I am frustrated. I admit it. I’ve been playing banjo for 25+ years and can play some pretty good songs on the banjo. I can jam for hours and I can even throw in some tasteful melodic and chromatic licks. I improvise fairly well. I am in 2 bands. I pick, therefore I am!! Even though all of that is true, I can’t seem to get my latest song playable to save my life!
I’m currently tackling Yackety Sax (you may have heard this by Boots Randolph, the saxophonist.) In my defense, it’s not a bluegrass piece. But it’s such a neat song with so many exciting twists, and it just makes you tap your toes and smile to hear it on banjo. The majority of the version that I am learning is comprised of Scruggs style three finger picking, but a fair share of it is single string and two finger picking, and it’s killing me!
I have to admit my lack of ability in trying to play two finger style and single string style. I have always focused on Scruggs style three finger picking. As I said above, I do pretty well with Scruggs style. Tackling Yackety Sax has only proven to show me how inaccurate I am, how inflexible I am, how unable to step out of the box I am. The average run-of-the mill beginner may come up against such obstacles as these and give up, but I’ll persevere. I’m using this oppportunity to go back to basics and to try to employ the various pointers that I often give my students. The most important pointer is using the metronome.
Instead of using the standard metronome, I am using a tool that I’ve blogged about before, and that’s TablEdit software. The version of the song that I am learing is one that I found on Banjo Hangout (www.banjohangout.org). This version is written as a TablEdit file, so I can simply open the file with TablEdit and play the song through my computer speakers. TablEdit is a great tool because it’s drum-machine precise in it’s timing, and you can adjust the relative speed of the piece. When I work with a piece of tablature written with TablEdit, I like to attempt to get the song completely memorized, then once I think I can pick it from memory, I open it with TablEdit and adjust the relative speed to 50%. I look away from the screen and pick the song along with what’s coming out of my speakers, and if there are any stumbling blocks then I find them quickly because what I am playing live doesn’t match what’s coming from the speakers. Eventually I move the relative speed up to 60%, then 70%, then 80% and even higher as I get more comfortable.
I think I’ve attempted to play Yackety Sax from memory over 150 times, and it’s still not stage ready! UGH! It struck me that beginners may feel this same way about some other standard bluegrass numbers that they are trying to tackle, and I just want to encourage you to keep at it. Get the piece memorized; use a metronome; and if you can find it in TablEdit or even as a recording by some bluegrass group, all the better! You can play along with your banjo using both of those sources, and this will really help you to cement the song in your memory, both cranial memory and muscle memory.
I’ll have Yackety Sax jam-session ready before long even if it kills me!!! Watch the obituaries.
Sorry to hear you’re struggling, but OTOH it’s somehow comforting to know that I’m not the only one who’s going through it. Right now I’m learning “Devil’s Dream.” It’s going so slowly that if the devil starts dreaming it’ll only be because I bored him to sleep!
I know what you mean…Since it’s plantin’ season I take my banjo over to the farm when I help Grandpa Fred on the weekends. Just yesterday I was tryin’ to get Cripple Creek to flow and Granny Hannah come out and asked me what song I was mutilatin’ now. I told her my dilemma and she commenced to gettin’ one of the hog scratchin’ sticks that was leanin’ up against the pigpen. Then she sat down in her rocker and every time I’d screw up that durned song she’d commence whackin’ me upside the head with the hog scratchin’ stick. Well, I’ll tell you, a body learns real quick while gettin’ whacked with the hog scratchin’ stick. Grandpa was on the tractor and yelled, “Hanner, whatcha doin’ to that girl? I still got manure to spread!” Granny said she’d be glad to hep you out learnin’ your new song an she’s plannin on bringin a stick to yore gig next Saturday at Zellie’s.