Posted by rossnickerson on Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Slide Mountain!
When I wrote Slide Mountain I had demonstrating how to play slides on the banjo on my mind. I purposely get a little carried away with it. I hope you don't mind me stretching out a bit and having some fun. I have a lesson for getting started sliding into chords below. I hope you have some fun with it too. Thanks! Happy Picking, Ross
Sliding into Chords Lesson
One of my favorite things to do on the banjo is slide. I love the feeling on my fingers and the variety of sounds you can make doing it. I was a trombone player during my school years which may have helped my understanding of them too. I'm glad I got something from that experience! (Have not had a lot of gigs with the trombone lately, LOL).
One of the ways I look at slides is if you are heading in that direction on the neck you might as well slide in to it on the way there.
On this free lesson video I have an exercise on sliding into chords. To make the concept learnable I'll stick to a one measure roll that you likely know or is easy to pickup, then give some examples based on a couple easy to remember chord progressions using the G, C and D chords. Our focus in this lesson is learning or improving our sliding techniques so sticking with the same roll is a good example of taking on new things one at a time, and then expanding or making things more complex when each technique is firmly in your muscle memory.
It's important to take the "concept" or the technique taught and understood and expand on it freely. That is how I learned. For instance, like most of us I first learned a slide from the 2-3 cripple creek slide played on the 3rd string. After a while I got tired of sliding to the 3rd fret so I slid to the 4th fret, then I slid it backwards, then I tried it on the 4th string, and so on and so on. Try to push yourself to be creative and try new things from the techniques teachers can show you. After you learn or perfect sliding into chords, use it wherever and on what ever chord you want or any chord progression or song you want too. Also after you settle in to the sliding techniques and confident where the chords are, mix up the picking patterns or strings picked within a roll pattern so you can be sliding on different strings and mixing up the notes played within the roll, To further clarify "mixing up the notes played within the roll" mixing up the notes played within the roll pattern means change the strings picked within the same pattern. TIMTMITM is still a forward reverse roll no matter what strings you play this "Scruggs Style" forward reverse roll pattern on.
Another Version of Slide Mountain
I posted more versions of the Slide Mountain at this link. They are all a bit different.
5 More Slide Mountain Versions
Free articles and videos at RossNickerson.com
Banjo Books, CDs, Tabs and DVDs by Ross NIckerson
BanjoTeacher.com
Read Reviews at BanjoTeacher.com
3 comments on “Slipping and Sliding into Chords”
Zphyr22 Says:
Monday, October 20, 2014 @6:50:08 PM
I appreciate your help. Clear demonstration.
capo matt Says:
Monday, October 20, 2014 @7:17:47 PM
thanks for the lesson!
Dave Polston Says:
Saturday, November 15, 2014 @10:16:37 AM
Cool stuff Ross, I can recognize your playing style on recordings from your slide work, your awesome at it!!
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