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quote:
Originally posted by GSquote:
Originally posted by Dean Tquote:
Originally posted by GSCan anyone recommend a simple song so my friend (a fairly good guitar player) and I (a couple of years into my banjo journey) can try and play together, and an easy-ish pattern I could use?
I really like the three popular gospel songs: Will the circle be unbroken, I'll fly away, and I saw the light. We've been hearing them our whole life, and the melody, chorus and first verse are burned into our brains. They can be played simply, and sound great. And they are also great songs to begin embellishing with standard bluegrass licks, as you progress. They work well to get a room full of folks to sing along, and are good songs to pull out when someone says "play something I know". And... if you ever get asked to play something at church, you already have something that will get everyone clapping along.
Thanks for replying, Dean T. They sure are memorable, and beautiful, songs. Enjoy your day!
Get Amazing Slowdowner. you can play any song and control the tempo and pitch of it in order to play along.
Ken
quote:
Originally posted by BG Banjoquote:
Originally posted by chuckv97There are lots of YouTube videos that one can play backup to.
Yes there are, if that is the image one aspires to. I often sit on the couch and play backup to Austin City Limits on PBS while my wife is at choir practice.
I've spent hundreds of hours on YouTube, playing banjo with all kinds of music. The bluegrass backing track channel is a bottomless pit of songs to play along with. I also love the playalong channnels with scrolling chords. It's fun to look up all my favorite rock songs from my younger days, and play along. We also play in church a lot, and I'll search the songs, and work out how to play them, to get ready for rehearsals. Playing bluegrass gospel is one thing, but working up banjo back up to contemporary praise and worship, and hymns is really fun.
Edited by - Dean T on 08/14/2026 17:48:46
I gotta chime out for YouTube University as well!
You know most of them songs you have to find the key as well. This is valuable in any situation. Sharpen those ears!
OK, what do you call it when you 'cluck and chuck' in the background?
A substitute for a backup roll. But if I do a song by myself, I'll roll thru it. Cuz I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.
Nopix
I think the word you're looking for is "vamp". That's when you do chords in the background, usually on the off beats.
I think that I am blessed to have a great community of country/bluegrass musicians to play with. I don't think I would be playing banjo and learned as much as I have without them. Every time I pick up my banjo I'm thinking how I can do better in that context.
quote:
Originally posted by BG BanjoI think that I am blessed to have a great community of country/bluegrass musicians to play with. I don't think I would be playing banjo and learned as much as I have without them. Every time I pick up my banjo I'm thinking how I can do better in that context.
That's me too. I got a guitar, only because my friends had guitars, and I hit the floor strumming chords and jamming from day one. Being nieve charted my course, because I'm a lefty, and didn't know lefty guitars existed. I learned to play righty, but my strumming coordination sucked. I started finger picking, and took to it a lot better, and found it a nice way to sound different than my friends strumming. This is why I got pegged as the banjo player, when my friends wanted to start playing out. EVERYTHING I've ever done with music, has been connected to jamming, rehearsing, and gigging with my friends. I never had any aspirations to play solo, and without my friends, I would have never picked up an instrument.
I recall that Janet Davis produced a book, Backup Banjo, in which she discussed and demonstrated banjo backup for jamming with vocalists and other instrumentalists. Too bad (for me) her book covered only bluegrass style. Clawhammer and 2-finger styles, as far as I can tell, have gotten little attention. Yet, I hope to be proven wrong.
It took me a long time to come to the same conclusion as Dean. I would have been much better off if I had mastered the simple mechanics of getting the rhythm ingrained into my mind, hand and playing. I just wasn't conscience about that simple building block.
Pete Wernick added a Jam Camp to his banjo camps in part from requests made by some friends of mine. They included pickers of various instruments who were not enjoying jamming. Eventually Pete came to the conclusion that the lower the first step of the ladder was, the better the chance for success. He started teaching that with just strumming and singing you could be making music and enjoying the journey before giving up.
I've said it before and many disagree but hold to the notion that Earls banjo book may have ruined more would be pickers than it helped.
quote:
Originally posted by GSCan anyone recommend a simple song so my friend (a fairly good guitar player) and I (a couple of years into my banjo journey) can try and play together, and an easy-ish pattern I could use?
Take a look at Strum Machine and it will help you roll or vamp along to many songs.
quote:
Originally posted by Dale DiehlIt took me a long time to come to the same conclusion as Dean. I would have been much better off if I had mastered the simple mechanics of getting the rhythm ingrained into my mind, hand and playing. I just wasn't conscience about that simple building block.
Pete Wernick added a Jam Camp to his banjo camps in part from requests made by some friends of mine. They included pickers of various instruments who were not enjoying jamming. Eventually Pete came to the conclusion that the lower the first step of the ladder was, the better the chance for success. He started teaching that with just strumming and singing you could be making music and enjoying the journey before giving up.
I've said it before and many disagree but hold to the notion that Earls banjo book may have ruined more would be pickers than it helped.
As an old friend, a folk musician, used to tell me: Start jamming before you think you're any good. Because the biggest obstacle to a new jammer is ego deflation. So start before you have any ego to deflate. Otherwise, if you could go to your first jam confident in your ability to play (pick a song) well, and get a chance to play it, it's guaranteed that the others will be playing it faster, that you're going to freeze up, and that you'll want to use your banjo as a shovel to dig a hole to hide in. So learn a couple of chords, a vamp, and go.
<<There is nothing wrong with rolling backup, in my opinion, although you should consider also adding vamping to your repertoire.>>
And the advice from Skip sounds just right.
To people who want to play lead as soon as they start-- especially FMB !! -- that's understandable, and so is wanting to drive on the interstate or the Autobahn as soon as you start driving. But first you learn to drive around a big parking lot without hitting anything, and move up cautiously (and eagerly) from there.
The Wernick Method has now had a total of 20,000 students in our classes -- all over the U.S. and over a dozen other countries. We have *data* showing that people catch on, love the approach and most important -- keep playing their instrument and developing, because now *they know how jamming works*. They get in on the ground floor -- without books or tab! -- and start playing 2- and 3-chord songs with others, and having fun doing it, so they become motivated to *practice* to be better jammers.
Jamming is the key to motivation (as opposed to the closet players hooked on tab, and struggling to get it memorized) when there's a much easier way. I was taught how to recognize and match guitar chords in a jam, and almost immediately I was playing fun and DO-able music with other people. This is 65 years ago, and led to my deep involvement in bluegrass music. The Wernick Method is to do the same thing for anyone who wants a good start on playing.
Just like an apprentice doesn't start by doing what the experienced practitioner does, the beginning banjo player should learn how to do the simplest backup (strumming easy chords, keeping time), graduates to a TITM roll (the easiest roll to play and keep time with... the beats all fall on the first T) and with that much knowledge can jam for hours with people who sing any of the many 3-chord songs in bluegrass.
Here's an article on DrBanjo.com that I wrote years ago to help redirect people who'd show up at my camps, frustrated that after 6 months of lessons, they could only stumble thru a few tabs. We get them playing real music almost immediately by lowering the bar. That has saved the day for a lot of players by starting them the way a person learns a language -- by hearing, watching, and imitating. People can understand and talk long before they can read and write!
Would you give a dictionary to a person just learning English? No, it's better to just start with slow, super-easy conversations with them. A dictionary is good, but like tab, it's better used once the language itself has taken hold.
Once a person can start finding melody notes by ear, then the trick is to put them where they belong in rolls. That's the hardest part of learning, but if someone can change chords and keep time and do a simple roll, they've got a great head start. That article explains "best ways to start" and what I *don't* recommend: learning from tab right from the start, without the context of actually knowing how to keep time in a jam. Most people who do that fail (! ! -- of course, *some* succeed, but most banjos in the world are sitting in attics and closets due to poor teaching, IMO).
It's fine to start by playing simple backup! At least you're playing with others. That's the FOUNDATION -- it's fun and it's fundamental. It leads to big things if a person stays on track.
For people who want to try to get on board and actually start playing banjo -- with others -- the play-along Slow Jam video (instant and very affordable download) I offer has 17 standards and one needs only know how to play G, C, D, and A to play along with the whole 2-hour video. It's a best-seller and has helped a lot of people (not just banjo players) get a meaningful start. Once someone knows how to play, THEN is a good time to work with tab. Just like a dictionary is useful once a person knows some of the language, enough to speak and read it.
Having taught thousands of students in-person I feel I know what I'm talking about. I stand behind all my published methods, which have helped many thousands of players. Start on the right track and you have the best chance of success! Playing simple backup is not very hard and makes more sense than trying to learn exact solos that can't be played at actual jam speed without tons of practice. Having fun is motivating. Start jamming, playing backup and having fun and be patient. You *will* improve and eventually lead playing will become doable without having to sit with tab in the closet.
Good luck everyone! I hope your banjo dreams come true. Pete
quote:
Originally posted by Dean TI guess my point is that it doesn’t have to be complicated and frustrating. I came to find out, that what I started off doing, is called rolling backup. It doesn’t take long to learn several simple chord forms, and how to make them minor or 7ths. You now have the tools to play along with hundreds of songs. Either singing them as you roll along, playing with friends, or playing along to backing tracks or recordings. You start having fun right away, and the complicated stuff will come in its own time.
My advice to anyone feeling overwhelmed by complicated stuff, is to keep it simple. Like strumming a guitar and singing a song. Just roll along to your favorite songs, and have fun. Which begs the question that’s the title of this thread.
Sometimes people talk about backup and soloing as if they are entirely different. Doing simple picking can lead to soloing simply because most of the melody is right there in the chord you're playing. Finding the right string and playing with the right emphasis turns picking (rolling) into soloing. Not the world's most sophisticated solo but good enough for most jams I've been in!
I started playing at home on our Sears banjo using chords and a flat pick (that's how Dad played a banjo) for my first 8 years.
I feel this was a great foundation for hearing key and chord changes all over the neck by ear which carried over into my fingerpicks playing (and guitar playing) and enjoying chord usage and colorations in my present-day playing.
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Originally posted by bosbornequote:Sometimes people talk about backup and soloing as if they are entirely different. Doing simple picking can lead to soloing simply because most of the melody is right there in the chord you're playing. Finding the right string and playing with the right emphasis turns picking (rolling) into soloing. Not the world's most sophisticated solo but good enough for most jams I've been in!
I tell my students that real bluegrass backup is just like lead--but really boring lead.
I just call it Bluegrass Continuo...or for pickers, Backup
Edited by - Jack Baker on 08/22/2026 07:13:33
quote:
Originally posted by Pete WernickI think Mike said a good mouthful with this simple comment: <snip> Good luck everyone! I hope your banjo dreams come true. Pete
When I try to see what a class actually looks like [to assess whether it would likely work for me], I get to a link for a video "Watch a Wernick Method class [and hear what the students and teacher say.]" Then I'm asked to "sign in." When I try to sign in I get to "video unavailable."
quote:
Originally posted by Owenquote:
Originally posted by Pete WernickI think Mike said a good mouthful with this simple comment:Good luck everyone! I hope your banjo dreams come true. Pete When I try to see what a class actually looks like [to assess whether it would likely work for me], I get to a link for a video "Watch a Wernick Method class [and hear what the students and teacher say.]" Then I'm asked to "sign in." When I try to sign in I get to "video unavailable."
Probably an anti-Canada thing....you know - tariffs, wildfire smoke, Kentucky bourbon taken off the shelves, 51st State, on & on ;-)
Edited by - chuckv97 on 08/22/2026 08:29:42
I dunno ... it doesn't say "unavailable in your country," rather reroutes me back to some previous page......... Is this what guys mean when they "loop" a part of an instructional video?
I think many of the banjo instruction methods think you may be coming to the banjo from knowing a previous instrument, like a guitar, and understanding something about backup or how music works.
Some of us start with a banjo as a first instrument and know nothing about how a band, jamming or even accompanying ourselves singing works so we try to learn to play the solos given to us. All we know is we like the sound of a banjo. This was me. YouTube didn't exist yet, didn't know what most songs were supposed to sound like.
A year or 2 or 3 into my banjo journey, I was given a Tenor guitar. I tuned it like a banjo and followed some guitar instruction and strummed chords and attempted to sing. I learned a lot about music and banjo playing from that.
People who write instruction methods are probably more musically inclined than many beginners and maybe gloss over things they expect us to understand because it is 2nd nature to them. Beginners also can overlook the basics because it seems simple or non exciting.
Some of the best results I had teaching were playing guitar, singing and having a student play banjo backup. Then, eventually, have them play a break and switch back to backup, 90% of a banjo's job.
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