a group who encourage and motivate one another to stick to, and get the most out of, our practice time

14 Members, Created 5/7/2014 -

Administrators: skiptomylou (owner)

weekend practice

From skiptomylou on 5/12/2014 1:39:16 PM

on Friday i did a search and read this on a thread about learning to play up the neck:

I'll tell you how i learned it, You won't need tab, just time and your ears. Take the tune you know absolutely best, for me it was my first tune, Shady Grove. play the first low position note to the tune and then find the corresponding note up the neck. Then do the rest of the notes. Seriously, thats it. after you know the notes you will spend a bunch of time making them sound good, but it gets easier everytime. It teaches you your banjo, it teaches your ear to find unison notes, it teaches you flexibility, it teaches you improvisation. Tab won't really teach you any of that, not that i have any problem with tab. But if you start with a tune you already know, than you also already know the notes, which is mostly what the tab teaches you. Most of the notes will be on the first string. 

this inspired me to try it - and i decided to follow the poster's lead and work on shady grove.

as soon as i started i felt very energized and excited - i forgot what an enjoyable tune shady grove is to play - and i did manage to work out a section to play up the neck, which i've been practicing, as well as practicing singing along with the song, and also adding other bits of embellishment/variation.

i did an hour on Friday, an hour and a half on Saturday, an hour on Sunday, and I've done an hour tonight. i've also recorded it to see how it is sounding and i'm pretty pleased with it - though not ready to post the results yet, still lots of practice required!

main thing i'm pleased about is that i had a lot of fun playing. it was really enjoyable knowing i had the time to do it and not worrying that i should be doing something else - in contrast to my midweek practice which felt pressured and not that productive. So, from that, i've decided to keep my longer practices to the end of the week. Midweek i will take the advice of you all and do shorter bursts - 15-20 mins or so where, and if, I can.

my plan is to, once i get shady grove down really well, go through the same process with other tunes - then i'll be meeting two goals simultaneously - learning to play up the neck and expanding my repertoire.

tomorrow and wednesday are very tiring days for me so my goal is to just play 15min.

hope everyone had a great weekend - good luck for the practice week ahead!

best

Jill

4 Comments
	Zischkale says: 5/12/2014 1:46:06 PM A blast to sing, too, and I love many of the lyrics (especially the line about her standing at the door). Good advice--I learned a lot of melodic stuff on guitar by finding octave notes or the same note on a different string. Learning your D- and F-shape chords might help too, so you can form partial chords up the neck and do some double thumbing or brushes. Glad you're energized, I love having that feeling when I play! Maybe you should record a brief video for yourself, and don't post it--make it the 'before' video. Sounds like you've got a good schedule down, keep up the good work!
	skiptomylou says: 5/12/2014 2:13:51 PM thanks for the encouragement Aaron. i did do some work with the d and f shape chords when i did some bluegrass lessons a while back - i'll try and revise that and use it as you suggest - would be great to add a little double thumbing up the neck on some tunes. the lyrics to shady grove are hilarious - i can't stop smiling singing them! i find it most amusing that the main benefit he sees in winning over shady grove's heart is that she can feed his horse for him while he's gone! classic!
	Zischkale says: 5/12/2014 2:41:10 PM Yeah, it strides the line between kind of childlike and innocent and genuinely sweet. He does take great stock in having somebody at home to feed that horse. I like that when he was young he wanted a barlow (sp?) knife, but now just wants a little shady grove... Once you study sans tabs and get a good thing goin', I recommend checking the variations on Mike Iverson's site. I admit when I play that tune I play the variations pretty verbatim, but they are just a blast to play, and if you're wanting to work on dexterity are very helpful.
	laertes22 says: 5/15/2014 7:32:08 AM Jill, I really enjoyed your write-up about playing up the next. Honestly, I had never even thought of it. Please keep us updated!
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