schlange - Posted - 06/16/2014:  09:24:57

Here's our fourth entry into this weekly series of tune lessons. This week, Dan teaches the Fiddlin' Doc Roberts tune, And The Cat Came Back. A long and interesting 3 part tune, it can give you quite a workout on clawhammer banjo.

In the lesson video Dan plays the tune three times through up to speed then slow starting with a basic version and building to an advanced one. Then Dan plays the basic version and breaks it down phrase by phrase. Same with the advanced.

Ready for a banjo workout? Enjoy and Play Nice!

You can purchase the video lesson (for unlimited streaming and download) here on the Banjo Hangout for $6. Get it here >

Dan and I would love to hear any feedback you have on these videos, so feel free to post or email us. Our goal here is provide a steady, affordable way for people to learn a new clawhammer tune weekly (or as often as they'd like).

If you're working on the tune, record yourself and post it below--we'd love to hear your progress!

jsalaska - Posted - 06/16/2014:  10:48:09

I've really been enjoying the lessons, thanks Dan. The presentation style is simple and concise and easy for this intermediate level player to follow. I hope you'll continue to offer these weekly tunetorials.

backwardroller - Posted - 06/16/2014:  14:09:03

Not to change the subject but the title of this thread made me LOL as I just finished reading a post from my sister on FB. It has to do with the momma of my wife's cat and here it is:

"That awkward moment when you take your cat to the vet to be Neutered and they call you saying 'Are you aware BamBam has already been Neutered'? Hmmmm, NO. It must have happened when she was MISSING for 6 months"

Clawdan - Posted - 06/17/2014:  07:24:13

Glad you are enjoying theme Joseph. Planning on Angelina Baker for next week. If I could only get iMovie to work right!

Hope to get your way someday.

Play Nice,

Dan

Clawdan.com

stanzukowski - Posted - 06/17/2014:  13:59:21

Clawdan ~

Curious ~ why are you using iMovie for the video? Is it for editing? For changing the playback speed?

If you're using it for editing ~ I edit song videos a lot, so I can cut them down to just the stuff I need. I'm on a Mac, too, and I've found that Camtasia for Mac is well worth the investment. It's $99, but it beats the crap out of iMovie in every category. I use it both at home and at work (I work in a marketing agency) and it's excellent. It's not a professional video editing programming like Final Cut Pro, but I don't need a professional program. I need something easy and lightweight, and Camtasia is great for that. And they have a free trial so you can test it out.

Note that neither I nor any of my family, friends, acquaintances, enemies or pets work for TechSmith. I just love their apps.  :^)

Side note ~ en.savefrom.net/ is a very handy site if you want to save down Youtube videos for offline viewing and/or editing. I've learned a lot of songs that way.

If you're using iMovie to change the playback speed ~ I use a free video player called VLC, which allows you to slow down or speed up a video -- and still keep the same pitch! It's very easy -- just <COMMAND><+> or <COMMAND><-> to speed up/slow down. You can also loop any segment so it plays over and over using <SHIFT><CMD><L> to start the loop, and then <SHIFT><CMD><L>​ again at the end point of the loop. To break out of the loop, simply type <SHIFT><CMD><L>​ again.

Just my $0.02 worth!

~stan

stanzukowski - Posted - 06/17/2014:  14:02:59

I also happened to notice that every person who has replied to this post so far has a beard. Coincidence? I think not.