Softly Softly

My brother, Carl, has played guitar since he was a kid. He's always played electric. but in recent months he's gone acoustic got himself a guitar and mandolin. Here's a new tune that he's written on guitar.

Softly Softly

Rolling Those Fingers

Been practicing a few tunes in the bluegrass fingerpicking style and there's a couple of picking patterns, or rolls, that I've had to learn. They are the 'alternating thumb roll' and the 'forward roll'.

Here's what they sound like and the tab for them.









Alternating Thumb Roll


Forward Roll

PB Guttenburg - The Blackest Crow

PB Guttenburg writes;

Dear NBB
Like the new banjo direction-Keep on Pluckin'-
It's been a little while since the last video("The Union Messenger") Christmas has come and gone ,the new year is well and truly here and I swear the snow is melting!
Here is the new video for "the Blackest Crow "-
the 19th century song of parting done in a father and daughter style by PeeBee and Red Milly with lead guitar by Billy Ray.
"The Family that plays folk together stays together folks!"
Hope y'all enjoy.

Old Time Religion

I've been working on my rolls and old time religion is starting to emerge. Its getting the picking pattern down so that it starts to come automatically thats takes time, but keep practicing.

Old Time Religion

Jesse James - up the neck

Tim writes:
(You).. put up a nice version of Jesse James on guitar. So I decided to give old Jesse James a try playing the chords up the neck

I’m still playing in G with the G chord as a D shape at 9th fret, C chord is F shape at 10th fret, and D is the bar D at 7th fret.

Just wanted to share this to show folks what the growing pains are like when we step out of our comfort zone to learn something new.

Tim


Jesse James by Tim in Korea

Aussie Frailers

There's another new banjo blog starting up, on the other side of the world this time. Aussie Frailers

It's aimed at antipodean banjo bashers but it's sprung from Tangier Sound and I think the ethos will be fairly inclusive - even for poms!

Good luck fellas.

and yes I know the image is dodgy... (sorry)

So if you've got any stuff to share youknow where to go.

Jesse James

I've been messing around with this song on various instruments for two years, here's a version of it on guitar. Plus I've had another go at singing, so cover your ears!

The People Have Spoken

The result was overwhelming - the old header stays. Maybe this one was too artsy fartsy!

Thanks for voting.

Bluegrass Exercises

Been working on fingerpicking the banjo. I've carried on with Tom Dooley and also picked up Goodnight Ladies and Old Time Religion. Both tunes carry on the alternating thumb roll pattern but progressively add in slides. They're still a bit slow and dodgy at the moment...

Tom Dooley



Goodnight Ladies



Old Time Religion

May the Yorkshire be With You!

Carl writes:
Dear Andy I could not get that previous link to open for love nor money. But when I was looking for it on you tube I noticed these guys linked to it.
I imagine this to be the last thing you would ever see when the two serial killers finally take your blindfold off!!

Banjowise

Came across a new blog 'Banjowise', and the guy over there has posted some pretty good Hobart Smith on one of his first posts. Definitely one to watch!

Tom Dooley Tab

Here's a simple tab for the Tom Dooley exercise I posted using alternating thumb rolls on the banjo. The pattern is Thumb, Index, Thumb, Middle (T I T M).

I'll try and make my handwriting a bit clearer next time.

Tom Dooley

Even though I'm obsessed with my new guitar at the moment, I haven't completely abandoned the banjo. In fact I've been having a bit of a rethink recently and I've got New Year resolution number 2 - work on three finger picking skills this year. I've been messing around with picking but developed an annoying finger brush action which works ok with uke and guitar but really annoys me on the banjo. So I thought I try and get a more conventional action before the habit is too ingrained.

I've gone back to the Mel Bay book 'First Banjo Lessons' by Jack Hatfield, which was the first book I tried to learn from two years ago. I found the bluegrass finger picking style too difficult to manage while also trying to coordinate my left hand on the frets, but now I feel ready to give it a go.

This is a simple finger picking roll pattern and I've been working on it endlessly!

I've got myself a scanner recently so I might even start posting a bit of tab. I can't be bothered with the various tab writing programs so they'll probably be hand written.

Tom Dooley

Major and Minor chords on the guitar

These are a couple of samples playing with the minor chord progression I posted a couple of days ago in Am, and a 1,4,5 Major chord progression in D. The major progression follows the structure for Jesse James but I've transposed it into the Key of D. So instead of G,C,D7 it becomes D,G, A7.

A minor


Jesse James in D

I Sold My Soul For Rock 'n Roll

Or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love the... Deer Shed Festival!

It's official, I'm now part of the crew for The Deer Shed Festival 2010. The Wedding Present are headlining and will be playing the whole of the 'Bizarro' album plus other hits. Put it in your diary for the 17th July and get over to Baldersby, North Yorkshire!

Visit The Deer Shed Festival site for info and tickets or pop over to Deer Shed on Facebook for updates on the lineup.

Minor Chords

Messing around with minor chords on the guitar. It's weird but minor chords sound strange on the banjo - maybe it's just me. At the moment I'm loving the sad, sad sound of Am, Dm, E, and C on guitar.

Help! I need somebody....

Alan writes:

Hi Andrew, I came across your site while trying to find out about two finger picking on the 5string banjo ,I,m in the twilight years so no spring chicken but still would love to play.I have had my open back G banjo over the past year and I,m still struggling just to play some kind of tune. I have tried hard with three picks and several books and dvds know a few chords.then I bought a dvd on ebay by Happy Traum who plays two finger picking ,he calls it mountain music and just maybe I could manage this. So I have contacted you to see if you could point me in the right way of finding more about this style may some place I could get Tabs for two finger picking. I live in sompting sunny sussex down south,any way you know I,ll be very happy with any help so a Happy New Year and all the best
alan

Alan

There are a whole load of different fingerpicking styles out there, about as many as there a different tunings on the banjo. If you've tried for a year to get going with the fingerpicking style and still having problems, maybe a strumming style would be a better place to start. I know I struggled and got disheartned with the bluegrass three finger style and eventually started 'frailing', or pick and strum as it was easier for me to pick up. As someone who hasn't played any other instruments I found the bluegrass finger rolls and left hand techniques hard to learn at the same time.

I got a good book by Tim Jumper called 'How to play: Banjo' it starts by introducing simple pick and strum technique, moves onto 'downpicking' which is picking and struming with with the back of the nail, and finally moves onto three finger picking. I've found that after two years of working through these various techniques I'm ready to go back and try the three finger technique. With the frailing method you can get a song going fairly quick. I think it took me about three-six months of pretty heavy practice to get the action going naturally - check out the earlier posts!

here's a link to amazon for the tim jumper book
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Play-Banjo-Tim-Jumper/dp/0825623529

The other place to go is Daily Frail.com Pat and Patrick Costello are a mine of useful hints tips and encouragement and I've found there free online tutorial invaluable. They have all their videos on you tube for free and the series on basic technique is where I would tell anyone to go to see demonstation and techniques explained in a non technical way.
Try these for a start http://www.youtube.com/user/Dobro33H#grid/user/EB220FDB09CFC903
These guys have also pubished some of the best instructional books and DVDs that I've seen so maybe give those a look too.

Hope this helps.

Good luck and let me know how you get on.

Andy

Anyone else got any suggestions for Alan - contact acwesley@aol.com

G, C and D7 on the Guitar

First go on the guitar, messing around with the old 1,4,5 in G.

2010: Memo to Self

or 'Oops I've Done it Again!'

New Year resolution - no more instruments!

I've gone an added another instrument to the growing collection and Mrs Banjoboy's eyes are rolling on a permanent basis at the moment. Yes, I've bought an acoustic guitar and once again it's love - she sounds so sweet.

But romance aside, I did have the feeling when I was playing with the lads, that I played banjo 'cos that was all I could play. And while the chaps where happy to swap bass, guitar, banjo or mandolin I was unable to be flexible.

The uke got me into playing another instrument, it's easy to pick up and you can frail, pick or strum, which made the transition easier. I could take a lot of what I'd learnt on the banjo straight over to the uke. I also found that music theory lessons meant I could pick up the fundamentals fairly easily, and while I've not pursued the uke quite as hard as the banjo, I can find a scale(eventually) and chord progressions make more sense.

The uke also made me realise that despite the potential of the banjo it's an instrument of its time and playing tunes from outside of the folk canon just sounds plain wrong - unless you are very, very good, which I'm not. The uke also let me get into playing more modern pop or rock tunes and it's quite liberating once in a while to come into the 20th century for a bit of light relief. The banjo is forever tied to 'G' tuning and the uke seemed to have a greater range and variety without constantly re-tuning.

So, why guitar? The last couple of times we've played together it's become more apparent that my limited skills on any instrument better serve a group situation by playing rhythm, and letting the more skilled musicians play lead. If I'm going to do this it seemed to me that I'd have to pick up the guitar. Also, I love the comparative depth of tones, and flexibility the instrument has, and lets face it, it's been the driving forces of modern music for the last 100 years. So I succumbed to the charms of a Yamaha F310, which at less than £100 is great value, so lets see what happens. I've found the open chord forms easier to pick up than I thought, and finger picking on the banjo and uke has helped get me going. So, before the next practice I'm going to drive everyone mad by hammering G, C and D7. Jesse James here we come!