Keep It Simple Stupid

My website visitor and newsletter subscriber Harold Saxton recently had this to say in an email:

“Paul, I really like what you have to say about learning banjo, especially your take on the D chord.I struggle with back up banjo and wonder if you have any simple ways to learn this?”

This simple question provided me a chance to touch on a subject that I often talk with beginners about, and I realized that my blog readers who pick banjo might benefit from being in on the conversation. Here are a few thoughts on the topic.

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Playing back up banjo is easy…yet tough

So let’s see: Harold asked about learning back up banjo and if there are any simple ways to get this tackled. I have to say that it’s tough to do much instruction through email or a blog post of course, but I’ll try to offer something worth reading here. Back up on the banjo in its basic form is not too tough as far as what you do with your fingers on the banjo. It all comes down to being able to make chords that cover the main 4 strings on the banjo (not counting the high 5^th string.) It’s the working with other musicians, understanding keys, keeping good rhythm, making back-up more fancy…all of that is where the challenge comes in.

My best advice is to get as good and solid at the basics as you can before you do anything else. You’ll hear banjo players doing all of this wonderful rolling and picking and fancy-schmancy stuff as they play backup, but when you are learning, you need to force yourself to avoid the urge to play all that fancy stuff, and just get the basics down. The very first basic is learning your chords! I mentioned “chords that cover the 4 strings” in my comments above, and by this I mean the D-form (or D shape) chords, the Bar-form (or bar shape) chords and the F-form chords (or F shape chords.) Make sure you can play all of the chords for the key of G using all three chord shapes, then learn all of the chords for the key of A using all three chord shapes, then the other keys, etc. I think you’ll find that the most popular bluegrass keys are A, B, C, D, and G. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but that’s what I’ve noticed. (You established pickers, no need to write and correct my choice of keys there. They vary region by region and voice by voice.) Of course most of us use a capo when it comes to playing in keys other than G, but do yourself a favor and be able to “speak chords” without a capo on the neck. Practice playing rhythm in keys other than G without the capo. This will be quite a learning experience for you and will serve you well.  

Once you have the chords in your head (that seems like a lot of work…and it is…so even though I named several keys up above, for sure spend a ton of time getting the key of G memorized if nothing else) then you’ll want to play what’s known as a “chop” on beats 2 and 4 of the rhythm. So if a song tempo is going along like this: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4, you’ll play a chop over beats 2 and 4. If I wrote it out literally, this is what you’d be doing: 1 – CHOP – 3 – CHOP – , where chop is your right hand playing the chop technique. Of course you have to be playing the correct chords as the song goes along with your left hand. And in case it isn’t obvious, you don’t play anything on beats 1 and 3. You want beats 2 and 4, which are the back beats.

The chop…that’s the easy part I mentioned above. It’s relatively painless to get the actual techniques down. The hard part is keeping rhythm and chopping correctly when playing up to any kind of quick pace. It’s definitely not natural and really is a learned skill, one that you acquire after doing it incorrectly for quite awhile!  The good, basic chop to the back beat of the rhythm is a learned skill, and it sounds the best. It doesn’t step on anyone’s toes and doesn’t drown out  the other pickers like what can happen if you roll too heavy during your back up work. This is the very first step to becoming a great banjo player. The other more impressive stuff will come in time, but remember this:

Your job as a rhythm (back up) player is to make the other pickers and singers sound good.

Sometimes that involves rolling and being fancy at the same time others are picking and singing, but most times it involves you holding a steady, metronome-like “chop” behind them while they pick or sing. So…get good at this skill first.

Let’s get our hands dirty

Alright, for your edification and amusement, I went ahead and recorded a few simple sound files to illustrate what I’m talking about here. If you are a rank beginner, grab your banjo and try to play along with these short clips. (If you can already take part in a jam session, this exercise isn’t for you; well, maybe the 200 b.p.m. example might be something to try.) I am playing a G-C-G-D-G progression, using the F-form shaped chords at the third fret (G), the 8th fret (C) and the 10th fret (D). You have four choices in speeds; see if you don’t agree that it’s pretty dang hard to hang on at the higher speeds! Just click the blue links to listen and play along:

Banjo chop to metronome: 70 b.p.m.
Banjo chop to metronome: 100 b.p.m.
Banjo chop to metronome: 130 b.p.m.
Banjo chop to metronome: 200 b.p.m.

Them dang obnoxious 5 string banjo players!

This is by no means a definitive study on banjo back up, but it is a good primer for you and hopefully gives you some thoughts to run with. Take my simple ideas and introductions here, and use them as the basis for launching yourelf into clean, tasteful, respectful back up on the banjo. Get fancy when it’s called for, but be able to avoid stepping on toes as you play by sticking with the basic chop when it’s called for.

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Show some “comment love”!

As always, those are my lousy opinions. As always, I’m Banjo Paul. As always, I’d love to hear from you! Please consider leaving some comments in the section at the bottom of this page, and as I always say: pick ‘em if ya got ‘em!

Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
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