Richard Dress - Posted - 02/28/2011:  16:51:58

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Hammers, Pull-offs, Slides, Chokes--these are some of the most basic banjo moves (you can also bend hammers and slides). If your first song is "Cripple Creek" from the old Scruggs book then you will learn these slurs right away, and learn differences in 1/8th and 1/16th notes. Students are often told that these tricks are meant for spicing up your playing and making it sound more like 'bluegrass banjo'.

While it's true that these elements are banjo basics and they take a lot of work to get right, the real truth is that these slurs offer you, the picker, a way to reshape those notes that you are plopping out there so they aren't just a stream of big round blobs of sound. When it comes to playing lead, and you are struggling to phrase (i.e. shape) your notes like the vocal syllables they represent, these slurs (like lips) can make the flow of notes behave and sound more like spoken words. A professional-level banjo break on a vocal number is often constructed carefully with this in mind.

Some people will tell you that rolls and slurs are to be scattered willy-nilly into the music mix to keep the banjo break interesting. No, they are much more important than that. Along with modified roll patterns, these slurs are the little tricks that professionals use to infuse a little bit of melody and human quality into the music's flow without any distracting jerks or jiggles: smoothing things out like lips help shape words. (Not a slur, but another trick for shaping the sound of a note is to change the anchor pressure of the fingers by the bridge.) The resulting banjo break will tend to make the lyrics jump out at you. Let's use the song "Roving Gambler" as an example.

I am a roving gambler, gambled all around
Whenever I meet with a deck of cards
I lay my money down
Lay my money down, lay my money down

Listen to the Eddie Adcock Break (see below)

Listen to the Ralph Stanley Break (see below)

The banjo might change the words a little bit. Eddie's banjo seems to sing:

"Lay my money dow-own
I lay my money down, boys--lay my money down"

But Ralph's banjo says:

"I lay my money down
I lay my money down, lay my money down"

When the banjo player begins to think in terms of words and syllables instead of ornaments and licks, then the instrument will behave more like an artist's brush than a pressure washer. This appendix does not apply to any particular style of banjo playing; it's just an explanation why one has to learn slurs and roll variations and why they are so important for picked instruments (like the banjo, guitar, and mandolin).

Let's listen to Ralph again and think of him phrasing the line with his banjo like this:

"I lay-my-mon ey down, I lay my money down, lay-my mo ney-down"

Why would you want to change the phrasing? Why would Eddie play a different melody than Ralph? They are close but not the same. Depending on your roll, where it started, which finger is leading, which finger is coming up next, what words you imagine and how you hear them, etc.--all these things influence how your notes want to come out. Everybody is different, and what is natural to one picker causes another to strain and fumble. This is a danger of tab or of copying another person in some other way. Be careful, and don't get to thinking that someone else has got the only right answer. (The exception is Earl, of course.) Tab for technique is good (chords, roll variations, licks). Tab for learning how Joe Blow played a break may not be good for you. (Again the exception is Earl Scruggs.)

Don't keep banging your head against the wall, if you are having trouble making a particular phrasing fit your rolls. Go around the problem by changing the melody phrasing to something more natural to your fingering.

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Edited by - Richard Dress on 02/28/2011 16:58:21

Roving Gambler (Country Gentlemen)

Roving Gambler (Stanley Brothers)

RatLer - Posted - 02/28/2011:  17:53:28

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Great post!! I try to use "slurs" to emphisize or, in my own mind, make the banjo "sing" the words/melody notes. Sometimes, it doesn't always work for me....and sometimes, maybe I'm the only one that hears them... ;-)

Smurf - Posted - 02/28/2011:  18:38:12

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Its not allways easy. Tonight I was learning a new son and trying to do it the syllables way and Ho my god I have to sit down and work harder on that.Tony Trishka show the same way for learning new songs,thats were I got it from.

Rich Weill - Posted - 02/28/2011:  19:06:58

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The first place slurs were explained to me was in Jack Hatfield's book, "You Can Teach Yourself Banjo By Ear." He said that a slur is a way of accentuating a note. That's why you slur into melody notes: it tends to emphasize the note you're sliding to, hammering on, etc., makes that note more apparent to the listener and, thus, helps make the melody stand out.

The next lesson I got on the purpose of slurs was in one of my early banjo lessons, learning "Skip to My Lou" with a forward roll. In the last line of each verse or chorus -- "Skip to my Lou, my darling" -- the words "my Lou" can't be played accurately in G unless, holding a D7 chord, you pull off the 2nd string, 1st fret (C) to the 2nd string open (B). So here I learned that slurs also permit you to add notes you would miss otherwise.

And, yes, they do add an idiomatic bluegrass banjo sound. But I'd put that third on the list.

Rich Weill - Posted - 02/28/2011:  19:24:57

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quote:

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Originally posted by Richard Dress

When the banjo player begins to think in terms of words and syllables instead of ornaments and licks, then the instrument will behave more like an artist's brush than a pressure washer.

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By the way, Richard, I think this statement has applications well beyond the question of slurs. I was once discussing improvisation with a good friend who is a professional folksinger and guitar/mandolin teacher. "How do you come up with counter-melodies?" I asked. "Sing them first," he replied, "and then play the melody you're singing."

Even people with a good ear often have a hard time hearing anything except the traditional melody of a song. Singing is a great tool for liberating your melodic creativity, and putting a new, complimentary tune in your ear to play. But then you still have to be able to play the words (even if they're nonsense words).

I didn't mean to hijack your thread, but I think playing the "words and syllables" is important on a lot of levels.

Richard Dress - Posted - 03/06/2011:  15:47:44

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Thanks for bringing that up, Rich. Singing is a powerful tool for training bad ears to hear melody. I know how hard it can be to 'hear' a melody when listening to something new. I went through maybe a half dozen levels of 'hearing' so far in my musical journey and I still have trouble hearing different things. When I started I couldn't hear intervals and rhythms, for example.

Speaking of en examples, as luck would have it, there is a good example ready at hand in another thread about licks. Until recently I always thought the common (lick) first position break for LRB was right the melody, i.e. the one played up the neck. In other words, the lick-based break in the video sounded correct to me in terms of melody.

Tom Hanway - Posted - 03/07/2011:  19:15:33

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I think melody-phrasing from the left-hand (or fretting-hand) is too often overlooked in "picking" banjo, maybe because there's so much to be learned and mastered using rolls and right-hand (picking-hand) techniques. But Earl uses it quite effectively, and so do a lot of clawhammer players.

Phrasing melodies, beyond stock licks, is an important part of fretting-hand work, adding variation, feeling and nuance to one's playing, feeling the music in both hands. The banjo is a kind of voice, and it helps to think of the music, not abstract patterns, rigid licks, cut and pasted frankenmelodies, and the like.

I'll think on this some more, it's late, and this boy's tired. Great thread Richard!

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Edited by - Tom Hanway on 03/07/2011 19:30:33

caloscalzo - Posted - 03/08/2011:  06:42:25

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Rich, your posts are so rich!!! Pun absolutely intended.

Hotrodtruck - Posted - 03/08/2011:  07:36:47

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Great post Richard. I have always thought that the fretting hand deserved more attention during the learning process. The picking hand gets lots of attention, and rightfully so, but the fretting hand can add so much to the execution of the tune.

Mike

makemerry - Posted - 03/08/2011:  21:45:47

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Thanks for the post! Those are beautiful breaks. Any idea where a person could get either or both of them tabbed out?