With all of the emphasis on practicing right-hand rolls and left-hand pull-offs, it's easy to overlook a key factor in whether your playing sounds good or not: Playing In Tune. Playing in tune is so basic that there's often little more attention paid to it than being told "get an electronic tuner". But of course there's a lot more to it than that. Granted nobody wants to spend their first six banjo lessons learning how to get better and better at tuning the darn thing. No, you want to tune it, and get on about learning to play songs on it as soon as you can. After all, you were attracted to the banjo in the first place when you heard someone playing it, not when you heard someone tuning it.
Just like being able to play a solid, rhythmic right-hand roll is an ongoing process, so is being able to play in tune. It's not a "set it and forget it" deal. From the time you take the banjo out of the case until you put it back in, playing in tune is a continuous feedback loop made up of two parts: 1) playing the banjo and 2) listening to the banjo. It's how you know if you've played a snappy pull-off, a solid backward roll, or whether or not you got to the C chord at the 8th fret fast enough. And it's how you can tell if you're playing in tune: you listen critically to the sound coming from your banjo (the sound that you, the banjo player, are making).
Once again, being a good listener joins the discussion of how to be a good player. The better your ability to hear pitch becomes, the better you'll be at playing in tune, and the better banjo player you'll be. Have you ever seen someone take their banjo out of the case, turn on the electronic tuner and start turning the tuning pegs all without ever having hit a single note to start with? What was wrong with the tuning the banjo was already in? We'll never know. Tuning the banjo is about listening to the sound, not looking at a digital display on a tuner.
A tuner is a tool that can tell you if an individual note on your banjo matches the pitch of a pre-determined standard within its circuitry. That's it. This is not the same thing as developing your ear so that you can learn to play in tune. Using a tuner without listening is like playing from tab without listening. It can be done, but the results always fall below what I consider to be the minimum standard for playing good music.
So I suggest that you practice tuning your banjo. Think of it this way: if you wanted to improve your ability to play a 3-2 pulloff on the 3rd string, you wouldn't wait until you were at a jam session hoping to get a shot at playing the third measure of Fire Ball Mail. No, you would practice that 3-2 pulloff over and over and over at home, independent from using it in a song. You can apply this process to improving your ability to 1) tune your banjo and 2) play in tune.
Here's one way that you can start practicing tuning your banjo
Start by brushing your thumb pick across all five strings. Do this three or four times so that you establish a good starting point for the sound you'll be working with. Now play just the 5th and 1st strings together with a pinch. Now play a pinch on the 3rd and 1st strings. Now a pinch on the 4th and 1st strings. Do this several times. Don't just go through the motions, listen to what you're doing. Get used to hearing the blend of the notes. The sound of the 1st string with the high G note of the 5th string. The sound of the 1st string with the low G note of the 3rd string. The sound of the 1st string with the low D note of the open 4th string - hey, the 1st and 4th strings are an octave apart - so, that's what an octave sounds like.
Now, get out your tuner and as carefully as possible tune each string until it perfectly matches the readout on your tuner. Take as long as necessary to put your banjo in standard tuning. Depending on the accuracy of your tuner and your ability to manipulate the tuning pegs, you may or may not actually be "in tune" at the end of this process. Turn the tuner off and go back to the preceding paragraph and play the strings as indicated, focusing on the sound.
Now comes the scary part where you turn the tuning pegs and you decide whether the banjo is becoming more in tune or more out of tune. Start by playing the 1st and 3rd strings together. Just the 1st and 3rd strings - play a pinch with the thumb picking the 3rd and the middle finger picking the first. Slowly, very slowly - extremely slowly - start turning the 3rd string tuning peg lower, all the while playing a pinch on the 3rd and 1st strings. Is the sound becoming more in tune? Or does the blend of the two strings sound worse than when you started?
This is the crux of the matter
1. You play two strings together.
2. You might be in tune, but you're not sure.
3. You turn a tuning peg.
4. Are you more in tune than you were, or have you gone further out of tune?
That's what you need to practice: practice listening to how two or more strings blend together. Remember, the tuner can only tell you about one note at a time. But you, the human with the brain, the ears, the banjo, and the desire to be a better banjo player - you've got the ability to learn to tell when two notes blend together in tune.
So, spend some time turning those tuning pegs and listening to how the sound changes.
Use the electronic tuner as a reference, but remember when you hear someone say, "The tuner says I'm in tune", to ask your ears if they would agree.
Two metal fingerpicks plucking several times per second at five vibrating strings made of steel. If that's not a recipe for disaster it's at least a prescription for pick noise, the unwanted high-pitched "zing" that occurs a millisecond prior to the intended beautiful banjo note your fans so adore.
Pick noise results from slowly approaching an already vibrating string with your pick, causing the string to eventually stop moving. Between the time of initial contact by the pick and the time when the string has completely stopped vibrating, the short-lived, sizzling, metal on metal sound of pick noise occurs. Your thumb pick can add its own colorful buzz to this mix.
And what can you as a banjo player do to exorcise these demons? Awareness is the first step. You may not have even noticed that you've been contributing to the current unprecedented level of pick noise the planet is experiencing. Not to worry, the solution is in your hands.
Listen closely to the sound coming out of your banjo when you play. If you hear anything but the pure, unadulterated tone of one banjo note after another - if you hear anything resembling old AM radio static - anything like a drop of water hitting a red hot skillet - anything like a baseball being hit with an aluminum bat - you get the idea.
Location, Location, Location
When you kick off Fire Ball Mail or Blue Ridge Cabin Home, where is your right hand? If the point where your picks touch the strings is more than about two and a half inches from the bridge, you're playing in an area where increased pick noise is likely. The combination of your right hand being too far away from the bridge while your left hand is working within the first five frets (as in plenty of open strings and low notes) is an invitation that pick noise will be more than happy to RSVP.
It's easy to allow your right hand to slowly creep away from the bridge and toward the neck. And it's easy to get used to the tone you produce when your hand is four or five inches from the bridge. But from the listener's vantage point, in front of the banjo, the sound is a muddy mess punctuated only by the zing, zing, zing of - you guessed it - pick noise.
To remedy the situation, move your hand closer to the bridge so that you're picking on the section of the strings that offers more resistance to your picks. After changing the location of your right hand, you may feel that your banjo now sounds too thin, too tinny, too bright. But I assure you, from the listener's position, the full spectrum of the banjo's sound is coming through loud and clear.
Slice Through The String
Now that your right hand is in a better position to reduce pick noise, let's focus on the movement of your index and middle fingers. If you've ever seen the swing of a pro golfer teeing off and driving a ball 200 yards, then you'll have an idea of what I'm getting at when I say you need to "slice through the string" with the motion of your finger.
The movement needs to be so fast that, in less than the blink of an eye, your metal fingerpick has gone from being poised to strike the string to resting on the other side of the string, having already plucked it. Your goal is to have your fingerpick pass through the vibrating string so fast that the duration of the initial metal on metal contact is so brief as to be inaudible.
The speed at which you slice through the string is independent of the tempo at which you are playing. For example, set your metronome to 60 beats per minute and play one note per click. At that tempo, where there is a full second of time between finger movements (that's an eternity for us banjo players), the speed with which you pick the string still has to be really fast if you are to sneak past the vibrating string without triggering the alarm.
On The Other Hand
Finally, consider the left-hand's counterpart to pick noise. What happens when you play, for example, the open 4th string, and then your left-hand middle finger slowly, gradually, eventually makes its way toward the vibrating string in an effort to play a hammer-on at the 2nd fret of that string? I'll get into that topic in a future post. In the meantime, you've learned how to make your banjo sound better by making your banjo playing sound better. It's been a good day.
Depending upon which banjo teacher you talk to, which banjo instruction book you read and which banjo video you watch, one of the first things you learn as a bluegrass banjo player is that you need to practice somewhere between a handful and a banjo case-full of rolls.
Among the various banjo rolls are the following:
- Forward Roll
- Backward Roll
- Forward-Backward Roll
- Reverse Roll
- Alternating Thumb Pattern
- the Foggy Mountain Breakdown roll
If I had to pick one roll that captures the heart of the bluegrass banjo sound, I’d say it’s the forward roll. And I’d be even more specific: it’s the forward roll played in G tuning, played on the G chord (the I Chord in the Key of G), and played on the open 5th, 3rd, and 1st strings.
A single measure of the forward roll might look like this:
Or like this, if you started the roll on the 1st string:
3 Over 2
The real magic happens when you move beyond the boundaries of the single measure. That’s when the banjo’s cool beat takes center stage. As you keep that same forward roll going nonstop for two, three, four measures, you’ll become aware of the “3 over 2” sound:
It's the pattern of 3 forward roll notes (on the banjo) being played over the 2 downbeats (on the bass) in each measure.
Bluegrass Band Rhythm Section
Let’s take a look at the sound of one measure of a typical bluegrass band rhythm section. The bass plays on the two downbeats. The mandolin or fiddle chops a muted chord on the backbeat (or upbeat). And the guitar strums an up-and-down pattern that covers the four beats already mentioned, plus the four spaces between those beats.
A diagram of the bluegrass rhythm section looks like this:
The bass is represented by the disc, the mandolin chop by the vertical bar, and the guitar strums by the diagonal arrows.
The rhythmic pulse consists of the bass on the downbeats (numbers 1 and 3) and the mandolin chops on the backbeats (numbers 2 and 4). The pulse is a strong foundation that basically stays the same measure after measure.
The Cool Beat
Take a look at six measures of forward rolls being played on the G chord (the I Chord in the Key of G). Each successive downbeat is played with a different finger: thumb, index, middle. The banjo sound keeps changing while the rhythmic foundation remains the same. That's the banjo's cool beat!
Look closely at the tab. What happens on each of the downbeats? You play each downbeat with a different finger. Because you’re playing “3 over 2”, it takes three full measures before the same finger plays on the same downbeat again. You have to play from the first note of Measure #1 to the first note of Measure #4 before the thumb again plays on the first downbeat of a measure.
Backup for "Fireball Mail"
You can put the forward roll to practical use by applying it to the backup of the popular bluegrass banjo jam tune Fireball Mail. The tune starts with six measures of G and the tab shown above is a perfect example of what you can play as backup during that section. You can find several lead breaks to Fireball Mail in my book of banjo tablature "Right Hand Man".
Embrace the forward roll and listen for opportunities to try your hand at playing “3 over 2”. Other songs that start with six measures of the I Chord: Gold Rush and Bringing In The Georgia Mail come to mind. What are some others?
Start where you are right now. Use only the tools you have right now. Make the most of who you are and what you have. Right Now.
If you’re like most folks reading this blog, you’ve got a banjo, a set of picks, some banjo recordings and some banjo tab. You’ve also got a family and a career. And there are moments when you feel like it’s darn near impossible for you to learn to play as well as those other local pickers. You start trying to imagine what Earth will be like, far into the future, when you’ve finally mastered the banjo.
To paraphrase the ancient Chinese philosopher Tao Tzu – “The journey of a thousand jam sessions begins with a single forward roll.” With that in mind, I teach students to focus on what they can do, not what they can’t do.
So, start by building on what you already know. You know the forward roll – and you know that you could always play it better.
My recommendation for a great example of the forward roll in action: the banjo break on the 1949 cut of No Mother or Dad by Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. This is the same recording session that produced the classic banjo instrumental Foggy Mountain Breakdown. If you’re able to listen to the example I’ve recommended, great. If not, don’t let the perceived need to acquire yet another “thing” keep you from starting to be a better banjo player.
To play better, you need to listen better. Let’s use a forward roll on the open 5th, 3rd and 1st strings for this example. As you play the forward roll, listen critically for the following:
- The spaces between the notes
- The relative volume of the three strings
- Pick noise
- The tone you are producing
- Tuning
I’ll cover each of these items in-depth in other posts. Remember that the journey of working to be a better banjo player is one that we’re all on.
What is something that you could do, right now, today, that would make you a better banjo player?
