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Learn “the pinch pattern,” a classic accompaniment pattern used in bluegrass banjo, and use it to play the popular gospel song “I’ll Fly Away.”
The forward roll is an essential element of bluegrass banjo because it provides the characteristic drive that defines bluegrass. Learn the basic forward roll along with a few variations and play them with G, C, D7, and D chords.
Learn how to use the forward roll on the bluegrass classic “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms.”
You can play the jam-session favorite “Wagon Wheel” with just two roll patterns, the alternating thumb roll and the forward-reverse roll. You’ll learn the chords to “Wagon Wheel” and get advice on keeping your roll pattern going while changing chords.
Learn the melody to the classic folk tune “This Land Is Your Land.” Once you’ve learned the melody and chords, you’ll add rolls to create a complete banjo break.
A great bluegrass banjo tune for beginners, “Banjo in the Hollow” primarily uses the forward-reverse roll, with a couple of simple chord positions up the neck.
One of the most common bluegrass tunes, “Cumberland Gap” is favorite of fiddlers and banjo players alike. You'll learn four different ways to play the forward-reverse roll, then use them to play this arrangement of “Cumberland Gap.”
The next step to creating great-sounding banjo solos is to start embellishing the melodies with slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. In these important and comprehensive lessons, you’ll learn to add slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to the old-time and bluegrass favorite “Cripple Creek.”
This accompaniment technique uses movable chords. It’s great to use in a jam session when you want to get out of the way of the other instruments but still provide rhythmic support. You'll learn to vamp with F and D shapes in a variety of different ways and practice vamping on “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” “I’ll Fly Away,” and other bluegrass songs.
Also called “waltz” time, 3/4 is the time signature for numerous folk and bluegrass songs, including “Goodnight Irene,” which you’ll learn in this lesson. You’ll learn how to modify 4/4 roll patterns you already know so you can play them in 3/4.
The forward-reverse roll is a great roll to use when playing backup on bluegrass classics like “Nine Pound Hammer,” “Little Maggie,” and many others. You’ll learn some variations of the forward-reverse roll and then use them to play the chord progressions to “Nine Pound Hammer” and “Little Maggie.”
Those lonesome-sounding tunes, like “Man of Constant Sorrow,” “Cluck Old Hen,” and “Clinch Mountain Backstep,” are called “modal tunes” and use a different scale, which you’ll learn in this lesson. Then you’ll learn a solo and backup for “Clinch Mountain Backstep.”
You learned how to accompany “I’ll Fly Away” with pinch patterns in an earlier lesson, but now you’ll learn how to use different roll patterns to play a solo for “I’ll Fly Away.”
The bluegrass jam favorite “Soldier’s Joy” is in the key of D, and is a good example of how to play in the key of D without using a capo. You’ll learn the chords in D, the basic melody of “Soldier’s Joy,” and how to fill in the melody with the alternating thumb pattern in the first part and forward-reverse rolls in the second part.
The seasonal favorite “Jingle Bells” is a great tune to break out at holiday parties, whether you want to accompany singing or play a solo. You’ll learn both an easy accompaniment pattern that combines the pinch pattern with the alternating thumb roll as well as an easy lead arrangement of the chorus of “Jingle Bells.”
Learn the “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” roll, which, of course, is used in the classic Earl Scruggs banjo tune “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” It’s a little more complicated than some of the rolls you’ve learned already and it can be used in lots of songs. In this lesson you’ll use it to play the classic tune “Boil the Cabbage Down.”
The fiddle tune “Blackberry Blossom” is a popular jam tune. The first half has a lot of chords, but they’re all chords that you know, while the second half is in a minor key. You’ll learn to play through the chords and melody using a new roll pattern: the “middle leading” pattern, also called the “Osborne roll” after banjo great Sonny Osborne.
The fiddle tune “Old Joe Clark” is a bluegrass jam favorite and another opportunity to work on the “Osborne roll.” The second part of “Old Joe Clark” uses an F chord and Bill gives you a few exercises to help you get used to fretting it.
The great bluegrass singer and banjo player Ralph Stanley passed away recently. In this lesson you’ll learn a solo to the folk classic “Worried Man Blues” inspired by the Stanley Brothers’ version of the song using forward-reverse rolls.
The old-time melody “Reuben” was the first tune Earl Scruggs worked out using his three-finger picking style. It’s a popular tune at old-time and bluegrass jam sessions and it’s in D tuning. You’ll learn how to get into D tuning as well as a great solo that uses combinations of pinch patterns and alternating thumb rolls, along with an occasional forward-reverse roll. You’ll also learn two of Earl’s variations.
Made popular in the movie Deliverance, “Dueling Banjos” even reached #2 on the pop charts in 1972. It’s a great tune for learning the G major scale. You’ll learn all of the melodies you’ll need to play the first part of “Dueling Banjos” and the chord progression and rolls you’ll need on the “fast” second part.
Earl Scruggs’ banjo tune “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is probably the most famous bluegrass banjo instrumental. Learn exactly how Earl played “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” starting with the well-known opening lick, which is played with the “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” roll.
The old-time country classic “Wildwood Flower” is a favorite instrumental of guitarists, who usually play it in the key of C. So it makes a good lesson in playing melodies in the key of C on the banjo. Bill gives you some advice about tuning your banjo when playing in C and then shows you the basic melody of “Wildwood Flower.” You’ll also learn the major chords in the key of C and how to add rolls to fill out the melody, along with a couple variations.
The jam session favorite “Cherokee Shuffle” is a fiddle tune, and when played by a fiddle or mandolin player it’s melody may contain a lot of eighth notes, but it can be played Scruggs-style on the banjo by simplifying the melody and adding roll patterns. “Cherokee Shuffle” is commonly played in the key of A with a capo at the second fret using key-of-G chord shapes.
The banjo is found in many styles of music these days, not just bluegrass. Learn a few folk and pop tunes to play at jam sessions and with friends.
The ‘60s folk classic “500 Miles” is a great song for working on playing minor chords. In the key of G, it uses Em, Am, and Bm, as well as G, C, and D chords. You’ll learn all these chords and how to use the forward-reverse roll to play “500 Miles.”
The Grateful Dead song “Friend of the Devil” is one of the band’s most popular songs and one that is often played at bluegrass jams. It’s also a good song to work on changing chords quickly.
The Beatles’ song “I’ve Just Seen a Face” is popular in the bluegrass world and, of course, is fun to sing and play at all kinds of jam sessions. In this lesson, you’ll learn to play accompaniment to it using some variations of the forward-reverse roll, and how to embellish those rolls a bit if you want to create a simple solo.
The Christmas favorite “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” is a fun song to play on the banjo during the winter holidays, and it also uses a couple of chords you may not have played yet: Bm and A. You’ll learn an arrangement of the melody and chords using the forward-reverse roll.
John Denver’s 1970s hit “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is a popular song at bluegrass slow jams and campfire singalongs. In this lesson, you’ll learn a few ways to accompany it, including a pattern that combines the pinch pattern and the alternating-thumb roll.
Melodic banjo is a style of banjo playing designed to play melodies like fiddle tunes that have fast-moving strings of notes based on scales. So far you’ve played breaks to songs using Scruggs style by taking song melodies and filling them out with roll patterns. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to play a major scale melodic style and how to use that scale to play the melody to the traditional tune “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
Being comfortable playing with others is your goal as a beginning banjo player and slow jams are a good place to find other musicians at your level to play with. Bill talks about what you need to know and do to get ready for a slow jam, including how to play songs that you don’t already know. Bill is joined by guitarist Scott Nygaard, who shows you what basic G, C, and D chords look like on the guitar so you can follow along in a slow jam if you don’t know the song. Bill and Scott also play and sing the bluegrass standards “Nine Pound Hammer” and “Long Journey Home” as you would in a slow jam.
