Banjo Scale On One String-FREE Lesson
Today we’re going to learn how to play a banjo scale on one string. This allows us to see the fingerboard vertically, as opposed to horizontally. Think of horizontally as ACROSS the strings and vertically as up and down the banjo fingerboard.
People often ask me, “How do you move up and down the fingerboard fluidly?”
This is partly how to do it. You need to know your scales up and down on every string so you are never lost.
I didn’t come up with this idea. One of my heroes, jazz guitarist Jim Hall used to tie rubber bands around certain strings during practice This limited him to only 1-2 strings and forced him to learn the fingerboard vertically. Over the years, I found this limitation practice quite useful for developing my fingerboard knowledge of the banjo and guitar.
G Major Scale On One String
On the guitar, there’s what’s called the CAGED system. I always joke and say it’ll keep you in a CAGE. There’s nothing innately wrong with the system, some of the scales and fingerings I teach on guitar come out of it. Something similar exists for banjo.
The drawback to these little boxes are it can confine you to little boxes. You eventually get stuck playing in one box at the third fret, then another at the 7th fret. However, you can’t shift up and down through them effortlessly.
This video shows you the beginnings of how to shift up and down the neck from a VISUAL perspective.
In this video, I cover:
- Notes in G Major Scale
- Where they are on the Banjo Fingerboard
- Adding a Roll to the notes
- How to improvise with the notes and move them randomly
Notes in a G Major Scale
G A B C D E F#
Start with your third string open (G note) and work down the frets as follows
0 2 4 5 7 9 11 12
That’s all there is to the G major scale on one string.
From there you can add rolls like a FORWARD ROLL: 3 531531
Closing Thoughts On One String Scale
Your goal is to not only learn the scale but to be able to start the scale on any note at any time. That’s when you know you have it. When you can play the notes RANDOMLY, in any order.
If you enjoyed this video, my recommendation is see if you can do the scale starting on the 2nd string Open (B) and work your way down the second string.
KEEP IN MIND- A scale does NOT have to always start on the root note (G). In real music, a scale run can start from almost any note.
Visit my video on two octave G major Scales if you want an even more extensive practice exercise.
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