microtone - Posted - 10/26/2006:  06:16:55

Been trying to play banjo in a bluesy style - I've looked at the 12bar blues prog and the blues scale on this site which Ive used as a basis & transposed up & down - what should I look at next?

rwkuta - Posted - 10/26/2006:  11:06:51

Bluesy licks.....Janet Davis has a great book with Up the Neck licks
many of which have a nice bluesy feel for them.


http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists...5033&alid=-1

EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 10/31/2006:  14:43:07

Check out this thread: http://banjohangout.org/forum/topic...PIC_ID=61772

granderman - Posted - 11/19/2006:  06:33:07

check out Jens Kruger's DVD on homespun in the middle you will see some great blues playing on the banjo

aloha Bradah T

Paddy - Posted - 11/19/2006:  10:21:20

A lot of Don Renos playing, particularly with his brush style( mute with your wrist at the bridge and play double stops with your thumbpick) can give a bluesy/rock and roll feel.

But there's no substitue to simply listening again and again to the music your trying to play.

I learned a few Chuck Bery licks yesterday that come out fine on the banjo.

writerrad - Posted - 05/16/2007:  08:49:23

Let me pose a big question that is historically related tothis discourse. Granted that we can all play the blues on the banjo and some right bluesy music came onthe banjo, but why did the five string banjo not get taken into the arsenal of blues playing musicians.

That is to say that with the exception of Gus Cannon, no recording blues artists used the five-string banjo. Research on African American music indicates that the traditional string band repertoire was replaced by blues based music and dancing in a period between the 1890s and the 1930. It is with the inception of the blues that five string banjos disappear from the active playing repertoire of African Americans.

It cannot just be that the banjo was "old fashioned" or that the banjo was identified with the string band repertoire. After all, the fiddle is probably much older than the banjo and was the chief instrument of the old string band dance music. Similarly, the mandolin was used in the string bands too. Yet, both instruments continued to be used in blues playing bands, at least until the music went electric after WWII,

Some people might just it is the tuning of banjos, but from the most sophisticated. urbane, and jazz oriented like Lonnie Johnson to the most rootsy players like Charlie Patton, many guitarists of the blues put their guitars into G tuning, the most popular banjo tuning. Many other blues guitarists used the Open D or Sebastopol tunning, often used by banjoists. Even some of the most obscure banjo tunings like Tommy Jarrel's DfADf# was used by blues guitarist Skip James.

Why did blues musicians not use the five-string banjo?

Tony Thomas, a black banjo player

banjovy - Posted - 05/18/2007:  11:08:15

Even though the banjo had came from Africa to America during the slave trade, I think by the 1890-1930's, it's origins mentioned above became obscure and I think there might have been an association of the banjo with slavery and racism for the African Americans in addition to the existence of white minstrels in blackface playing banjo ,etc. The guitar was a similar instrument (it was fingerpicked, there wasn't conventional picks back in the day) so I think it was an easy transition. The guitar with its extra lower octaves than the the banjo was better able to match the voice better or was played with a slide to imitate the blues vocal inflections/articulations. Also, music and musicians over time have to evolve, part of that is to expand musical landscapes by playing another instrument. I think another aspect of the switch could have been the "newness" of guitar as opposed to the banjo, which was more of a famiiar instrument.

howseth - Posted - 05/19/2007:  02:42:28

I had a black friend, when I lived in Chicago, who played sax (actually, we were both from New York). When he found out I played banjo, he gave me a look like he had just bit into a lemon. He told me he couldn't even listen to banjo -because he connected it to a 'bunch of racist white honkys'.... which I suppose was his own form of musical stereotyping and prejudice. Even though the roots of tbe banjo are African - a black man's instrument, certainly. But my friends negative associations with banjo may partly explain why there are less blues playing on the banjo, then there otherwise might be.
(Also, from a purely technical point of view, sustain is shorter on a banjo then a guitar - those classic bluesy bends decay quicker.)

Howard

mikeyes - Posted - 05/19/2007:  15:27:07

Taj Mahal plays blues on the banjo.

Sam McGee does too, there is no reason not to play the music on a banjo. If you want to get a 6 string banjo it is even easier.

Mike Keyes
http://www.banjosessions.com
http://www.mikekeyes.com

Sultans of Claw - Posted - 05/21/2007:  22:15:43

[(Also, from a purely technical point of view, sustain is shorter on a banjo then a guitar - those classic bluesy bends decay quicker.) ]

True, but the banjo produces a lot of short-lived ghost tones that are just as soulful and bluesy as the cry of bent and sustained notes.



Lee Callicutt

howseth - Posted - 05/22/2007:  14:37:54

I said - [(Also, from a purely technical point of view, sustain is shorter on a banjo then a guitar - those classic bluesy bends decay quicker.) ]

Lee remarked - "True, but the banjo produces a lot of short-lived ghost tones that are just as soulful and bluesy as the cry of bent and sustained notes."

Lee, I hope you are right. I like your comment.. I play more bluesy things on the banjo these days than anything else. I like the sound of blues oriented style on the banjo. Sometimes it reminds me of an electric guitar on very low volume - or not plugged in, or maybe one of those all steel guitars.

Howard