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Single-String Style: Picking-Hand Exercises 

This lesson is part of the course Bluegrass Banjo with Bill Evans.
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About This Course
 
Learn to make your banjo drive the band or play sweet melodies, with solos to well-known songs and tunes, backup techniques, and more.
 
 
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Blue Ridge Cabin Home
 
In this lesson, you’ll start adding roll patterns to the melody of “Blue Ridge Cabin Home.” Every melody has a rhythm and when Earl Scruggs was working out his breaks, he tried to keep the melody’s rhythm intact as he added the roll patterns, letting the melody dictate what kind of roll to use. Bill shows you some ideas for choosing rolls. For example, if you have a melody note that’s held out for a long time you can try a forward roll, and when the melody notes are closer together you can try an alternating thumb roll or a forward reverse roll. Bill walks you through an entire solo here, with embellishments and fill-in licks.
 
 
 
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  • High-quality video with multiple camera angles so you can see closeups of both hands in action.
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Single-String Exercises  
 
Single-String Exercises  
 
Single-String Style: Picking-Hand Exercises 
Single-String Style: Picking-Hand Exercises 
 
Players like Béla Fleck and Noam Pikelny are known for their single-string style of playing scalar melodies, much like a guitarist or mandolin player would. Single-string technique involves alternating the thumb and the index finger (and sometimes the middle finger), which solves the problem of playing consecutive eighth notes on the same string. Bill explains the technique and gives you tips on picking-hand position, and then shows you a series of picking-hand exercises that cover many of the moves (including crossovers, in which the thumb plays a higher string than the index finger) you’ll need to master to get comfortable with single-string style.

  Single-String Picking-Hand Exercises (Available to subscribers)
 
 
 
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A performance of the jazz classic by the 2018 IBMA Banjo Player of Year, with Sharon Gilchrist, Chad Manning, John Reischman, and Jim Nunally.
 
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    ● Courses
    ● Live Workshops
    ● Instructors
    ● Sample Lessons
    ● Notation Guide
    ● For Beginners
 
 
    ● Vintage Vault
    ● New Gear
    ● Fine Lutherie
 
 
    ● Workshops
    ● Advice
    ● Repertoire
 
 
    ● Recordings
    ● Events
    ● Breaking News
 
 
    ● In The Studio
    ● Live Onstage
    ● Backroom
 
 
    ● New Products
    ● Inside Look
    ● Performances
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