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Teaching Philosophy of RSB

From oldwoodchuckb on 2/22/2012 1:24:35 PM

This is available in a more readable form at my blog "Rocket Science Banjo News"

http://rocketsciencebanjonews.blogspot.com/

But please make comments here as this is a spot I visit more often.

The Teaching Philosophy of Rocket Science Banjo

I learn my tunes at jams, I hear them, and then reproduce what I hear. This means that they come out in my style immediately. and this is the method I therefore recommend to all. However, I am aware that those who can't learn tunes by ear, or can't learn them at speed,  will need to find other means.

I use old time tunes for everyone who wants to learn clawhammer banjo. It is relatively simple straightforward music and conducive to playing by a beginner and about the easiest style to learn by ear - there are few occidentals and sometimes as few as 5 notes per octave. This is the wonder of Old Time Music. Anyone can learn to play it and it is the basis of most music you hear today in the US. Irish and Bluegrass are very complex compared to OT.
I start by having my students learn as many tunes as they can, but all in rather simple versions. I use only melody notes (no chords - I won't get into that here, but I don't feel that knowing the chords is the same as knowing the tune). We use tab, and ear, and I even go into learning from recordings - sometimes sending students home with a tape of me playing a rare tune for them to decipher.

I don't teach them anything fancy - at least not to beginner and early intermediate players. We just build up enough tunes that they can  start to recognize all the bits and pieces they will need to begin learning other tunes without using tab. There is indeed a point where you begin to hear each phrase (or half, or quarter phrase) as something you have played before in a different tune and you can then just play it in the new tune immediately. I've often said that if you learned the right 100 tunes - you would know everything ever likely to come up in OTM - but I don't know which 100 tunes you need to know - so I teach more and more tunes until they get it.

I know that successful students have to know several tunings and keys or they will still be thrown quite easily, but I find the tunings and keys in Rocket Science Banjo will probably get a player through any but the wildest hairybutt jams in the world.

While I keep my tabs simple I do try to put one fancy figure (usually only one or two beats) in each tab. I usually have an alternate (ie simple) version they can use instead, while working on the "fancy" until it is ready to go into the piece.

I have the student study these and other hard spots in the tabs as exercises (SEPARATED OUT FROM THE TUNES) if necessary. This gives them little "bits" that they soon figure out can also be used to dress up other tunes. By learning these fancies, they develop a backlog  of little fancies that are independent of the tunes and therefore movable to tunes in similar tunings. The idea here is to "personalize" as you go, so that every time you play a tune you can actually choose the fancies you want right now, or pick out the best way to compliment the other players in a particular bunch.

I also have the occasional display piece - in my Big Tabonanza I have several "finger-buster" arrangements, the best of which are two based upon Melodic Bluegrass pieces by Eric Weissberg. Flop Eared Mule & Devil's Dream. I have translated them to Melodic Clawhammer, keeping almost all of the original arrangement (Considering I hadn't heard the Weissberg pieces in 15 years when I created my claw versions I think I did pretty good in getting them down - good enough that I haven't changed them since re-acquiring the recording). There are other heavily Melodic tunes in the collection plus one article on creating playable rhythmic clawhammer arrangements from Melodic Arrangements or directly from fiddle music. Arrangements like this are rich with bits and bobs that can be applied to other pieces.

At one time I used to actually have lessons in doing purely rhythmic drop thumbing etc. I haven't really figured out how to get that into book form as I usually did it only with students who were no longer in need of tab and books are, by their nature not a good way to teach tabless arrangements. I can only do this as a tabbed style currently, or possibly in video lessons, though I'm not sure I'm up for video lessons anymore. I can't do them now, and I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to do them again. I have a lot of pain issues now, and am beginning to lose hope of ever being free of them - or even simply As  free of them as I was two years ago.

I don't generally look to create difficult pieces for students. I figure that once a player can listen to a new tune and learn it as it is played, even if it will take him a while to get up to speed, he is ready to go it on his own. After all, the banjo is a Folk instrument. For those who see the banjo as an instrument that can and should explore all the corners, vital and dark, of music and technique, I have some recommendations and a few specialized exercises. At one time I would go into these heavy techniques with student who were into it, but now I cannot do them myself and merely suggest possible study directions (like Ken Perlman's Everything You wanted To Know About Banjo But Were Afraid To Ask) to people who really want to make their own path. But that is way down the road for most people reading this blog.

2 Comments
	banjoes says: 2/28/2012 2:15:55 AM Lot of thought has gone into this - thanks Oldwoodchuck. And I really agree that if you want to be part of - what we used to call - the 'folk process' you have to play by ear. After hearing a delicious version of the 'Lambeth Walk' (from the English inter-war musical 'Me and my Girl') played by a walking street band in Barbados who only cared to play some of the notes of the first part of the tune I'm yet more convinced. Nearer to home, the wonderful Yorkshire singer Mike Waterson could sing the epic ballad Tam Lyn after a single hearing. In Mike's case, of course, he was word perfect. guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/...-obituary This is how oral transmission works (for folk-song) - the clue's right there. To the despair of fellow band members I've played with over the years my philosophy has always been that 'mistakes' are to embraced. Although, in my case as a half-trained musician who doesn't have the cultural confidence of the Bahamian street band I'm usually unable to resist working towards the 'correct' version of any tune that I've initially misheard. Learn by ear and you own a tune.
	banjoes says: 2/28/2012 2:18:58 AM I see I got my islands jumbled there - the band was in the Bahamas! Sorry.
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