Matthiew - Posted - 11/10/2007:  03:33:38

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hi all i see Harold Morrison --Mountain Dew-- in this video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyEbTBFwk98

... anyone know any lessons of the two-finger style that he plays wheh sing?!? .. it's very very beutifuuuull

Excuse for very bad English ..

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Edited by - Banjoman on 11/10/2007 03:35:42

janolov - Posted - 11/10/2007:  04:50:52

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Isn't that threefinger he's playing? Almost ordinary Scruggs style?

Jan-Olov

Bill Rogers - Posted - 11/10/2007:  05:05:35

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Exactly. That's why he has two fingerpicks--not one. He's not really playing 2-finger when singing. It's a modified roll with a thumb lead and periodic thrashing--er, I mean strumming.

Bill

Matthiew - Posted - 11/10/2007:  05:16:12

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oh my god so ... sorry ...

Excuse for very bad English ..

twelvefret - Posted - 11/10/2007:  07:41:16

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Thanks for posting. What a haircut on that child. Did you guys see that Hamilton guitar capo? I used to watch the Wilburn Bros every Sat night in the 60's...right after Flatt and Scugs.

chuck

" Our music is part of a diffe

Don Borchelt - Posted - 11/10/2007:  07:42:10

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Matthiew wrote: "... anyone know any lessons of the two-finger style that he plays wheh sing?!? .. it's very very beutifuuuull "

Bill Rogers wrote: "He's not really playing 2-finger when singing. It's a modified roll with a thumb lead and periodic thrashing--er, I mean strumming."

Matthiew, don't let these banjo snobs bother you, this really is a nice performance, from back in those more innocent days in country music when a tall, skinny banjo picking boy like Stringbean could still be a big country music star, when categories didn't matter much, and nobody argued about the difference between clawhammer and drop thumb. It was all just country. If we took this guy, put him in a plain black suit with a fedora hat, gave him a more esoteric number to sing and pick, instead of Mountain Dew, and did the video on the front porch of a log house someplace in the mountains of East Tennessee or West Virginia, they would all be going ape thinking they had just discovered Doc Boggs' long lost cousin.

I'm not sure what he is doing, but what I used to do before the purists beat it out of me was to brush down with the thumb on the third note of the three- finger alternating thumb pattern. (TITM) So it would be Thumb- Index- Thumb Brush- Middle. I would sometimes leave out the index finger: Thumb- Pause- Thumb Brush- Middle. You have to have really good control over that thumb brush, which I think Morrison does, or it really will sound like thrashing. You could do the same thing with two-finger thumb lead double thumbing. I don;t use this pattern much, but I do sometimes in my three finger lead playing brush up with the middle on the forward roll, for example: (TIMTIMTI) Thumb- Index- Middle brush up- Thumb- Index- Middle- Thumb- Index. Again, control is everything.

I grew up in Cincinnati, where I learned to pick sitting in with country boys just like those guys. My sister used to wear her hair up in that beehive style up until about ten years ago, just like that woman dancing in the background with the little boy. Don't let anyone tell you what to enjoy, it's all good music.

- Don Borchelt



http://www.banjr.com

Pardon the Gibson Gangsta!

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Edited by - Don Borchelt on 11/10/2007 07:46:42

banjoholic - Posted - 11/10/2007:  08:10:50

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

Exactly. That's why he has two fingerpicks--not one.

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Yes, and given that he is wearing two FINGERpicks, it certainly seems logical of Matthiew to refer to this as two-finger style. Referring to it as "three-finger" is actually a bit of a misnomer, nonetheless it has become the convention.

chasgrav - Posted - 11/10/2007:  08:38:32

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I guess I'm snobbish enough to be turned off by the performance. But I do love the sport coat!

Don Borchelt - Posted - 11/10/2007:  09:54:21

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Charlie wrote"...I do love the sport coat!"

Well, Charlie, if you loved that one, then you'll really like this one. Blue's more my color.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AyUD6mUC...ated&search=

He's getting great tone out of that bowtie archtop. Nothing wrong with that banjer. Matthiew, on this tape, he seems to be strumming across the strings with his bare ring finger while he's singing. It's hard to tell for sure, but it works for what he is doing.

http://www.banjr.com

Pardon the Gibson Gangsta!

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Edited by - Don Borchelt on 11/10/2007 09:58:18

BrittDLD1 - Posted - 11/10/2007:  10:29:15

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quote:

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Originally posted by Matthiew

hi all i see Harold Morrison --Mountain Dew-- in this video on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyEbTBFwk98

... anyone know any lessons of the two-finger style that he plays wheh sing?!? .. it's very very beutifuuuull

Excuse for very bad English ..

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quote:

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Originally posted by janolov

Isn't that threefinger he's playing? Almost ordinary Scruggs style?

Jan-Olov

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Hi Matthiew - (and janolov)

Actually, Matthiew IS correct! He was asking specifically about:
"... the two-finger style that he plays wheh sing?!?... "

Watching it very closely, Harold's apparently playing a form of old-time THUMB and INDEX -- ONLY while SINGING. (Look closely -- He is NOT using his middle finger!)

THEN he switches to Scruggs style for the break.

And he also does a similar thing (almost like a "church lick") on the second video that Don linked to.

(It's much harder to sing while doing flashy break-style Scruggs. Many bluegrass players just play a simplified version, or back-up, while singing lead.)


Mattiew --
Look at Chip Arnold's homepage -- he does 2-finger picking (Index and Thumb)

http://www.banjohangout.org/myhango....asp?id=6347

He describes HOW to do the BASIC stroke here:

http://www.banjohangout.org/myhango...335#comments


Best-
Ed Britt


••• A good fiddle tune will bring two or more people together who might otherwise be enemies. •••

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Edited by - BrittDLD1 on 11/10/2007 10:31:07

WildJimbo - Posted - 11/10/2007:  10:48:37

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...and he's a pinky planter too!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7SGh186Tr08

Jim Pankey
http://www.wildjimbo.com

chip arnold - Posted - 11/10/2007:  14:43:33

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Matthiew, You can go here: http://tishandchip.tripod.com/ and find a little bit of tablature to help you get started on 2-finger style.

Like they pointed out above, the backup parts of your video seem to be thumb lead 2-finger picking. The lead stuff is called THREE finger style because there are 2 fingers plus 1 thumb involved. It's pretty basic Scruggs style picking and for that you can get lots of advice on the Scruggs forum.

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Take what is given
Give what is taken