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Originally posted by jsinjin

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Originally posted by steve davis

A teacher can be anyone that plays better than you.

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Could be for sure.   These days you can teach stuff without knowing what you're doing!

my teacher that I use online for clawhammer challenges me exactly enough to be hard and she also answers my continuous questions about very difficult songs and how the artists play with patience.  
 

I actually care a lot about learning music theory and playing from tablature but she saw my weaknesses of not understanding how to hear when chord changes occur and not playing with "flourish" and helped a lot.

but that hasn't stopped me from trying very difficult songs in the background dreaming.

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You lost me when you said you could teach stuff without knowing what you are doing.

 

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You lost me when you said you could teach stuff without knowing what you are doing.

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I didn't say you could teach stuff effectively.  With the low barrier to YouTube, podcasts, online education portals and more it's pretty easy to just start teaching!

John: "...  not understanding how to hear when chord changes occur and not playing with "flourish" and helped a lot."

Without giving out proprietary info, can you give us a CliffsNotes version of the help she gave?  [Particularly on understanding "how" to hear chord changes.]

Re. teaching/learning:  I've tried a few different teachers' offerings via books / CDs / videos.   It's not uncommon that before I get very far in, I'm shaking my head and wondering [or asking my wife]: "Geez, don't they run this stuff by real students before they publish it!?!?"

I learned to hear chord changes from my Dad the way he learned from his Mom.
Dad would tell me the chord changes as they happened while we were playing.
He said someday I would just "Get it" and when I did "Get it" to tell him so he could stop having to tell me.
Repetition over time.Habit development.

You kids get away from those difficult tunes!

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Originally posted by Owen

John: "...  not understanding how to hear when chord changes occur and not playing with "flourish" and helped a lot."

Without giving out proprietary info, can you give us a CliffsNotes version of the help she gave?  [Particularly on understanding "how" to hear chord changes.]

Re. teaching/learning:  I've tried a few different teachers' offerings via books / CDs / videos.   It's not uncommon that before I get very far in, I'm shaking my head and wondering [or asking my wife]: "Geez, don't they run this stuff by real students before they publish it!?!?"

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A very basic explanation re chord changes. When the melody goes to a note that makes you "uncomfortable" with the chord you're playing, it's time to move to another chord. Since 90% of songs have three chords, it's one of the other two. If all the chord/melody combinations sound equally comfortable, you got me stumped. 

Methinks Woody Guthrie didn’t worry about chord changes ,, he plays and sings this whole song with one chord, except at the very end where he figured he better throw in something else.
youtu.be/BH2DJvgNlMA?si=jzcPYAv_uxLjWhzh

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Originally posted by Laurence Diehl

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Originally posted by Owen

John: "...  not understanding how to hear when chord changes occur and not playing with "flourish" and helped a lot."

Without giving out proprietary info, can you give us a CliffsNotes version of the help she gave?  [Particularly on understanding "how" to hear chord changes.]

 

A very basic explanation re chord changes. When the melody goes to a note that makes you "uncomfortable" with the chord you're playing, it's time to move to another chord. Since 90% of songs have three chords, it's one of the other two. If all the chord/melody combinations sound equally comfortable, you got me stumped. 

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Thanks Laurence.  It seems to work quite well for my well-practiced songs, but for stuff I don't normally try [but nonetheless "think" I know the melody] like Jingle Bells / Happy Birthday / Twinkle Twinkle, it toot-de sweet turns into a unrecognizable, and truth be told frustrating, hodge-podge.  The chords I switch to, using the NNS 1,4,5, both sound equally uncomfortable. 

 On my well-practiced ones, my muscle memory (?) still takes me to the "wrong" one 'way more often than I think it should .... sometimes even while I'm looking at the page with the words/chord changes.... Aaarrgh!!  I can be doing a 2-chord song for the Nth thousandth time and the third chord of 1,4,5 just "happens" .... not a lot, but.... ??  AarrghX2!!

Initially it's hard to beat the positive effects of having someone speak the chords as they happen.
Once you've heard the progression "spoken" a handful of times the placements become more obvious.
Once one tune is accomplished we find repeating progressions (or partials) in other tunes.

As we absorb these tunes' progressions one at a time we start to expand our feel for changes.
There aren't many mysteries in a 3 or 4 chord tune concerning the progression.
The one basic "problem" is in their location.

Once you get comfortable with chords in the key of G you can instantly apply that "G knowledge" to all the other keys as the chord shapes and their relative positions within the keys are identical.

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Thanks Laurence.  It seems to work quite well for my well-practiced songs, but for stuff I don't normally try [but nonetheless "think" I know the melody] like Jingle Bells / Happy Birthday / Twinkle Twinkle, it toot-de sweet turns into a unrecognizable, and truth be told frustrating, hodge-podge.  The chords I switch to, using the NNS 1,4,5, both sound equally uncomfortable. 

 

 

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I also can not hear chord changes at all.   I'm completely lost when they occur.  This idea that "it sounds wrong" makes no sense to me at all because when I hear happy birthday played with "the right" chords vs "the wrong ones" i just have to guess.   I think it comes from 50 years of listening to almost no music at all.  I just never cared about any type of music and still really don't.   I can hear classical music which I occasionally attend but I hinestly just thought the composers sort of just picked notes one after another.   The 1-4-5 thing makes sense mathematically but I seriously can't hear it.  I can watch people make changes but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't know.   I don't think I have the mental defect that some rare people have with no ability to hear notes and differentiate but I do think that my years of never playing music, listening to it, or even hearing it stunted my growth.  I never hat tapes or cd's as a kid, no favorite bands and always studied and read in complete silence.   People say "you'll know when it's off" but I really don't and I think it's because I don't really bother to listen to the songs.   I just go by either the tablature or muscle memory.

John, can you hear any difference when just two chords are played ... not within a song, but just the two isolated / by themselves?  I.e. not trying to name or identify them, or say whether they sound pleasant together,  .... just hear a change ... something different between the two.

I can understand the inability to hear/anticipate/predict/"feel" the changes when played within  a song/tune.  I'm wondering what the teacher actually did to help in regards to, "...saw my weaknesses of not understanding how to hear when chord changes occur [...] and helped a lot."

John, check out some basic ear training videos on YouTube. I hope they’ll help.

Off topic!!!

-I always have trouble telling notes apart. If they are more than 3 half steps apart I can tell the difference especially listening for low and high. I have to randomly guess the note as to what it is but I can tell the high from the low. Anytime I hear a note all I can think of is “it can be one of five strings on 17 frets”. But I’ve accepted it and I just go with learning the songs by rote. I don’t enjoy playing with others or jamming so I don’t worry about it.

jsinjin

I don't think "what is this note?" when I play, I just know where the note is on what string or strings. I can figure it out, but why? If you can pick out the melody, it isn't necessary to think "this is a G, this is a B, etc.". Nothing wrong with knowing the name of each note, but knowing the SOUND and where it's found on the strings is important.

 I interpret, "I can tell the high from the low" to mean that you do hear a difference when chords change.  My very limited knowledge says that's good.  

Can you give the title(s) to a song or three that you want to be able to sing by yourself or around the campfire?

Probably the wrong thread to go over this. I don’t worry about the whole picking out the melody anymore. It doesn’t frustrate me at all with my teacher and I’m learning to play. My two least favorite things are 1) the idea of playing with others in a group and 2) learning a song by ear.

I don’t know very many banjo songs. I watch Tom Collins play “lost gander” and I thought it was incredible jumping from the chiming sounds to the clawhammer sounds. I enjoyed hearing the brainjo guy play concerning hobbits from lord of the rings and I downloaded the tablature and played it for weeks and weeks until I can completely play it but only from tab. I truly decided to learn to play music for the purpose of learning music theory, how to read and interpret sheet music and to learn to play a few songs by the campfire. One much say “why did you pick banjo” because I was at a fancy guitar and stringed instrument store and my fingers didn’t feel strong enough to push down the guitar and the fancy banjo I picked up was small (11 inch chuck lee whyte laydie called rose hill) and well made. I bought it knowing nothing about banjo music besides Kermit’s rainbow song and we have a Christmas album with auld lang syne by lonesome travelers and callin baton rough by Garth brooks. I started learning clawhammer because I didn’t know you needed picks. My kids had learned piano and we have one so I figured it was just like that, download some tablature and start playing.

But after starts and fits and problems I’ve shifted to playing with a very talented instructor. I play all the time. I don’t worry about chord changes or hearing the music or feeling it.

I went to one jam session and it was a bewildering experience of people far too talented and so many notes they all seemed to know innately that I’m definitely not going back. I’m a super super introvert. Nothing makes me happier than just being in my study or lab and working by myself and same thing with music.

John: "... to learn to play a few songs by the campfire."

Owen: "Can you give the title(s) to a song or three that you want to be able to sing [...] around the campfire?"

Do you envision others by the campfire singing along?

When you say "play" by the campfire, are you talking about actual "picking" or some form of rolls/vamping(?)/strumming/?? to accompany singing?  [I'm as inept with a guitar as a banjo, and it's likely a pizz-poor analogy, but in my ignorance (?), what I'm comparing it to is the diff between lead and rhythm guitar playing.] 

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Originally posted by Owen

John: "... to learn to play a few songs by the campfire."

Owen: "Can you give the title(s) to a song or three that you want to be able to sing [...] around the campfire?"

Do you envision others by the campfire singing along?

When you say "play" by the campfire, are you talking about actual "picking" or some form of rolls/vamping(?)/strumming/?? to accompany singing?  [I'm as inept with a guitar as a banjo, and it's likely a pizz-poor analogy, but in my ignorance (?), what I'm comparing it to is the diff between lead and rhythm guitar playing.] 

 

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Just me.  Just playing a song, no singing, just hearing the coolness of the strings in patterns.   I actually like complicated patterns.  I love classical music kind of stuff with few repeats.   like Bach's prelude in C where it is like 35 separate chords with no repeat except the first C and last C.   I love how Chopin sounds and Strauss with the complex run up's and changes in key.   I just like to pick out stuff like that and try to play

Feeling the changes doesn't just happen right away.It is built on by repetition.
It's the formation of a brand new habit.
To have a coach in the beginning saves a lot of time wondering if you are on the right track.

By staying with one tune you get used to where the changes happen,but first you have to learn what chords go with the key you are in.
This is simple because there are so few chords (3 or 4) that make up a key and some tunes that only have 1 or 2 chords.Sure,there are tunes with more than 4 chords,but that is much easier to deal with once the basics are learned.

Playing by ear is also playing by the rules of each key.The easy part is that once you understand one key,G for instance,you automatically understand the key of Eb.

Once you can correctly chord "Going Down That Road Feeling Bad" by as many attempts as it takes play similarly constructed tunes and see if you can chord those in the first 3 attempts.

Learn 3 ways to rhythmically chord I,IV and V shapes starting with barre,F shape and D shape.Get used to your chords.

My Dad was right when he said "Someday you'll just get it.Let me know when you do so I can stop having to tell you."

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Originally posted by Old Hickory

Tony Trischka's and Noam Pikelny's schools on Artistworks have material -- both tunes and technique -- organized within beginner, intermediate and advanced sections. Plenty of content in all categories. While they encourage people to work at the level most appropriate to their ability, it's online so everyone is free to work on what they choose.

And what's wrong with that? You offer an observation. I don't know if it's accurate. But what's the issue? I think people ought to push themselves. They'll find out what they can do and what they can't.

If the reason for your comment is people posting videos of themselves playing material they can't quite handle, what's the harm? One of the features on Artistworks is the Video Exchange in which people post videos of what they're working on for Tony or Noam to review and comment. Then the video become available for all members to see. Yes, we see some people stretching. Again, what's the harm?

Only when people not ready for it try to play in a performance-tempo jam does their over-reach affect others.

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I know for me the harm is working, working and working more at tunes or licks that is in reality above my level to finally feel like I can't play not good or right enough and then I snowballed to no confidence, which led me to giving up. 18 years later i started playing again and taking it slow only to realize I never had the basics like I needed. I had no foundation, so I've took it easy and I've worked my way back to some of the more complex stuff and things I thought took a bela to play, I now find manageable somehow. And the more of a foundation you have, the easier the "hard" stuff seems. 

“ And the more of a foundation you have, the easier the "hard" stuff seems” ,,, THIS !

Each tune you figure out leads to understanding the next one.

 flwjr24 

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Great post. Good for you on coming back to banjo determined to work on the basics so you could play those pieces that previously seemed like a reach.

A few hours after my "what's the harm?" post that you've responded to, I did come back with a message agreeing that bad habits is in fact a risk and problem of the self-taught. Working on material you're not ready for is itself not as harmful as the reason you're not ready being that your basic technique is wrong. If you're not playing the easy things right (and I'm referring to technique, not how songs go) you're certainly not going to play the more challenging things right.

Still, those players are only harming themselves -- in being obstacles to their own progress.

Me too. One of the complaints that came up in Wernicks banjo camp, many years ago, was the lack of simple and intermediate tabs in the books then. Even Pete acknowledged that.
Years later, Pete spoke of the frustration many banjo players experience, and was one the reasons he started his jam camps.
He wanted to get people making music and having fun, even if it just ment learning to strum your instrument and change chords on a two chord song while you sing.
My first banjo camp was 94' , for you younger guys, that was before the internet and YouTube took off.

Just to repeat, I have a number of easy and intermediate banjo arrangements with tab and tutorials in my video library on my homepage,, they’re also in the BHO video library.