Mooooo - Posted - 03/12/2018:  09:13:44

phb, you should play it how it is most comfortable for you. I find it easier in Std tuning and the licks are similar to Clinch Mountain Backstep.

Mooooo - Posted - 03/12/2018:  09:16:17

quote:

---

Originally posted by Laurence Diehl

Overland by Noam Pikelny. As usual with Noam's tunes, the "easy" ones seem easy until you try to play the darn things!

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I think his easy ones are the ones without the impossible stretches. But still, as you say, not so easy.

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/12/2018:  10:00:18

Mike, there are NO impossible stretches

lbullock - Posted - 03/12/2018:  13:22:59

<blockquote id="quote">quote: <hr height="1" id="quote" noshade="noshade" /><i>Originally posted by <a href="/myhangout/home.asp?id=110433" ID="newtag-110433">lbullock</a></i><br /> <p>"Sally Goodwin" and "Shucking the Corn"</p>

<hr height="1" id="quote" noshade="noshade" /></blockquote><p></p>

I open a tutorial off of Youtube for the song(s) I want and use a little digital camera to make a movie of it. Then I transfer it to DVD using a Toshiba laptop and "Movie Maker" software.

Then I watch what is happening for about a week, just soaking in what is going on. (I'm lazy, you can probably shave that time if you've a mind to), then I pore over the tablature I can find (if any) and then start working out on the "light bag" (as I call my first cheapass banjo shaped object--but it's lighter, because no tone ring,--and I can sit around and work out fingerings and rolls with it) and once I've committed it to muscle memory, pull out the Huber Workhorse and have at it. Then I start on the next tunes.

Catman - Posted - 03/14/2018:  03:56:39

Although I have played Bill Emerson's "Cowboys & Indians" for a few years now, I am currently working on playing it with more Emerson techniques based on Janet Davis's tab in the March issue of Banjo Newsletter. This version is based on how Emerson played it on the "Home Of The Red Fox" recording.

lab_dad - Posted - 03/14/2018:  05:45:43

Working on "Dusty Miller" and "Rickett's Hornpipe"
Both versions by Tony Trischka and in "D" (capo at 2nd fret)
Should go well with "Billy in the Low Ground".

Martin

dmiller - Posted - 03/14/2018:  11:48:26

Deputy  Dalton.  I used to be able to play that with my eyes closed, but that's one of those tunes that I forgot about over the years - - and since then it's been too long a time that I've played it, or even thought about it .  Something reminded me about DD a week or so ago and what good tune it is - -  so it's time to re-learn it.  

Edited by - dmiller on 03/14/2018 12:03:44

Mooooo - Posted - 03/14/2018:  12:41:30

dmiller, that Alan Munde tune is sure a workout for your index and middle fingers...lots of Doug Dillard Rolls in there. Btw, Don't Give Up Your Day Job is such a great album and as always, Alan's picking is superb.
lbullock, thanks a lot for talking about your process of learning. I am sure it will give a lot of pickers ideas they may use.

dmiller - Posted - 03/14/2018:  16:37:33

You've got a point there, but when it comes to Deputy Dalton - - - remembering the chord progression is what I need to work on.  

stick14ya - Posted - 03/14/2018:  21:30:21

I’m a begginer and I’m curntley working on worried man blues.But you hear everything earl scruggs did and as a begginer I never really listed to him .But listen to all his songs and the way he plays I’m thinking about selling it all including both banjos lol how can you compete with that or strive to be as good as him. I’ll keep trying thanks Chris

dmiller - Posted - 03/14/2018:  21:57:38

Everyone has to start somewhere - - just like Earl did.  My first step into banjo was when I heard his version of Cripple Creek from the Foggy Mtn. Banjo album 45 some years ago.  It was intimidating - - yet at the same time it inspired me to learn.  Don't give up.  

steve davis - Posted - 03/15/2018:  10:19:26

Note for note harmony to Little Rock Getaway.

phb - Posted - 03/18/2018:  08:21:51

I'm more or less done with "The Whole World Round", the next one I'll do will probably be "The Old Home Place" because it gets played quite often in our jam and I just love the B chord going to the C chord. I have several recordings of the song. Is there a recording that would be considered the definitive one others tend to model theirs after?

Mooooo - Posted - 03/18/2018:  09:11:16

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

I'm more or less done with "The Whole World Round", the next one I'll do will probably be "The Old Home Place" because it gets played quite often in our jam and I just love the B chord going to the C chord. I have several recordings of the song. Is there a recording that would be considered the definitive one others tend to model theirs after?

---

Here's my favorite version: The Old Home Place 

phb - Posted - 03/18/2018:  11:13:19

That's really a great version I didn't have yet. I heard or read somewhere that JD put the B chord into the song so I guess that's a good version to start with. Thanks for the link!

Mooooo - Posted - 03/18/2018:  11:49:11

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

That's really a great version I didn't have yet. I heard or read somewhere that JD put the B chord into the song so I guess that's a good version to start with. Thanks for the link!

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It is a great version, but in the Dillards' original version also uses a Major 3 chord (not a B, because JD plays in B flat making the III a D and the Dillards play in A, making the III chord a C#).

dr4dpet - Posted - 03/18/2018:  14:11:49

Wildwood Flower

Mooooo - Posted - 03/18/2018:  16:46:32

quote:

---

Originally posted by dr4dpet

Wildwood Flower

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How are you learning it? By ear? Tab, Teacher, memory, osmosis?

dr4dpet - Posted - 03/20/2018:  02:11:37

It varies. -- This time I videoed the instructor playing the version he wanted me to learn. At home I played it back with VLC and slowed it down greatly. As I figure out each phrase I tab it out. Tabbing it helps me to memorize it faster. He doesn't give out tab, and if I don't have some type of recording much of what was shown is gone the next day when I pick up the banjo again.

phb - Posted - 03/20/2018:  05:25:32

quote:

---

Originally posted by dr4dpet

It varies. -- This time I videoed the instructor playing the version he wanted me to learn. At home I played it back with VLC and slowed it down greatly. As I figure out each phrase I tab it out. Tabbing it helps me to memorize it faster. He doesn't give out tab, and if I don't have some type of recording much of what was shown is gone the next day when I pick up the banjo again.

---

This is almost exactly what I do: I transcribe a break using a slow-downer, then play the tabs along to the recording a few hundred times and eventually play it another few hundred times along with the recording without looking at the tabs. I wonder whether the tabs part circumvents the desired ear-learning effect...

Yesterday I transcribed the JD Crowe & The New South recording of The Old Home Place and then had a look at the various transcriptions in the BHO tabs library for reference. Amazing, it's almost like that famous saying about lawyers: two lawyers, three opinions. There are not two that transcribed the same break in the same way... :)

FlyinEagle - Posted - 03/20/2018:  06:39:27

I’ve been getting an arrangement of Fox on the Run to sound nice, from a tab in the archives.  It is not difficult, but is really fun to play.  It has a ton of C licks in it (with the middle finger hammer-on to the 4^th string).  If you need practice with that type of lick this would be a great arrangement to learn because you’ll do that move about 30 times in one run-through.  I like pieces like this because they are basically an exercise, but lots of fun so you actually want to play them.

What I’ve really been working on is Big Country by Bela, also from a tab in the archives.  This one is probably a bit of a stretch for me to get sounding good, but I have been making progress on it so it’s within my grasp, I just need to keep grinding away.  This is the type of piece I will spend maybe 15 or 20 minutes just once or twice a week, until I start to really get it smooth.  I’m not prepping for a gig or anything so whenever I get there, I get there.

I still learn a lot of tunes from tab, in part because what I can learn by tab is lot more interesting and complex than I can learn from scratch by ear, but I’m working on that too.  I’ve been toying with an arrangement of the Shaker Melody (Simple Gifts).  Not exactly a bluegrass tune, but it seems to work.  

Also, my wife went to an ax throwing bar with her friends on Saturday night, leaving me at home to my own devices.  So I spent the night in the basement with some Jameson, learning to sing and play “Green Pastures”.  I doubt I would be posting this jam session to Sound Off if I had recorded it, and you probably won’t learn the Irish whiskey method from your teacher, but it sure was fun.  Forgot the lyrics already though…

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/20/2018:  08:23:10

Err...what ‘devices’ did she leave you with, if I may be so bold in asking?

FlyinEagle - Posted - 03/20/2018:  08:26:24

quote:

---

Originally posted by chuckv97

Err...what ‘devices’ did she leave you with, if I may be so bold in asking?

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Whiskey and a banjo.

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/20/2018:  08:43:25

quote:

---

Originally posted by FlyinEagle

quote:

---

Originally posted by chuckv97

Err...what ‘devices’ did she leave you with, if I may be so bold in asking?

---

Whiskey and a banjo.

HoHo

Mooooo - Posted - 03/20/2018:  09:12:17

FlyinEagle, I have a really hard time picking after 3 drinks or so...maybe I should have practiced more like you do. When I get together with friends I have to bring a banjo and a guitar because after 3, I sound like I have been playing banjo for about a week...that's when I switch to guitar and can play until I pass out. For some reason I find it so hard to pick banjo and drink.
Good luck with Big Country, it sounds so cool on solo banjo if you can learn the part that the sax usually plays. Also, I think I would have gone to the axe throwing bar that sounds like fun.

dr4dpet, you are so luck to be learning now that everyone with a phone can video whatever they want. I took a year of guitar lessons before I started banjo and would have loved to video a lesson or two, but we got by back then. The instructor never wrote anything out in tab either but he would write a line or two out in Standard Notation, but usually just wrote out the chords and I could usually remember the rest. I taught myself the banjo for a couple of years before getting the Earl Scruggs book and that's how I learned about Tab. I started to learn to tab out things on my own from slowed down records and that is what did it for me. I think it is pretty neat to see how we all learn in different ways. Good luck with Wildwood Flower.

phb. you said "I wonder whether the tabs part circumvents the desired ear-learning effect..."
I don't think that the way you use tab still allows you to develop good ear-learning skills. You are tabbing them out on your own, so you are being very critical of the song, trying to figure out which notes are being played and which fingers to use. I think it is a much more difficult skill to learn than even watching someone do it. You are using the Tab to reinforce what you have already learned and figured out by yourself. Double checking with other people's tab is an added layer of learning.
Also, I think you will notice that most of those tabs aren't the result of people trying to tab out a specific recording of a banjo break, but rather how each tabber himself/herself interprets and plays it. I try for the super accurate and complete, others try for a more general interpretation...and there are many in-between, better and worse. Good luck with Old Home Place.

Mooooo - Posted - 03/20/2018:  12:18:27

phb the first line of the above post should read: "I think that the way you use tab still allows you to develop good ear-learning skills" and not "I don't think that..." as written above, sorry for the confusion.

Edited by - Mooooo on 03/20/2018 12:19:12

phb - Posted - 03/20/2018:  12:35:17

@Mooooo:

Don't worry, the next bit made clear what you wanted to say. When I had overcome the shock, I figured that it may have been a tongue-in-cheek joke of yours to misphrase it like that and in this way play with my insecurity... :)

Mooooo - Posted - 03/20/2018:  12:41:08

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

@Mooooo:



Don't worry, the next bit made clear what you wanted to say. When I had overcome the shock, I figured that it may have been a tongue-in-cheek joke of yours to misphrase it like that and in this way play with my insecurity... :)

---

Yeah, when I read it again, I was scratching my head and thinking to myself..."everyone is going to think I am insane." Now I really want to make some tongue-in-cheek joke, but I am sure it won't go over too well. As they say, Kühe tragen keine Hüte.

phb - Posted - 03/20/2018:  13:17:57

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mooooo

As they say, Kühe tragen keine Hüte.

---

Do you know or learn German or do you just know how to use Google translate? :)

Mooooo - Posted - 03/20/2018:  13:21:52

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mooooo

As they say, Kühe tragen keine Hüte.

---

Do you know or learn German or do you just know how to use Google translate? :)

 

---

I used to live in Germany and recently I have been brushing up with German using Duolingo and at one point they had me translating this so much that I wrote into the company to see if they could remove it....but It eventually came in handy since my photo here on the BHO is of a cow (it is actually one I took of a German cow on the bike path from Dessau to Worlitz).  

Edited by - Mooooo on 03/20/2018 13:22:31

phb - Posted - 03/20/2018:  13:47:01

Hey, cool! When and where did you live?

Mooooo - Posted - 03/20/2018:  13:50:23

Dessau about 10 years ago. Near the Bauhaus.

phb - Posted - 03/20/2018:  13:55:06

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mooooo

Dessau about 10 years ago. Near the Bauhaus.

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Wow, I would like to know everything about it but perhaps this is getting off-topic. Btw, I live in a Bauhaus building which is located in a settlement that was designed by Bruno Taut.

dr4dpet - Posted - 03/20/2018:  17:12:10

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

quote:

---

Originally posted by dr4dpet

It varies. -- This time I videoed the instructor playing the version he wanted me to learn. At home I played it back with VLC and slowed it down greatly. As I figure out each phrase I tab it out. Tabbing it helps me to memorize it faster. He doesn't give out tab, and if I don't have some type of recording much of what was shown is gone the next day when I pick up the banjo again.

---

This is almost exactly what I do: I transcribe a break using a slow-downer, then play the tabs along to the recording a few hundred times and eventually play it another few hundred times along with the recording without looking at the tabs. I wonder whether the tabs part circumvents the desired ear-learning effect...

---

I think I use my eyes as much if not more than my ears in learning from the video. In VLC I use the Effects and Filters tool to crop the image so that the banjo fills the entire screen of my laptop. I seem to be a visual learner. In grad school I could read through my 3 inch, double sided stack of handwritten notes for a 9 hours class two or three times and go into a test confident or the results. Going so far as to recall if an answer was on the left or right page and how far down it was with some rememberance of what was above and below. After a moment or so of thought I could usually come up with the correct answer.

FlyinEagle - Posted - 03/20/2018:  18:54:28

<blockquote id="quote">quote: <hr height="1" id="quote" noshade="noshade" /><i>Originally posted by <a href="/myhangout/home.asp?id=113457" ID="newtag-113457">Mooooo</a></i><br /> <p><a ID='taglink' href='/myhangout/home.asp?ID=115868'>FlyinEagle</a>, I have a really hard time picking after 3 drinks or so...maybe I should have practiced more like you do. When I get together with friends I have to bring a banjo and a guitar because after 3, I sound like I have been playing banjo for about a week...that's when I switch to guitar and can play until I pass out. For some reason I find it so hard to pick banjo and drink.<br /> Good luck with Big Country, it sounds so cool on solo banjo if you can learn the part that the sax usually plays. Also, I think I would have gone to the axe throwing bar that sounds like fun.

<hr height="1" id="quote" noshade="noshade" /></blockquote><p></p>

Yeah, three drinks, that's the top of the bell curve. It's the same for darts, pool, horse shoes, baggo, etc, etc.  This wasn't productive practice, just a one man St Patrick's Day karaoke party.  Well, the dog was there too, but be didn't seem impressed. 

I absolutely do want to go to the ax throwing bar.  That was a work people thing for her, and sitters are expensive, so...I don't mind staying home to pick all night.

phb - Posted - 04/24/2018:  10:45:45

I'm working on Salty Dog Blues now. It comes up quite often at both jams around here and I have been faking breaks for too long...

Astrobanjo - Posted - 04/24/2018:  11:00:55

I'm a beginner, but have been working on smoothing out the Ballad of Jed Clampett...and the other 5 songs I know so far. ha. I might dive into Home Sweet Home--from the Jim Pankey vid-- as my first non G tuning song, later today after I warm up a bit.

Mooooo - Posted - 04/24/2018:  11:52:51

I am working up a travis-style version of Freight train from the melody in my head and just getting my picking hand used to alternating the thumb between the 4th and 3rd strings constantly while hitting the melody with my index or middle finger...it's kind of fun. Someone mentioned Finger-style in another thread and it reminded me of this tune.

Edited by - Mooooo on 04/24/2018 11:54:22

steve davis - Posted - 04/24/2018:  18:12:50

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

Hey, cool! When and where did you live?

---

I lived in Buedingen from '73 to '75 driving a deucenahalf for 3/12 Cav.

20 miles northeast of where Elvis Presley was stationed(Gelnhausen/Hanau area.

Rawhide Creek - Posted - 04/24/2018:  22:10:25

“My Skies Were Black, But You Made Them Gray Again”

”My Lawn of Green Cement”

”Mediocre Fred”

”30,000 Pounds of Bananas”

phb - Posted - 04/25/2018:  03:48:45

quote:

---

Originally posted by steve davis

quote:

---

Originally posted by phb

Hey, cool! When and where did you live?

---

I lived in Buedingen from '73 to '75 driving a deucenahalf for 3/12 Cav.

20 miles northeast of where Elvis Presley was stationed(Gelnhausen/Hanau area.

---

I was born in West-Berlin and live in the part of the city where the US forces were stationed (in fact my house was confiscated in 1945 to give home to the US troops). There are still many traces of them to be found even though they get fewer like a baseball field they converted to a park a couple of years ago. My second daughter will attend a school starting this summer that was built as a school for the children of the American soldiers. I was a teenager when the Wall came down and took too many things as granted. Now I'm wishing I could go back in time and revisit the area around Truman Plaza where the PX, the Outpost cinema and other US amenities were. Unfortunately it seems that the US forces didn't leave much bluegrass heritage in Berlin... (yay, didn't make it all off-topic!)

conic - Posted - 04/25/2018:  16:15:25

This week I found the sunny side of the mountain from 2018 spbgma with the awesome Russ Carson on banjo and Im hooked. the closest tab in the archive is the tabledit from Lee Marcus, its a fantastic one to learn with a lot of new licks for me but Im having trouble fitting in at measure 10, is there an extra measure in this song. maybe I just need to listen closer to the song a lot more

SamHatch - Posted - 04/25/2018:  19:23:09

I'm working on "Marching Jaybird." I'm getting ready to submit a paper on banjos and diversity in the United States, and for my presentation tomorrow about that essay, I'm going to play that song since Etta Baker was recorded playing that song by Smithsonian Folkways on their album Black Banjo Songsters of NC and VA.

Mooooo - Posted - 04/25/2018:  19:38:37

SamHatch, That's great Sam, good luck on your project. It sounds interesting.

pickin_fool - Posted - 04/26/2018:  05:08:25

I am currently working on 2 original tunes, both melodic..one in standard g tuning..the other in g minor..i do melodic runs..arpeggios I guess they are called..up the neck and just trying to get them to where my fingers are not trippin all over each other

From Greylock to Bean Blossom - Posted - 04/27/2018:  06:05:09

If I hear any tune that stays in my head, I try to work it out on banjo. The finished results are often rough but IMO,it helps me try to get quicker finding stuff on banjo.
ken

Mooooo - Posted - 04/27/2018:  09:29:41

quote:

---

Originally posted by From Greylock to Bean Blossom

If I hear any tune that stays in my head, I try to work it out on banjo. The finished results are often rough but IMO,it helps me try to get quicker finding stuff on banjo.

ken

---

I do the same thing. Some of them sound really cool on the Banjo. I have worked up a few...Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo, Munster's Theme Song, Time After Time by Cindy Lauper, Eidelweiss, La Cucaracha, Mexican Hat Dance, Hava Nagila.....the list goes on and on, but it is really fun to make them Banjo-y. I agree that it helps figure out how to find stuff, and it also helps figuring out a break on the fly, not that I am any pro at it or anything...

dr4dpet - Posted - 04/28/2018:  01:25:36

quote:

---

Originally posted by From Greylock to Bean Blossom

If I hear any tune that stays in my head, I try to work it out on banjo. The finished results are often rough but IMO,it helps me try to get quicker finding stuff on banjo.

ken

---

What would happen if someone said the words "Gilligan's Island" three days running?

pickin_fool - Posted - 04/28/2018:  05:40:31

mooo..try buddy holly, you wont matter anymore..its a natural for 5 string..also gordo lightfoot don quixote