different.
However, besides the many varieties of African American blues, the blues has become a general musical medium with reflections in all kinds of places. For example, I adore the style of blues singing and playing that grew up in Western Swing and adore the blues singing to Tommy Duncan and the blues guitar of Lester Barnard Jr. both of whom played with Bob Wills. Neither is an African American and both only indirectly reflect the black blues tradition. All kinds of old time musicians played and recorded their own kinds of blues. In bluesgrass, blues playing has been there at the beginning. Many folks feel that what was to come once he found Flatt, Scruggs, Wise, and Rainwater was shown best on Bill Monroe's attempts to play blues tunes.
I tend to think some kinds of blues are easy on the banjo. Many of the same licks and approaches to music that are part of the repertoire of any bluegrass or old time musician can be used directly to play the blues.
Finally, when I first got a banjo about 8 years ago, I did a lot of playing the banjo in blues just like I would use a guitar, though I found a lot of things I did on the guitar were harder to do on the banjo and and a lot of things were easier on the banjo. That is nice, but after a while I saw it really holding back my learning to be a banjo player, rather than a guitarist faking the banjo. My blues search was to look for blues forms inside banjo technique.
I have nothing against anyone who plays the banjo like a guitar, but I think the banjo has a lot that can play blues of several kinds.
Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
alanrockwood - Posted - 04/18/2007: 22:40:15
Tony,
Are you the guy at the BlackBanjo yahoo group?
Alan
writerrad - Posted - 04/19/2007: 08:43:11
quote:
Originally posted by alanrockwood
Tony,
Are you the guy at the BlackBanjo yahoo group?
Alan
Yes, I am the list owner and chief slave and frailer at Yahoo's Black banjo Then and Now Group. This group discusses African American banjo playing throughout history as well as today and issues about the roots of old time banjo. It is open to all and many of the folks I see on this thread are active memebers as well as experts on banjo playing, old time music, and blues from around the world. Black banjo is also open and concerned with Black traditional string band instruments including fiddling, percussion, the guitar, and the mandolin To get in the fun go to BlackBanjo · Black Banjo Then and Now at http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackBanjo/Tony Thomas, a black banjo player
alanrockwood - Posted - 04/23/2007: 00:17:12
Tony,
I have been a member of the black banjo yahoo group for probably a year or two, though I must admit that I only check in for a look every once in a while.
Ala
banjofanatico - Posted - 04/26/2007: 10:05:52
quote:
The banjo was invented by African Americans
I thought the banjo was invented in China, many thousands of years ago ( like everything else). Page: 1 2 3 4 5
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