Most banjo players get exposed to slides pretty early in their training. “Cripple Creek” is one song that uses them. However, it may be quite some time (or never) before they find out about what I call Slide backs or reverse banjo slides. I learned…
This is something I often hear from new students-I’m playing the exact notes from the recording but I don’t sound anything like them. It just doesn’t sound right! Making the notes sound RIGHT Understand that with music you have an equation (Let’s say X, Y,…
A few years ago, I did a scale on one string video. This turned out to be one of my more popular videos on YouTube. Today I want to further elaborate on this vertical scale approach. It’s one of my daily practice routines. The TAB…
One of the things I felt missing from the very beginning of my musical studies was How to Practice? It’s funny that all this time is spent on how to hold the instrument, where to put your fingers, and learning chords and scales, yet many…
Today we will talk about finding the vi minor chord all over your banjo neck. Why the vi minor? Because it is the most common minor chord that occurs in songs. Listen to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” for a good example; I did a write-up on…
Learning the guitar and not sure how to go about learning the fingerboard? A lot of teachers start students with scales (if you are unlucky, they’ll give you a sheet with SEVEN modes with Greek names). That’s what my guitar instructor did when I was…
Today we continue into how to play 13th chords on the 5-string banjo. This is part two from my prior blog post on how to play 9 chords on the banjo. 13 chords are probably one of the most elaborate chords you will use. These…
One of the first things people buy when they purchase an instrument is one of those chord charts with 200 chords on them. You don’t want to do that, you want to understand the CONNECTIONS between each chord so you don’t have to memorize all…
Today we are going to learn what I think is the easiest guitar scale. It only uses two fingers. What is a Pentatonic Scale? Penta means FIVE, so a pentatonic scale is a five note scale. Here are the notes within an E minor pentatonic…
Banjo Chords – 9th Chords 9 and 13 chords can add additional colors in place of your basic 7th chords. These are sometimes referred to as EXTENSIONS. How do we get to these 9 and 13 chords? Let’s take a G Major scale: G A…
While I do play without a capo much of the time, I still occasionally rely on a capo for playing bluegrass tunes in the keys of A and B. Every banjo player needs a good capo. The great news is you don’t need to spend…
Today we’ll talk about visualizing intervals on the fingerboard and why they are important. We begin with the major 3rd interval. We begin with the major 3rd interval because it’s the first step within a major chord. When you’re improvising, the notes within the chord…
TC Electronic UniTune I recently lost my electronic clip-on tuner (A Boss TU-10) . I spent a few days looking for it and finally gave up. I discovered it out in my yard a week later (totally ruined by the elements). I can’t say how…
These are three most types of woods for banjos. There are all sorts of other woods for banjos these days. Cherry, White Oak, and Bamboo….I’m not sure about that last one but there are all sorts of new woods out there. I’m only concerning myself…