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(Admin note: this is part 4 of a 5 part series on chords. To start at the beginning of the series, click here)
Bring it all home!
Well, you’ve done it. You’ve persevered, stuck it out, and made it to part 5 of my 5 part series on chords. I can’t stress enough how heavily a Scruggs style banjo picker relies on chord knowledge and neck knowledge. The two are inter-related and it’s crucial that you become the “Chord Master” in order to become the “Neck Master”. To bring it all home to roost, I came up with a pretty good exercise which you might like. This exercise helps to cement your chord positions, and it also teaches you something that I call “chord/fret spacing realtionships”.
Chord/fret spacing relationships
That’s my term for some banjo neck knowledge that you’ll find extremely helpful. Now, you rank beginners may find this a tiny bit confusing, and it’ll certainly seem like a lot to remember, but I hope you can trust me when I say that the longer you have your hands on your instrument jamming with other people, attempting to work your neck, the more this idea will stick.
There are several of what I call “chord/fret spacing relationships” on the banjo neck. Today’s conversation focuses on this one:
You can make all 3 of the common chords in a progression within two or three frets of each other if you change chord shapes through the progression.
Huh?! Lucy, ’splain yourself!
First of all, for the complete greenhorns among us: every key you play in will typically have 3 common chords. You probably know the key of G: G, C, and D. How about the key of C? C, F, and G. Etc. etc. Now, every song doesn’t have three chords; some have less, some have more. We’re talking about complete generalities here, and these “rules” can be broken song-by-song. But again, to distill the knowledge base down to it’s lowest common denominator, we often say that bluegrass is a three-chord format type of music. The “progression”, or in other words the group of chords for any particular key, can typically be expressed as three common chords for a particular key, i.e.: G, C, and D for the key of G.
Click me! Click me!
Once you master the chord shapes on the banjo neck, it’s most common with 5 string banjo to become very familiar with the chords for the key of G progression. Where are the Bar-form G’s, C’s, and D’s? Where are the F-form G’s, C’s, and D’s? Where are the D-form G’s, C’s, and D’s? That’s what part 1 of this series showed you: all of the G, C, and D chords on the banjo neck.
There is a G, C, and D chord within two-three frets of each other
That headline is true as long as you change chord shapes each time you switch a chord. To help illustrate this, I put together a chart showing this chord/fret spacing relationship. You’ll notice that the chart is non-specific as far as telling you which chord you are making at any given spot. You’ll also notice that the chart doesn’t talk about G’s, C’s and D’s…instead it speaks of 1, 4, and 5 chords. I’ll have another whole discussion on what “1, 4, and 5″ means at a later date; for now, just understand that 1=G, 4=C, and 5=D.
You’ll need to combine this chord chart with the chords from part 1 of this series. Here’s how you decipher this chart: once you have all of your G chords memorized, you’ll see that you have two F-form G chords, 1 bar form G chord, and 1 D-form G chord on the banjo neck. With this knowledge, you’ll understand that the chart tells you: “when you have an F-form G chord, here is where you find a C and a D chord within two-three frets of the G. When you have a Bar-form G chord, here is where you find a C and a D chord within two-three frets of the G. When you have a D-form G chord, here is where you find a C and a D chord within two-three frets of the G.” None of these chords are labeled as to exactly where to make the first G chord (labeled as a “1 chord”.) Simply choose any chord shape for a G chord, then find the C and D where illustrated. Here’s the chart (click to enlarge):
Chords within 3 frets! Click to enlarge
And now a great rolling exercise
Likely you’ll use the above chart as a good guideline, but you may not get it committed to memory right away. It’s a lot of information to absorb. The more time you spend in jam sessions, exploring your chord/fret relationships, the quicker these ideas will stick. You might find it handy to print out that chart for future reference.
While it’s true that you might struggle memorizing the above chart just by rote memory, it’s also true that you’ll have the above chart memorized by default if you memorize the tablature that you see below.
And what is this tablature? Funny you should ask because I was just going to tell you. The tablature you see below is simply an exercise I threw together that is meant to be rolled off as a song. It’s a page of picking that has you roll through a key of G progression. The trick is that we play the G, C, and D groupings that occur within two-three frets of reach other! Brilliant!!
Play through this tablature. Commit it to memory. And, pay attention to what you are doing when you are doing it. Connect the dots in your head. Wherever your left hand is, stop and take a good close look at what it’s doing! Tell yourself, right out loud: “alright, when I have my hand here, I am making F-form G, and I see there’s a bar form C here…” Of course you’ll fill in the appropriate chord names and shapes depending on what area of the neck you are actually on, but you get the idea. Don’t just “parrot” this tablature back. Process it; think about it; connect the dots; know what you are doing when you are doing it. Know what’s immediately adjacent to any position you are in.
Alright, here is the tablature exercise:
Chord position rolling drill (click to enlarge)
Bonus audio track
To give you that extra little bit of help, I recorded that piece of tablature for use in my upcoming Banjos Rule Guide To Backup Banjo which will be available on Dec. 15. You’ll get the above tablature and so much more with this course. Here, from the course, is my audio recording of this tablature piece. Click the blue link to play the audio, but give it some time to download. It’s a big file. You can shrink your media player and listen while you read the tablature:
Click here: audio recording of the tablature
In the recording I play the above tablature to the click of a metronome set at 90 b.p.m. You should get out your banjo and try to play along with me. If 90 b.p.m. is too fast, practice for several days and work up to it. Usually 90 isn’t considered to be an unmanageable speed on the banjo.
Whadda ya think?
This marks the end of my series on chords for the banjo. Did I say everything there is to say about chords in this series? Heaven’s no. But I hope that I did give you some food for thought and a good direction to go in for marching towards that magical goal of “neck knowledge”. I hope you’ll consider leaving comments below, subscribing to the comment stream, and subscribing to this blog…all of the required information you’ll find below.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly by clicking on the “send me a message” menu item at the top of this page. I am here to answer your questions and to point you in the right direction to improve your banjo picking. Take care for now my friends, 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!”
www.banjosrule.com (main site)
www.mybanjolife.com (blog)
Click here: Ultimate Metronome
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
That was a good 5-Part Series on Chords. Of course, this will lead into the topic of “how to count through the Chords”.
Actually, if you already know your ABC’s, you know how to count Chords. Our “musical alphabet” only contains 7 letters, representing 7 Major Chords. Namely, A-B-C-D-E-F and G. Of course, there are Sharps (#) and Flats (b). As you might suspect, these fall in between the Major Chords.
So, let’s count some Chords. Paul has already shown you how to make a Major A-Chord by using the “Barred Chord” fingering position. You should know it falls behind the 2nd fret above the “Nut”. Starting there, move your finger up two frets. That’s a Major B-Chord.
Move your finger up another Fret and you’re holding a Major C-Chord. Why do you only move one Fret? Well, we’ll save that explaination for later in your carreer. For now, just remember that any C-Chord only moves one Fret up from any B-Chord.
Now, move your finger up another two Frets and you’ll have a Major D-Chord.
Move your fingers up another two Frets and you’ll have a Major E-Chord.
Now, remember this, move your fingers up only one Fret and you’ll have a Major F-Chord. Just the same as any C-Chord only moves up one Fret, so too does any F-Chord advance only one Fret. Just as before, this is enough to know, for now.
Next, move your finger up another two Frets and you’ll have a Major G-Chord. This Chord is considered to be an “Octave” above the “Open G-Tuning” of your banjo.
If you wish to continue, you may do so. Just move your finger up another two Frets for another Major A-Chord…and another two Frets for another Major B-Chord…and only one more Fret for another Major C-Chord…and another two Frets for another Major D-Chord…and so on for as long as you feel comfortable, or until you run out of banjo neck.
Your banjo’s Frets are “Chromatically Spaced”. (Just take my word for it.) What that means to you is, when you take any Note up or down only one Fret, you’ve “sharpened” or “flattened”, as the case may be, that note by “one-half step”. Therefore, logic tells us that an advance of two Frets would be considered to be a “whole step”.
So, starting with any Chord you care to grab, you can count right on around by advancing the appropriate number of Frets, or “steps”. That is to say, any A-Chord, no matter if it’s a Major, Minor, Diminished, Augmented, Flat or Sharp or otherwise, will always be two steps above a G-Chord of the same “configuration”, which is a fancy word that means “the way you’re holding your fingers so as to make a specific Chord”.
As well, the Chords will always “count the same”. That will be: A=2 steps up from G, B=2 steps up from A, C=1 step up from B, D=2 steps up from C, E=2 steps up from D, F=1 step up from E, G=2 steps up from F, and so on and so forth.
If this is confusing, we’ll get Paul to give a little course on it. Knowing how this works makes it possible for you to find any Chord in any of the “finger positions” on the neck. For instance, say you’re performing with someone and they tell you the next Chord is a “D-Minor”, but you’ve never held a D-Minor Chord. Well if you know where your A-Minor Chord is, you can start there and count right on up to find a D=Minor. It’s as easy as 1-2-3…or A-B-C, as the case may be.
-Jesse
Jesse is of course correct in what he says and he always has good wisdom to impart. For some of my readers that went way over their heads, yet still others nodded along knowingly. I’ll cover all of the above…and more…in time, so hang in there and keep learning and picking!
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