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Claw-Grass

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For those who admire and wish to learn the style of Mark (claw-grass) Johnson

48 Members, Created 11/3/2012 -

Administrators: ronwalker49 (owner)

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From Jock Elliott on 9/16/2015 5:12:53 AM

I come from the folk tradition; I'm old enough to have seen the original Kingston Trio live. I play Scruggs, a little melodic, and frail on an original Vega Whyte Laydie built in 1910 or 1911.

It strikes me that Mark Johnson is to clawhammer as Bela Fleck is to bluegrass -- they are on an entirely different planet from us mere mortals.

The Homespun Mark Johnson DVD seems pretty decent, and I'm trying to learn the principles (basic rolls, etc.) of clawgrass so I can apply them to my own stuff.

4 Comments
	ronwalker49 says: 9/16/2015 6:31:28 AM I set up my camcorder in front of a big screen TV and filmed highlights of mark Johnson's instructional video, then brought them back in from windows movie maker and slowed it down with the onboard effects... I was able to really follow what was going on and it helped a lot, but I have not been copying marks technique I'm just using bits and pieces of it to enhance my own style..
	Jock Elliott says: 9/16/2015 7:06:43 AM Ron, That is basically the direction I intend to go. An analogy: once I learned the basic Scruggs roll, I found that I could just "roll along" with a group of players by reading the guitar player's hands (for the chords) and playing the same chords myself. My big take-away from the Mark Johnson/Homespun dvd is that, unlike clawhammer which constantly drones the 5th string, a lot of Johnson's clawgrass work is on the "interior" strings between the 1st and 5th. With less droning, I think, it becomes more interesting. Further (at the risk of becoming tedious about this), a person could learn Johnson's compositions -- like Mosley's Rangers -- like a classical guitar set piece, or they could learn the clawgrass rolls and try to improvise with them when possible. Finally, Ron, I have come up with my own clawhammer version of Steam-Powered Aereoplane, but it isn't really clawgrass. Would it be uncool to upload it here?
	ronwalker49 says: 9/17/2015 3:34:11 AM I do not think it would be a problem...I think we can do our own versions of pretty much anything:-)
	ronwalker49 says: 9/17/2015 3:38:12 AM I wish I would have started with marks video instead of teaching myself too frail first
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