VIDEO(s). I DID IT.

You know that video I pinky promised you I would upload several weeks ago? Well here it is! Now you can't yell at me anymore.

Definitely not my best banjo playing, and it's also a tricky piece. And my music kept flying away, although I somehow managed to play better when it did -.-

The song is Foggy Mountain Breakdown, if you had forgotten, and it actually goes a lot faster but, hey now, I'm trying.

Credits to Davis Purtell for shooting and editing the video because he's forcing me to thank him.

So anyway, for this piece my goal is to clean it up and then pick up the speed a ton just for the heck of it.

Moving on!

Progress so far this week:
I looked at a version of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" as arranged by happybanjodude. It's super chill and super easy, as it's all just strumming chords...also not very interesting if no one else is singing. I then turned to his arrangement of Birdy's cover of the song, which is pretty and also trickier, so I'll be working on that. I've yet to learn an entire song, so I hope to do that by the end of the year.

Other things I've learned? Maybe not from just this week, but I've learned tidbits of other songs. AND I QUICKLY RECORDED VIDEOS FOR YOU. WOW IM ON TOP OF THINGS. I apologize for the low quality, low effort, messiness of my house, my own awkwardness, and everything that may be going wrong in your lives . Blame it on Davis.

"Same Love" riff (Macklemore & Ryan Lewis). Messed up because first take and ain't nobody got time for second takes. Kind of cute riff on the banjo, though.

"Little Lion Man" chords and chorus roll (Mumford & Sons). I'm a little rusty so it's sloppy, but what I can work on is not whacking the strings with my picks when I try to go fast, and also to make sure certain strings don't pop out louder than others.

Lastly, "Babel" chorus bit (Mumford & Sons). Interesting thing about this song is you have to tune the drone string (the short one that's usually tuned to G) up to an A.




The end of the year's coming up O.o ....so what's my goal? Where should I be heading? So far I've learned quite a few songs and have definitely gotten more comfortable with the instrument in general, and I'm on my way to memorizing the scales. I have yet to learn more than a few tidbits of Paint it Black, and I'm not sure how feasible it will be to try to have the whole song prepared for you by the final presentation. I guess at this point I'll keep doing more research about bluegrass (including listening to the plethora of old bluegrass artists a kind fellow at our 20-time pitch suggested to me) and just keep working on different songs and cleaning up my playing. And maybe I'll get another *nice* progress video posted soon :)

Hi guys!

This past week has been about the same - I've been busy with the musical and haven't had a ton of time for the banjo, but I did get to spend 6th hour on Friday alone in a choir practice room with my instrument, which was quite nice :) I do think I'm getting a better handle on the instrument and becoming more comfortable with the fingerpicks.

Lately I've been working on various scales on the neck so I could begin to figure out the cool runs in the Paint it Black cover I linked to in my very first blog post. What I've learned: pentatonic scales, which are super duper easy to play and use on guitar, are actually pretty tedious on banjo. I guess that's why you don't usually see people shredding up and down a banjo neck like you'd do on guitar.Anyway, I'm determined to have some semblance of knowledge regarding scales on a banjo, and I found a nifty site that will tell you basically any scale you've ever even thought of and then some and show it to you on the neck of the banjo (or any other instrument...cool.) 

And lastly, we've got our pitch this Tuesday! For anyone who's reading this who isn't already participating in it, please come to our 20 time presentation on Tuesday 7-8 at the Northwood Hach Center! Maybe I'll play a little bit for you :)

BYE

Hello again

I wish I could think of creative titles for my blog posts.

Anyway, not much is different this week, except I've been working on the invitations for the project fair (which I won't actually be at.. :[ ). To add to that, I'm still struggling to find a mentor.

So I'll post the video (I pinky promise!) either tonight or tomorrow night. For next week, I want to be able to play the entirety of Paranoia in Bb Major and I'll try to get a video posted of that, too :) I'll also try to get back to work on the Rolling Stones' song!

In case you're curious, the video I'll be posting soon is my very terrible rendition of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", the quintessential banjo piece of all banjo pieces. Earl Scruggs basically defined the bluegrass style with his three-fingered picking style. I was at first going to link to the original song, but I thought I'd share this version, played by Scruggs himself 50-60 years after he first wrote the song, along with some of his friends. Why? Because Steve Martin is a bomb-diggity banjo player, and Scruggs was still rocking it at over 80 years old.

BOMB-DIGGITY CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Wish I had more to say! Things will get more interesting soon, I promise!