ridetwowheels - Posted - 09/29/2011:  20:42:59

I'm a pastor who has been playing a Deering Goodtime for about six months. I practice one or two hours every day. I've spent a lot of time on this site downloading tabs, several of which are bluegrass gospel songs. However, I haven't seen much done for contemporary Christian music such as Blessed be Your Name by Matt Redmon. I think the banjo is versatile enough to play this style and make it sound good. Any direction or suggestions of where I could find some of these tabs would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Philip

Fathand - Posted - 09/30/2011:  05:30:28

I played with the church worship leading group for a year or two several years ago, most of it was contemporary. I probably played 99% backup. We had chord charts, tabs not needed.

cecil36 - Posted - 09/30/2011:  05:56:27

I played with the Church group and it was closed cords as they play in so many keys not normal to bluegrass and I did not have time to be putting on a capo.

Jason Wilkerson - Posted - 09/30/2011:  06:08:21

The Trantham family does a really nice 'Give Me Jesus,' one of the most tasteful contemporary Christian versions I've heard.  This is clawhammer, though, not bluegrass, but very nicely done.

Give Me Jesus

BarefootSoul83 - Posted - 09/30/2011:  06:16:47

This is something I've been working on this year.  Nothing too solid yet.  

I did however work out "Hallelujah" by Michael W Smith on the banjo....it sounds really good too.

I played in several worship bands over the years and I have been seriously thinking about how to introduce the banjo to Christian music... not just on a church level, there needs to be "banjo music" at the Family Christian bookstore.

After all, I consider most bluegrass to be Christian/Gospel since there are no words a lot of the time and it is the MOST JOYFUL NOISE YOU CAN MAKE!!

Most churches have a standard set of 20 songs they play for worship...."Awesome God", "Amazing Love", even though I'm not a huge fan of that style, I think its a great place to start.

The biggest thing is finding what key the song is in and being comfortable in that key on the banjo.  Honestly I would stay away from tabs in this respect.

for one, they will be really hard to find... and I think they should be fairly easy to "work out" on the banjo, it'll just take some patience and time.

Lastly, I would suggest experimenting with alternate tunings...the banjo is tuned to G major (I think) ....and a lot of contemporary Christian is in major, but you may have to adjust the 5th string down a step on songs in a minor key...

I would personally take print outs of all the songs you want to learn and separate them out into keys....group all like keys, then group all like modes (major/minor)  this may help you wrap your head around the problem 

To make key changes easier I would suggest a good capo and spikes for the 5th string....

 

I know one guy who has Amazing Grace, Washed In The Blood, and I'll fly away tabbed out on his web site... (Banjo Ben Clark - just google him, great guy!)

I will for sure be checking on this thread and messaging you with any progress I make...please do the same :)

Shalom





 

crt - Posted - 09/30/2011:  06:22:05

I have tried to play with this style of christian music and found that in most cases that I could do some but that rock style christian music and scrugss style banjo picking do not work well together. I have found that with contempory style or rock style christian music that it is hard for the congregation to really sing. With alot of the songs in christian rock contemporary music the way it is sung that alot just listen. I am surprised that so many churches have gone compleately to this style.

In ny experiance with the scruggs style of playing banjo I have found that at least for me that it dosent fit in well with other styles of music I have met alot of people who want to have a banjo picker to accompany their group or to just sit down and pick with them They can not seem to understand that it dosent really work unless it is bluegrass and old time string music that works together. Perhaps I am just limited. I have gotten to the place that if it is not bluegrass style or old time that I tend to shy away from thease sessions.

BarefootSoul83 - Posted - 09/30/2011:  06:56:01

@crt - I would attribute that to tuning....  each song is unique.  The banjo(unlike the guitar) is in an open key...  so it is very hard to play all keys from standard tuning.  

           The banjo fits great into all styles of music (eg.. Bela Fleck) .....  it really just depends on how dedicated you are into finding the correct tuning for each individual song.

 

wbheilmann - Posted - 09/30/2011:  07:10:14

The banjo works well for some contemporary (folk?) Christian music, but not always on every song. If a song is intended to be contemplative or somber, then a banjo could be distracting or even disruptive for the folks sitting in the pews.

One also needs to be sensitive to the liturgical setting. For example, lively songs with banjo (and some other instruments for that matter) probably wouldn't be appropriate for a Good Friday service.

Many of the contemporary songs that we use are written primarily for piano, but they have guitar chords printed above the staff. A lot of these songs are written in the keys of F and Bb (good for the piano player, good singing keys, etc.). This is where having a longneck banjo really pays off...it's much easier to play in those keys without having to re-tune (very distracting for the congregation).

WB

jblovel - Posted - 09/30/2011:  10:56:02

I play the banjo with contemporary Christian music at our church and at functions outside our church every week.  The way I play is we obtain the lyrics to the songs with the cord changes written above the words.  You can get the lyrics with the guitar cords written above the words off the internet, or just print off the words and write in the cords yourself.  I usually roll using the forward roll, but usually quarter notes instead of eighth notes as you mostly do in bluegrass.  Sometimes I do two string that sounds like the piano.  Both fit in VERY well with contemporary if you approach it without bluegrass in mind.  Just listen to Bela Fleck and you will know what I mean.  He sounds like blue grass ONLY when he is wanting to sound like bluegrass.

I have found that most of the contemporary songs, playing bar cords along the fret board instead of just down the neck chords or just up the neck chords gives a better variety to the song.  Of course I do not play bar cords on every song.  I'm just saying, allot of the time, it fits in better with contemporary Christian than traditional bluegrass style thinking.

Just remember, if it is contemporary, you are not playing blue grass, so don't try to make it sound like blue grass.  Make it fit to the style the music is, unless you are trying to make it a blue grass version, which you very well can. 

There are CD's out there that does just that.  (put a little bluegrass sound to it)  There is one that is titled "Bluegrass Worship - 30 Songs To Ease Your Spirit" that is a 3 CD collection. It is a yellowish brown cover with a picture of a banjo lying in a field.  Clyde Bailey plays the banjo on these songs and it has many contemporary songs on it such as "Here I am to Worship", "O Praise Him" by David Crowder, "Indescribable", "How Great is Our God", "Better is One Day", "The Heat of Worship" and others.

E-mail me back and let me know what you think.

ridetwowheels - Posted - 09/30/2011:  19:50:38

Thanks for the replies folks. I appreciate your input.

Tom Hanway - Posted - 10/18/2011:  11:26:45

This is a very good topic with some very insightful replies. What I'm getting from this is that it's probably a good idea to be able to back the music first, with or without a capo, with the focus on singing and liturgical music, which may or may not lend itself to rolling banjo and bluegrass treatment. When in doubt, lay out, but I think the banjo can always work if it's supportive of the vocalists, perhaps vamping and playing minimalist back-up so as not to step on the singing. I don't know, I've never done this, but I'm looking forward to hearing more about it. Thanks for posting.

Kind regards,

Tom

wbheilmann - Posted - 10/18/2011:  12:23:27

Good points, Tom. Balancing the banjo sound with the singing can be a bit tricky at times. Another thing we've discovered is that it is important to have another instrument (guitar, piano, etc.) set the pace with good, strong rhythm.

Retuning can also be quite distracting for the parishoners, as there really isn't a good time to do that. That's when a longneck banjo comes in handy. With it, I can get into nearly any singing key with capo adjustments only...no retuning is required.

I play clawhammer style, so it is easy to fade softly into the background while the voices or other instruments take the lead. It seems like that would be harder to do with bluegrass style playing (with metal picks and such), but I really don't know for sure about that. Maybe some bluegrass pickers could enlighten us on that point?

WB

DeanT - Posted - 10/18/2011:  13:46:58

Not necessarily contemporary, but rather traditional hymns we like to play for the folks at the rest homes. I just sort of lope along in the background. I'm not that good and don't know if it really works or not, but they seem to like it.

Old ruggid Cross

Closer Walk with Thee

ecg - Posted - 11/01/2011:  22:17:38

Another application of the banjo in christian contemporary music is in
songs that are played with fingerpicking guitar style, combinig
the guitar and banjo sounds (not playing the same thing).