Freudian slip,

[TonyP]

Last weekend was the CA Bluegrass Assoc. spring compout in Turlock Ca.. I was able to go for four days (Thus-Sun) and had a great time. Met some new folks and definitely want to go back.

But as usual, did a lot of pickin' and things happen when fatigue from pickin', lack of sleep, dehydration and the delirium from having a good time all colide. We've kinda dubbed it "festival consciousness".

A couple of my bandmates got roped into the band scramble, so Steve, our banjo player and a couple of our new found friends were trying to find and pick some common tunes. We were going round the circle, and it got to Steve's turn and he named off several banjo tunes. Several, I'd heard of, several I used to play in the dim past. After several trys to jog my memory by playing snipits of the tunes, I got frustrated. And I remarked that I have a hard time with banjo tunes, "because they are just a repeating pattern of notes with no discernible melody". Needless to say, I kinda hurt Steve's feelings, even though that was not my intent. But we did get a good laugh out of it http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif But as someone remarked, we all think that, but just never said it.....

[Michael Lewis]

That's a good one Tony. It is a standard state of mind near the end of festivals though, being almost alert, not focusing well, and sounds seem somewhat distant. That's nap time. Don't try to drive for any distance when you feel like that. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[Chris Biorkman]

The truth hurts... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[Red Henry]

...and I know a banjo player or two who think the same thing about mandolin tunes. Maybe it's all in the ear of the beholder (behearer?) ...


Red


.

[TomTyrrell]

It all comes down to the player. Some folks play to the chord changes and some folks play the tune.

[Jason Kessler]

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean amother.

No typo.

[Ken Olmstead]

Seams like most banjo players I play with are playing tha same tunes I am! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif I have found that if the fiddle tune repertoir is played too fast, they really start to sound alike and it is easy to get confused, especially with "festival concsciousness!" Kiss and make up and get back too jamming!!

[Jim Broyles]

What is the difference between one banjo tune and another? The title, of course.

[Andrew DeMarco]

I believe it was Mark Twain who said...

"A gentleman is a man who knows how to play the banjo

...and doesn't!"http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[allenhopkins]

"Banjo tunes," "fiddle tunes," etc. are all composed around the strengths of the lead instrument. #Bluegrass banjo is wonderful at up-tempo, arpeggiated figures that don't comport well with the more linear melodies that suit fiddle (and mandolin, which is a fretted fiddle played with a pick -- or maybe a fiddle is an unfretted mandolin played with a bow!).

You see trailblazing virtuosi on each instrument developing playing styles to accommodate their instruments to another instrument's strengths. #Bill Keith (and others) on the 5-string banjo figuring out a system of rolls and chord fingerings to enable themselves to play fiddle tunes note for note. #Jesse McReynolds on the mandolin, and Buck Graves on the Dobro, developing playing styles that echoed the technique of finger-picked banjo.

There's definitely a melody in banjo tunes, but it's a melody that is much more natural to banjo players than to us mandolinists. #I can't play "banjo rolls" on the mandolin, so I'm often guilty of just playing licks through the chord changes, rather than echoing the banjo lead. #I think the best tunes are ones where each instrument has a break that spotlights its strengths, without trying to sound like the other instrument.

[red7flag]

Ron Thomason, from Drybrand Fire Squad, has a standing joke that there are 2 banjo songs, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and all the song that aren't Foggy Mountain Breakdown. Always gets a good laugh, even from me, who started on the banjo.
Tony

[CES]

The genius of some of the greater banjo pickers out there, including Earl, Bela, and some of those guys mentioned above, is their ability to produce a melody from the barrage of notes that is usually bluegrass banjo music. I'm trying to "learn as I go" on the banjo (as well as mando and guitar), and my wife's major complaint when playing 3 finger is that "they all sound alike." Still haven't figured out how Earl managed to emphasize all the right notes at blazing speed, but that's why he's Earl, why I'm not, and why I don't pull the 5 string out in public much yet!

For mando content, my wife really likes the mando better and is trying to convince me to sell the banjo and upgrade, but the banjo's not worth much more than firewood at this point ;)

[TonyP]

I think you guys(or I hope) all, get it's my own inadequacies that prompted the comment. I meant it to be funny. Truth is, playing with a banjo player is a little like playing with a piano player. I have an old disc, I think it was something like guitar summit, with Barney Kessel, and two other great jazz guitar players. The one thing I remember most off the album was at one point Barney commented that the three of them were going to try and emulate one piano player. And he stressed, not an advanced one at that. That's the feeling I have when it's my turn to take a break on a typical bluegrass banjo tune. I'm just fillin' time until the banjo player gets his turn.
I do know from past experience that most bluegrass banjo players feel the same way about fiddle tunes, so it all can come out even. I've been lucky enough to work with banjo players that will reciprocate and play as many fiddle tunes as we play banjo tunes.
I like to make jokes just like when we'd have to play basketball or football with "real" players and call 'em tiny, or say how's the weather up there. They all knew we were havin' fun and hopin' they wouldn't make us look too bad. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[JeffD]

"because they are just a repeating pattern of notes with no discernible melody".
There is a serious point here though. So many folks on mandolin, and other instruments too, play such a wild improvization on their break, one with no discernable connection to the melody. After a while you begin to think the break is just a collection of licks in the right key, that are pulled out whenever any tune in that key is played.

I would think any improvization should be inspired by the tune itself, and use the melody as the starting point.

Otherwise, indeed, music turns into repeating patterns of notes with no discernable melody.

[Ivan Kelsall]

IMHO,it all comes down to an individual player,both on Banjo or Mandolin. Having played Banjo for 45 years now,obviously,i'm sort of 'tuned in' to Banjo style,but i can understand people who think that it ''all sounds the same''. I know people who think that about Bluegrass & Jazz music as a WHOLE. To us who play Bluegrass or Jazz,it very obviously ISN'T all the same.
# Personally,i think that simplistic,melodic ( i'm NOT refering to melodic Banjo style here)playing sounds the best to me & i think music played that way is accessible to most people - theay can 'hear the tune'. Yesterday i was listening to Bluegrassradio.org (as usual) & they played some songs by a very competent band,which was spoiled for me by the Mandolin player trying to cram every note on the fingerboard into all his breaks - it just sounded awful. That's not to say the player was bad,he wasn't,he just couldn't leave out what wasn't needed IMHO - just as stated by JeffD above.
# Ultimately it all comes down to the ability of an individual player of ANY instrument,
& our perception of how he plays his music,in other words,our own individual 'taste',
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Saska

[TonyP]

All good points. And yeah Micheal, if only I COULD nap. It's one of those things I'm still trying to work on. I did manage to take it easy enough to not totally take myself out and end up with a killer headache though. That's progress.

I do agree totally with Allen in that there are things that just lay out on the particular instruments that make them easier to play that "mode". Those of you who play both instruments(as Steve does) have the advantage of being able to bring the ear to the other instrument. I would like to hear how that comes out.

As far as the kitchen sink solo's, I'm more prone to that when I'm not prepared or just plain ol' don't know the tune. Just let 'er fly, more or less. That's true genius to me to be able through taste and timing still have something to say that's not just hot licks.

I'm also amazed by how many times I've seen a hot banjo break and people just sit there. Meanwhile the guitar player or bass player do something simple and get this huge hand. I'm reminded what I heard about the Mike Marshall and Chris Thile album when they were in the studio. Tom Rozum made the remark "I can't listen that fast!" or something to the effect. I feel that way about a tune played too fast. There are several tunes that have been taken over and done waaaaaay to fast now. New Camptown Races is one, another is Rebeca. Both mando tunes that have been warp speeded and I'm not sure who to blame for that. But too fast, there's no time for nuance, fer sure. More what Peter Rowan called gun slinger mentality.

[Alex Orr]

Question - "How can you tell two fiddle tunes apart?"










Answer - "They have diferent names"

[Snakebeard Jackson]

funny

[Brian Fortier]

The genius of some of the greater banjo pickers out there, including Earl, Bela, and some of those guys mentioned above, is their ability to produce a melody from the barrage of notes that is usually bluegrass banjo music. #I'm trying to "learn as I go" on the banjo (as well as mando and guitar), and my wife's major complaint when playing 3 finger is that "they all sound alike." #Still haven't figured out how Earl managed to emphasize all the right notes at blazing speed, but that's why he's Earl, why I'm not, and why I don't pull the 5 string out in public much yet! #

For mando content, my wife really likes the mando better and is trying to convince me to sell the banjo and upgrade, but the banjo's not worth much more than firewood at this point ;)
In his instruction book, Earl Scruggs says that he figured out the picking sequences for his tunes, making sure that the melody notes were picked with the thumb.. #He said that the naturally greater strength of the thumb gave those notes emphasis without consciously trying .

[Clyde Clevenger]

Summer before last Ken Cartwright and I were doing sound for a festival in Winston, Or. The 6PM band had an accident on the way and were going to be late. The guy who ran the festival asked if we could fill in, just set the system on auto-pilot and pick a few. Just then, Kent Powell, a killer banjo player from Washington strolls by, I sez grab your banjo we are a band. So Ken, Kent, Nikki and I get on stage and put together a pretty good set. Three quarters through we ask Kent to do a hot banjo tune. Sled Ridin' says Kent . We all said no problem, I didn't know it but I figured Ken knew the chords and I could bulldog a fair to middlin break on the mandolin. Turns out Ken is figuring I know the chords and he will follow me. Well, they weren't obvious and that speed, Ken and I looked like deer in the headlights, Kent blazed away on the banjo, Nikki was thumping the bass with the right chords, Ken and I were drowning. You'd think someone as big an me would have a hard time hiding on stage with a single mic, but when it came time for my break I was nowhere to be found. And the only coment from anyone in the crowd was about that short banjo tune, why didn't you play it longer?

[TonyP]

Funny you should bring up Sled Ridin' Clyde. I was in a band where everybody else knew that tune, but me. Never even heard it. And because I was the noobe, it was do or die. Most times it was just let 'er fly. Never did really get a break for that one. But it helped that everybody else knew it so at least I could get the chords. I find a good threat to the banjo players I know, you kick one of them off fastern' Einstein says is possible, then I'll have to retaliate with Big Sciota at about 150bpm. Nothin' like threat deterrent http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[James Sanford]

I am a mandolin player and have been gigging for close to 40 years. My style is my own such as it is... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif I really love to hear the Monroe style as well as many of the new more modern styles.

I will make one observation, if you are playing to entertain an audience it has been my experience that they will react more to something they can understand or know than they will to really hot licks. They just don't understand what is being done in most cases. This is true with regard to the older audiences I typically play for.

Nothing wrong at all with hot licks and blazing speed but it passes over the head of many listeners.

Keep it simple has been our band's goal over the years and it has paid off.

On the subject of banjo players, there is one man that is able to play melodic lines on the banjo and in fact plays the banjo without using a capo. He plays really pretty leads and harmony. His name is Rual Yarborough. Known him for many years and he played with Bill back in the 50's. The only banjo player I have ever seen who did not use a capo.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Brian hit the nail squarely on the head there re.Earl Scuggs & his playing. I've ALWAYS played his way as much as i can,trying to emphasize the melody notes & i'm doing the same on Mandolin as much as i can. Instrumentals played TOO fast are just a blur of notes to me,sadly lacking in much melody. I've stated on here before re.what Bill Monroe told me when my band opened for him at a Folk Club in Manchester when he & the boys came over in 1966. I'd only been playing Banjo for 3 years or so & was naive & ignorant of much regarding Bluegrass music. At the time,to me 'speed' was the thing - how wrong !. I asked Bill Monroe during the interval who had been his fastest Banjo player. I can't remember who he said,but i do remember him saying to me, "son,you go too fast,you don't see much scenery". No wonder the man was such a genius at what he did if he had insight like that.
It's just like the motoring safety ads. we have - "Speed Kills". In more ways than one it seems to me,
Saska