How is Ground Speed coming?
I‘m taking on an aggressive…and long…blog series suggested by my reader George Preiss, where we take a look at one of the most pivotal and important albums of banjo instrumentals ever made: the Foggy Mountain Banjo Album by Flatt & Scruggs. Join me as we look at each song. We’ll take the songs apart and look at how to roll each one. We’ll focus on making the songs playable, avoiding the pitfalls, and picking up choice and tasty licks for use in other songs. I’ll answer the questions that you give me at the bottom of each blog post, and in the end we’ll all have a pretty good handle on this important album in the banjo lexicon. (To find links to the important tools that I mention in this blog post, refer back to my blog post where I introduce this series and provide links for getting your own copy of these tools by clicking here: introductory blog post.) If any of you knowledgeable historians can correct anything I say or add to the conversation, please do so by leaving your corrections or comments at the end of this blog post. I’d appreciate the help; I only want to put out factual information.
I’ve fallen in love with Foggy Mt. Banjo all over again
The Foggy Mt. Banjo album was recorded in 1961, a full 6 years before I was born. I discovered it at a garage sale in the mid 80’s, shortly after I got started picking the banjo. I must say that I couldn’t properly appreciate the album then. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I didn’t give the album its due or appreciate what a treasure it is for banjo players for most of my life. I find that with my serious efforts to really become a world-class banjo player, I’ve had my eyes opened to so many things that people for years have already known.
Sitting in a class taught by Peter Wernick and listening to his reverent love for Earl Scruggs, but more importantly, having Peter show the genius of the man through video clips, CD recordings, and demonstrations on Peter’s own banjo, really helped me to see that an in-depth study of Earl’s work can only help to propel me in my banjo endeavors. Cap that off with the suggestion by blog reader George Preiss that we all study the Foggy Mt. Banjo Album, and you can see why I’m so excited about this blog series I’m writing.
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More Ground Speed lead work (with a Banjo Paul twist)
It’s become “standard issue” in the circles that I travel in…Michigan, Indiana, Ohio…to insert a stop into Ground Speed in the B part of the song, while the banjo plays a little single string version of “Yankee Doodle”. If you’ve never experienced this song in a jam session, you might not know what I’m referring to. Listening to Earl playing the song on the album, there are no stops. He does do the Yankee Doodle at one point, but without the stop. Without bogging us down to try and explain the in’s and out’s of stops, who does them, who doesn’t, blah blah blah, just know that the first jam session you play this song in might surprise you when all the musicians come to a stop at one point in the B part of the song. People get passionate about this detail, so be prepared. I routinely and religiously did the stops any time that I picked the song in the past, but Peter pointed out to me that Earl doesn’t do the stops. I had simply not paid attention to this detail. It was during Peter’s banjo camp that I decided to pick the song historically accurate from here forward whenever I play it.
Click here to download version 2 of the song:
Sheet Music to Ground Speed (full version)
This song is really a showpiece song for a banjo player, and for you beginners, it’s really an aggressive piece to tackle early-on. I don’t introduce my students to material like this for many months; I make sure they are grounded in so many other techniques and abilities first. If you are at the beginning of your banjo journey and you get this song tackled, then you have a bright future indeed!
Alright, I mentioned the Banjo Paul twist in the headline above. Truth be told, there are a couple of "twists" to the version 2 sheet music. Some of it came from my head, and some of it came from Scott Vestal, who I referenced in the last blog post.
The one definite twist that came from me is the addition of the melody line to the song “Dixie”, played instead of “Yankee Doodle” in the B part of the song. This is a great little addition to the song that I’m kind of proud of. It never fails to turn heads when people hear this riff in the middle of the song. (You’ll see this in measures 36 & 37.)
The other main "twist" is the addition of Scott Vestal’s variation to the B part of the song. It’s super-catchy and easy to do.
Let’s chat…
For this format, it’s probably easiest to let the audio file explain things in detail. This blog post will be about 75 paragraphs long if I try explaining everything by writing it all out. And as it turns out, the sound file turnned out quite long, so I broke it down into two files. The first one explains variation #1 to the B part of the song, and the second sound file explains…you guess it…variation #2 to the B part of the song. Here you go:
Audio recording: Ground Speed full version explained-part 1
Audio recording: Ground Speed full version explained-part 2
Alright, that’s all we have on the lead work for the song. The next blog post for this series (tentatively planned for each Wednesday) will be addressing a few rhythm or backup issues, especially a great technique by Scott Vestal to use when playing backup. Stay tuned for that.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
I’m eager to hear from you during this blog series, so please consider leaving comments at the bottom of each blog post. I’d like to get some conversations going regarding the history, background, techniques, and "back story" of the album. I’m hoping we all learn from each other.
I hope you are enjoying the series! Until next time, have a great spring and pick ‘em if ya got ‘em!
The next blog post of the series is posted! To go straight there, click this link: Ground Speed part 3
Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
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Once again, nice job on the blog. It’s entertaining, and informative, as usual. You mentioned not giving Foggy Mountain Banjo it’s due until recently. I have it on my short list of CD’s to buy. Yes, I’m an old guy who likes a shiny round disc in his hand when he forks out $12 for some music, instead of an invisible swirl of electrons massaged into order by Steve Jobs himself. Anyhow, I recently listened to the entire Flatt and Scruggs at Carnegie Hall! CD. This is the re-released version containing the entire concert. It was like listening to an audio textbook on how to play bluegrass in general, and specifically, the banjo. The tone and timing of Earl kept me mesmerized. I was particularly drawn to his backup work throughout the entire concert. These are two CD’s that I must now own.
Hey Tim, I’m with you! I far prefer to have the actual disc in hand. I’ve avoided shopping iTunes like the plague just because I want the physical disc in my collection. I think I’ve purchased 3 albums on iTunes, but as a rule I wait and buy the disc.
About 150 years ago I had the live at Carnegie Hall album and loved it. Of course, mine was on cassette tape and I wore it out. With my renewed effort to emulate the master, I’ll be buying that one again too. I’m amazed at Foggy Mountain Banjo and so can’t wait to dig in to Carnegie Hall.
Thanks for being a faithful commenter! See you next lesson.