Chapter 3

Playing by the Rules: Not Enough Theory to Hurt

In This Chapter

Understanding the basic parts of a song

Deciphering banjo tablature

Figuring out pinch patterns

Becoming a good group player

If you’ve worked through Chapter 2, your banjo is in tune and you’re comfortable fretting a few chords, so you’re just about ready to play some real music. For most new banjo players, going from learning a chord or two to actually playing an entire song is a pretty big leap.

In this chapter, I cover everything you need to know to make this transition as easy and painless as possible. You’ll soon be strumming along with songs and be well on your way to having more fun with the banjo than you ever thought possible!

This chapter unlocks the mystery of playing music by helping you understand two of the basic building blocks of a song: rhythm and chord progressions. You also become acquainted with banjo tablature, the written form of music for the banjo, and you discover a great way to accompany others using something called the pinch pattern. This chapter also examines the different roles that the banjo takes in a band and helps you understand how to be a cooperative team player when playing music with others.

You can return to the tools and skills covered in this chapter each time you work on a new song or take out your banjo to join in a jam session.

Breaking Down the Parts of a Song

How is it that some banjo players can play along with just about any song that comes up, even something that they’ve never heard before? I can tell you from personal experience that you aren’t simply born with this skill — it’s something that’s nurtured. Songs are like roadmaps, and if you can follow the signposts correctly, you eventually make your way through just about any bluegrass or old-time tune. The more songs you learn, the more you can get around Banjo Town without getting lost.

Although every song has something that makes it different from any other song (even if it’s just the title!), most bluegrass and old-time songs share many of the same underlying musical characteristics. If you understand how songs are put together, you have a much easier time getting started down the road to becoming a great banjo player.

Songs are made up of rhythm, chord progressions, and melodies. However, at this first stage of playing, your goal is to play a song by strumming the correct chords in the proper rhythm, which is what I cover in the following sections; you can worry about playing melodies a little later (see Chapter 6 to begin to unlock this mystery).

Rhythm: Catching the beat

One of the things that separates music from random noise is that time is organized (in some way) within a piece of music. When talking about music, rhythm can refer to several different things: You can refer to the rhythm of a particular musician or band (as in “That banjo player really plays with a lot of drive!” or “I think those guys’ rhythm needs some work!”) or the rhythm of a particular piece of music (“I like that song — it’s really bouncy!”). For now, I use the word rhythm to refer collectively to all the different aspects of music that have to do with time and duration.

The most important aspect of playing the banjo well — both as a beginner and as an advanced player — is to play with good rhythm. Although your biggest worry at first may be about fretting chords and hitting the right strings (see Chapters 2 and 4 on these topics), you eventually want to put a lot of effort into playing a song all the way through in a steady rhythm without stopping — no matter what! Playing without stopping is especially important when playing music with others or along with the CD that accompanies this book. If you start to work on this skill right now at the earliest stages of your playing, you can soon be comfortable playing songs with others, even as a beginner.

Rhythm is something that everyone is born with — it’s in the steady pulse of your heartbeat and in the measured cadence of your steps as you walk. If you can keep a steady beat or pulse by tapping your foot or clapping your hands, you’ve got rhythm. You can apply that natural sense of rhythm to playing songs on the banjo.

On the other hand, finding the rhythm in music may not be natural for everyone. If you struggle finding the rhythm of a song, you can break down the elements of rhythm, and you can practice to keep pace with any song. I get you started in the following sections by introducing a few key terms you need to know. However, I’m with Pete Seeger who once wrote that he’s willing to learn just enough formal music to get by as long as it didn’t hurt his banjo playing, so I cover only a few terms that all musicians use to talk about rhythm in music — and I guarantee you won’t lose any self-respect as a banjo player in the process.

To count or not to count: It’s all in your head

Have you ever watched the feet of your favorite musicians while they’re playing on stage or in a jam session? Even though they may actually be playing in perfect time together, musicians often don’t tap their feet in the same rhythm or even in a way that has any discernable relationship to the beat of the music.

What’s with that? The answer lies in the fact that what you’re seeing in all the fancy irregular footwork isn’t necessarily how a musician is keeping time. Musicians often count out the rhythm just before starting a piece to give the other players an idea of the tempo, but after a song has started and everyone is playing along, most musicians rely on their internal sense of rhythm by listening to what’s happening around them while simultaneously keeping track of the rhythm in their heads. Most musicians don’t keep an actual count going after a song has started, but they do actively keep track of the tempo and where the beat falls.

Although most people (even beginning banjo players like you) can establish a consistent beat in their heads, keeping that beat going while trying to play banjo is usually more difficult. That’s when a good outside source for keeping the beat can come in handy. A metronome, a device that keeps a steady beat for you, is a great way to play in good rhythm when practicing by yourself (see Chapter 10 for a discussion of how to play with the metronome).

However, when playing with others, keeping good time is everyone’s shared responsibility. Listening and adjusting to the rhythm of the other musicians as you play is just as important — if not more important — than following the beat you’ve established in your head. Keep one ear on what others are playing and the other one on your own picking, and you’ll soon be playing all your music in good time!

Beats, tempo, and meter

I use the term beat to refer to a musical unit of measure. To understand what a beat is, try singing one of your favorite songs and tapping your foot in rhythm to your singing. For example, the song “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” would sound like this (try tapping your foot with each capitalized syllable and tap indication): “WILL the CIR-CLE [tap] BE un-BRO-KEN [tap], BY and BY LORD BY [tap] and BY [tap] [tap].” Each foot tap is a beat. In all the music you play, each beat is equal in duration to every other beat.

Check out the words to the old favorite “Red River Valley” on Track 3 of the CD (Tab 3-1). You can see slash marks above the lyrics, which indicate where the main beats occur. Try singing along with the CD, clapping on these beats as indicated.

Tab 3-1: Singing and clapping to “Red River Valley” (Track 3).

The idea of playing along with a steady beat is central to good banjo playing. The word tempo refers to how fast you’re tapping (or clapping or playing) that beat. Although classical musicians use a lot of fancy Italian words such as presto, largo, and fuselli to refer to different tempos (okay, fuselli is actually the name of a pasta), banjo players use terminology such as slow, fast, real fast, and really, really fast. Most of the time, banjo players actually just start playing at whatever tempo feels right, and everyone else joins in when they’ve grabbed hold of that steady beat.

You can organize beats into groups of two, three, or four beats for most banjo music (and if you’re playing Irish music, you sometimes group beats into units of six and even nine beats). Musicians use the word meter to refer to any recurring cycle of beats.

Time signatures, measures, and downbeats

A time signature indicates the meter and the kind of count you use for a particular song. The time signature usually appears at the very beginning of a written piece of music and is shown as two numbers positioned one on top of the other (like a fraction without the horizontal line). As you can see in Figure 3-1, the top number in the time signature indicates the number of beats in a cycle, while the bottom number stands for the kind of note that equals one beat.

Figure 3-1: 4/4 time signature.

Just like the song in Figure 3-1, 4/4 time (spoken “four-four time”) is the meter used most frequently in printed music for bluegrass and old-time banjo music. With this time signature, you have four beats in each cycle and a quarter note equals one beat (I discuss note values a little later in this chapter). The count that goes along with this time signature is “one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four,” and so on. Most waltz-time banjo music is in 3/4 time with three beats per cycle and a quarter note signifies one beat. The count that goes with 3/4 time is “one-two-three, one-two-three.”

A measure (or bar) marks off a single rhythmic cycle. In written music, a measure is indicated by a vertical line that extends through the staff. In banjo tablature, the staff consists of five horizontal lines that represent the five strings of your banjo (more on reading tablature later in this chapter).

The first beat of each measure is called the downbeat. The downbeat of each measure is usually emphasized when counting but isn’t necessarily played louder. The initial downbeat (the first beat of the first full measure of a song) is an important moment when you’re playing with other musicians, because that’s usually the time when the other players join in. When it comes time to change chords in a song, you most often (but not always) move to the new chord on a downbeat of a new measure.

Chord progressions: Playing your first songs

The chord progression of a song is the part of your musical road map that indicates what chords you play, in what sequence these chords occur, and how long each chord lasts before you move on to play the next one as you play a song. Although you can find about as many different chord progressions as you can songs, you can count on some predictability in how chords follow one another in most songs you play on the banjo, making figuring out and remembering new chord progressions easier as you encounter them in a new piece.

Many songs use only the G, C, and D7 chords (which I present in Chapter 2). However, the more chords you know, the more quickly you can play along with new songs.

You want to become familiar with the chord progression of a new song just as soon as you begin to work on it. The chord progression not only lays out the form of the piece, but also provides the foundation you use later on for playing (and remembering!) the melody and for improvising. The chord progression is also what keeps everyone on the same page as you play a song with others in a jam session. In this situation, everyone plays through the chord progression repeatedly until all the players agree that it’s time for the song to come to an end.

A little musical knowledge need not be a dangerous thing. The time has come to put all these concepts and terms to work as you play your first piece. You’re now on the entrance ramp to the banjo interstate!

Progressing from chord to chord

When you’re working through a chord progression, try strumming with an even downward motion of your thumb across all five strings of the banjo, striking all five strings in an even sweeping motion with the thumb. In the next few chapters, you find more interesting things to play as you accompany a tune, but for now, strumming is just fine! You’re working on the crucial new skill of changing chords in the left hand without losing the beat with your strumming in the right hand, which takes a lot of coordination! If you don’t get it at first, simply take your time and keep trying.

Take a look at “Red River Valley” (Tab 3-2). In this example, I’ve added a tab staff, a time signature, measures, a chord progression (indicated above the staff) and the song’s lyrics (indicated below the staff). You can hear the strumming on Track 4 of the CD.

Tab 3-2: Understanding rhythm indications and strumming chords to “Red River Valley.”

The time signature to this piece is 4/4, which means that every measure has four beats. This piece has sixteen measures all together. The chord progression to “Red River Valley” consists of six measures of G, two measures of D, two measures of G, two measures of C, two measures of D, and two measures of G.

Note that in this particular tune, the chords change at the start of a new measure. I’ve also added a label to show where the downbeat occurs. Note that you don’t start “Red River Valley” on this downbeat. Your first strum and your singing begin at beat three of the preceding measure. This happens a lot when beginning a song, so no need to worry!

Your assignment (should you decide to accept it) is to play the chords to “Red River Valley” with two right-hand strums per measure on the first and third beats of each measure (the stress marks indicate a strum). You can also listen or play along to this song on the CD, Track 4.

Changing chords quickly

Most new players find that the hardest part of strumming along to a song like “Red River Valley” (see Tab 3-2) is going from the G to the C chords smoothly without interrupting the right-hand strums. When you run into difficulties at a particular point in any song, try to isolate that problem and practice it over and over again.

Smooth sailing

Trying to get the feel for a new song isn’t always the easiest of tasks; however, here are a few practice tips that you can use when you begin any new song:

Don’t worry about speed when learning a new song; just try to keep the strums steady and fret each chord as cleanly as you can (for more on fretting, see Chapter 2).

Listen to the CD track first to get an idea of what the song or technique is supposed to sound like, then try practicing it on your own. Finally, try playing along with the CD track.

Try to memorize the chord progression as quickly as you can. This will free up your visual attention to look at your amazing left hand fretting maneuvers instead of your eyes being tied to the written music.

Don’t worry about singing while you’re playing - but if you eventually feel comfortable doing this, by all means go for it!

For example, you can practice moving back and forth between just the G and C chords by creating an exercise where you shift from one chord to the other with each right-hand strum. You aren’t playing the entire song at this point, but you’re working on that “problem” moment in the song where you have to fret the C chord, by practicing this move over and over again. In the long run, you save a lot of time and energy by focusing on problem areas rather than playing through the entire tune and slowing down at the trouble spots.

Keep the tips of your left-hand fingers pointed towards the banjo fingerboard even if you aren’t using them at that moment to fret. When playing the G chord, you can position the left-hand fingers you use for the C chord just above their fretted positions, a technique called ghosting. These fingers are then ready to move into position and push down (or fret) the strings behind the appropriate fret (Figure 3-2 shows how to ghost and fret a chord). Even when you aren’t fretting anything at all in the left hand, it’s still a good idea to keep the tips of your left-hand fingers pointed towards the fingerboard. You can be sure that you’ll need them sooner or later!

Figure 3-2: Ghosting the C chord (a) and fretting the C chord (b).

You can now try strumming along to a new song, “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” that uses the same G, C, and D7 chords as “Red River Valley,” but requires you to change from one chord to another more quickly (see Tab 3-3). “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” which is Track 5 on the CD, moves to a new chord with each measure (with the first change coming to the C chord, which you’ve thoroughly practiced by now, right?). In measure seven, you play two chords, strumming a G chord on the first beat followed by a D7 chord on the third beat in the same measure.

Tab 3-3: Strumming chords to “Boil Them Cabbage Down” (Track 5).

Reading Tablature

Tablature (or tab for short) is the written form of music for the banjo. Although tablature uses quite a few elements that are also found in conventional music notation, tab imparts information that’s specific to the banjo such as what string you play and whether that string is open or fretted. Tablature is a part of almost every instructional book and CD set. And although tab never replaces being able to play by ear, it enables you to cover ground more quickly when learning a new piece of music and allows you to double-check what you’ve learned by ear. Therefore, take a little time to get acquainted with reading tablature in the following sections.

Finding notes

The big difference between banjo tablature and standard music notation is that although both use five horizontal lines on the staff, the lines on the banjo tab staff represent the five strings of your banjo. The top line corresponds to the banjo’s 1st string and the bottom line represents the banjo’s 5th string, with the second, third, and fourth lines from the top standing for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings on your banjo (see Tab 3-4).

Tab 3-4: The five lines on the banjo tab staff represent the five banjo strings.

Need help in remembering which tab lines stand for which banjo strings? Note that the visual orientation of the strings on the tab staff is the same as what you see as you look down on the strings while playing. From this point of view, the 1st string is the string that is farthest away (and is “on top” of the tab staff) and the 5th string is the closest (and “on bottom” of the tab staff).

In banjo tablature, you also see numbers on each line. These numbers represent the notes you’re being asked to play, as shown in Tab 3-5. The line that the number sits on indicates which string you play and the numeric value tells whether you’re to play an open (unfretted, indicated with “0”) or fretted string.

Tab 3-5: Numbers on the tab staff lines show open and fretted notes.

And Tab 3-6 displays what the G, C, and D7 chords look like in tablature. The “b” below the tab staff indicates a right-hand brush.

Tab 3-6: Tablature for G, C, and C7 chords.

Tracking down the rhythm

Banjo tablature expresses rhythm in much the same way as it is in conventional music notation, in terms of measures and time signatures (see the section “Rhythm: Catching the beat” for more info). Banjo players typically think of a single measure of tab in 4/4 time as a rhythmic space that’s waiting to be filled by a maximum of eight notes (or an equivalent combination of fewer notes with longer duration).

Each note on the tab staff has a stem attached that indicates the duration of the note. The three note values that you encounter most frequently in banjo tablature are the quarter note, the eighth note, and the sixteenth note.

Each of these notes has a vertical line extending down from the note that is called the stem. An eighth note has added to it either a curled or horizontal line attached to the bottom of the stem, while the sixteenth note has two horizontal lines. These lines are called flags and distinguish one rhythmic value from another on the tab page. Each note value also has a corresponding rest sign, which indicates a corresponding number of beats where no note is played. Tab 3-7 shows these three note values with their corresponding rests as they appear on a tab staff.

Tab 3-7: Quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes and rests in banjo tab.

Determining the value of a note in tablature is just like using grade school fractions: two sixteenth notes take up the same amount of musical space or time as one eighth note, and two eighth notes occupy the same amount of space as one quarter note. A measure in 4/4 time needs to be filled with the equivalent of four quarter notes. Tab 3-8, which is Track 6 on the CD, shows just a few of the many rhythmic combinations that will meet this requirement.

In the beginning, it may be helpful to count out loud (or in your head) “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” for each measure of 4/4 time as you play through a piece, letting each note last for its appropriate rhythmic duration. For example, if you’re counting along in the example in Tab 3-8, you can see that an eighth note takes up the space of one count (either a number or an “and”), while a quarter note takes up the space of two counts (a number and an “and”). And playing songs along with the CD is an even better way to internalize these rhythms.

Tab 3-8: Combining quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes (Track 6).

Playing Pinch Patterns

After you have a feel for how to figure out the notes and rhythm in tab (see preceding section), you’re now ready to put all this musical knowledge to work by getting acquainted with the pinch pattern. The pinch pattern gets its name from the right-hand motion you use to play the strings. With the pinch pattern, you strike the strings with a downward motion with the thumb and with an upward motion with the right-hand index and middle fingers all at the same time. In other words, you’re pinching the banjo strings with your right hand!

The pinch pattern is great for beginning players to use when following chord progressions and accompanying songs. For now, you can play this pattern without any fingerpicks on your hands, and don’t worry too much about your right-hand position (I cover that more thoroughly in Chapter 4).

Here’s a step-by-step guide to playing a pinch pattern for an open G chord (all strings are unfretted):

1. Pick the 3rd string with a downward motion of the thumb.

2. Strike the 5th string with the thumb, the 2nd string with the index finger, and the 1st string with the middle, playing all three strings at the same time.

You should hear the sound of three notes together. Remember that the pinch pattern always uses a downward motion with the right-hand thumb and an upward motion with the index and middle fingers every time you pick a string.

3. Pick the fourth string with the thumb.

4. Repeat Step 2 by playing the 5th, 2nd, and 1st strings simultaneously with the thumb, index, and middle fingers.

You can see in Tab 3-9 what the pinch pattern looks like in tablature for the G, C, and D7 chords. Also, be sure to listen to Track 7 on the CD to hear the pinch pattern in action on these same chords. In the example, “t” stands for the right-hand thumb, “i” for index finger, and “m” for middle finger.

Tab 3-9: Playing the pinch pattern with G, C, and D7 chords (Track 7).

Note that the numbers on the tab staff change with each new chord in Tab 3-9, but that the right-hand picking pattern remains the same in each measure. As you read through any banjo tab, don’t forget to follow the chord progression as you play. More often than not, if you fret the chord that’s indicated above the tab staff, then you also have the fretted positions you need to match what the tab staff line numbers indicate to play. For instance, in Tab 3-9, you see a C chord above the tab staff. The lines on the tab staff (remember, these lines stand for the strings of your banjo) indicate that you need to fret the 1st string at the second fret, the 2nd string at the first fret, and the 4th string at the fourth fret. If you fret all three of these strings at the same time at the beginning of the second measure, following the C-chord indication that you see above the staff, you’re also fretting everything that’s indicated on the tab staff for this measure.

You can now try playing the pinch pattern with “Red River Valley” (Tab 3-10) and “Boil Them Cabbage Down” (Tab 3-11), which are Tracks 8 and 9 on the CD, respectively. You can check out Chapter 2 and the section on chord progressions earlier in this book if you need to get more familiar with the G, C, and D7 chords and the chord progressions to both of these tunes. If you’re comfortable playing the pinch pattern, you may not need to look at the tab at all to play these tunes along with the CD.

Tab 3-10: Playing “Red River Valley” using the pinch pattern (Track 8).

Tab 3-11: Playing “Boil Them Cabbage Down” using the pinch pattern (Track 9).

Being a Great Team Player

One of the primary reasons that many people want to learn to play the banjo is to have fun making music with others in bands and in jam sessions. There’s nothing quite like a banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddles and bass grooving along to an old lonesome-sounding ballad or burning up a hot, fast instrumental. At a music festival, seeing amateur musicians who have never played together before open up their cases, take out their instruments, and start playing tunes together as if they’ve been doing it for years isn’t unusual. Musicians call these impromptu get-togethers jam sessions.

Musicians can play together in such a spontaneous way because they share a similar repertoire of songs and have internalized and put into practice some rules for effective group music making. If you listen closely to a great bluegrass or old-time band performance, you can hear that the roles of the different instruments seem to change from one moment to the next. At times, the banjo is out front and the center of attention, other times when the banjo is very much in the background, and then you recognize those moments when the banjo is somewhere in between these two extremes. When playing with others, you assume different musical roles with your banjo as you play a song from beginning to end.

In this section, I talk about some of the most important rules for playing with a group and discuss how you can put them to use as a brand new banjo player.

Perhaps the two most important aspects of playing with others are to maintain a great rhythmic groove that makes the band sound good and to control your volume. The easiest way to achieve good rhythm is to play simple things well. Your right hand not only controls your volume, but also communicates the heart and soul of your playing. Simplicity and drive in your playing creates musical space for others to play their best and for you to express your own emotions most powerfully. A successful jam session is one in which every musician feels that they’re successfully contributing to the overall sound of the group.

Lead playing: Shining the spotlight on yourself

Lead playing has to do with those times when you’re the center of attention in your band or during a jam session. If you’re playing a well-known banjo instrumental like “Cripple Creek” or “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” you’ll probably start the song by setting the tempo and playing all the way through the tune one time before handing off the lead to the next willing instrumentalist. If you’ve kicked off an instrumental, you’re most likely to be the last one to play it as well, so have some kind of ending ready if you’ve chosen (or called) the tune in a jam session.

If you’re playing a song with vocals, you may get the chance to play a banjo solo only once during the tune, either at the very beginning of the song or after a chorus. That’s okay! You can have just as much fun in vocal tunes by playing banjo backup and singing your heart out on the choruses!

When you play lead (also called taking a solo or break), you call on everything you know as a banjo player to make your playing sound its best. At first, successfully playing a short, memorized arrangement of a song is enough of an accomplishment. As you become a more skilled player, you rely on the chord progression of the song to create new ways of playing a solo right on the spot (this creative process is called improvisation). Musicians spend an entire lifetime becoming great improvisers, so don’t necessarily expect this to happen to you for a little while. The best journeys with the banjo are taken one step at a time!

When playing a solo, playing at full volume is fine, but don’t forget to keep track of the rhythm of those around you as you play. Because banjo players play so many notes in comparison to the other players in the band, you may find yourself tending to push the tempo when you get excited (which usually occurs when you’re playing lead). Racing away from the rest of the band is easy if you aren’t careful, so as you’re shredding through a great solo, keep an ear on the ongoing rhythm of the song and try your best to play in good time!

If you can’t hear the other instrumentalists when they’re playing lead, you’re probably playing with too much force. In this case, reduce your volume until you can hear what everyone else is playing. By doing this, you can enjoy what others are playing a lot more, and in turn, others will enjoy playing music with you!

Backup playing: Allowing others to stand out

For every moment that you’re the star of the show, you’ll have many more occasions when you give it everything you’ve got to make those around you sound their best. Backup playing includes all the different techniques that a banjo player uses to accompany others and is perhaps the highest achievement of great banjo playing.

Because the banjo can so easily overpower other instruments during a jam session or in a band, a simple chording technique is sometimes the best way to allow others to be easily heard, especially if a singer is singing quietly or if you’re playing backup to a guitar or mandolin solo (which never seem to be able to pick up as much volume as the beloved banjo). Bluegrass musicians call this chording technique vamping.

At other times, you want to keep a steady flow of notes going with the banjo, changing chords at the same time as other musicians. With this kind of backup (which sounds especially good when accompanying a singer or a fiddle solo), you’re keeping the energy flowing by doing what the banjo does best with roll patterns and basic accompaniment techniques. To read more about these ideas, you can flip over to Chapters 4 and 8.