vrijdag 17 augustus 2012

A well prepeared banjoplayer

 

The headline of this article sould be ‘A well prepeared musician’, but since we’re talking banjo’s (and harmonica’s) here, I will let it be. There are a number of things you should carry along in your banjo-case.

*A set of new strings (or two sets...)
*A spare set of fingerpicks (also a thumbpick, but a thumb is also a finger...)
*Cloth (to wipe your banjo dry or clean)
*A spare tuner
*A spare capo
*A cable cutter tool (pliers) to cut the ‘left-over’of a new string
*Some allen wrenches
*A little screw driver (for adjusting the pressure of your tuners)

These things come in very handy. It’s like driving a car with oil, water, a spare tire and tools in the back. This list is not complete; maybe you have some other things that might come in handy. Please let me know!

maandag 13 augustus 2012

Mystery train by the Big Americana Band

A nice song for harmonica; imitating a train...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVY7sQ5n-FU&list=UU4NAYVOPgPMBXSr3kFJZMWw&index=1&feature=plcp

Mystery train by the Big Americana Band (BAB). With Koen Steffanie (lead vocals/guitar), Peter Storm (guitar), Ernst Jan Peters (bass guitar), Frank Nel (drums, percussion) and Fred Hissink (banjo and harmonica's)

woensdag 8 augustus 2012

Playing in a band

Okay, the real stuff! Let’s assume that you are about to join a band. A bluegrassband, a countryband or another kind of band, it doesn’t matter. What does matter are a few simple facts (I call them ‘rules of politement’) to make your musical contribution a pleasure for the band, yourself and the audience.
Bandmembers (you...) are part of a band, not the centre of the band. Together they make music and members are taking turns to play a break. This means that you are playing in the background for most of the time (see my article ‘Playing back-up: working in the background’).
Always think of the band as a music producing unit and think of the contribution you can make to the overall sound. It’s important to listen to each other while you are playing, rather than ‘pushing’ your own sound forwards. Of course, your contribution is a part of the band, but it should not interfere with the musical part of another bandmember. This is especially true when you are playing in the background. It should be obvious who is doing what at in a specifiek part of a song.
Sometimes it’s good idea to step aside and listen what is going on in your band. Don’t play your instrument, just listen...


The Big Americana Band


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fill it in

The ‘empty’ parts at the end of a line (before the singer goes the next line) are perfect for so called fill-in licks. One instrument can make a contribution here, but not all the instrument at once! I’ll give you an example: in our band, called the Big Americana Band (BAB), I play banjo and harmonica(‘s). We play a song called Mystery Train and I start the song by imitating a train on my harp. I play fill-in licks in the rest of the song (trainsounds). One evening, while working on this song, I noticed that our fiddleplayer also did a very good imatation of a trainwissle. So we decided to take turns to play the train-whistle as a fill-in lick.

Playing a break or not?

It’s not a must to play a break in every song. Sometimes a banjo can be more effective as a backup-instrument, giving the right sound on the right moments in the background. Also the band can start a song with a banjo-intro. Banjo and fiddle together can make a nice intro too.
Anyway, be creatieve. Poor your own musical sauce over the songs and be distinctive.

dinsdag 6 maart 2012

Playing back-up: working in the background


Playing back-up literally means: backing-up, supporting the members of your band (or your musical friends at a jamsession). Backing-up means stapping away from the spotlights and supporting the musician that is playing lead. Banjoplayers (or bluegrassmusicians in general) are playing backup 95% of the time (more or less). This means that you have to give some attention to your backup, because it cannot be neglected. There are a lot of different backup-styles and eventually you will come up with your own ideas and style. But before that happens you have to play and practice back-up. A very good book for beginners and advanced is Back-up banjo by Janet Davis. Learn to play back-up, up-the-neck and down-the-neck. Over 250 back-up patterns which can be used to accompany any song. 30 plus songs, each with lead arrangements and several back-up arrangements. The book comes with cd and dvd, or with cd or dvd; your choice.

But how can you support fellow musicians with your playing? It’s not as difficult as you may think, but the most important thing is to develop the ability to listen to the rest of the musicians. ‘The best band is the one that has musicians working to produce a whole, rather than ‘every man for himself’ with each one trying to show how much he knows’, according to John Hickman.
Take a look at http://www.elfshot.com/banjo/info_backup.htm for some more advice on back-up.

Speed: practice slowly to achieve it

Let us be honest: a lot of people get excited by hearing fast banjoplaying. And they should, because it’s awesome! But playing (accurately) at high speed is not as easy as you may think. Start by choosing an easy instrumental and certainly not a Jens Kruger type of song (I like to exaggerate things a little bit, but you know what I mean...). For instance Cripple creek, Cumberland gap or Foggy mountain breakdown. Play with a metronome (see my article about playing with a metronome in the archieves of this blog). If you don’t like playing with a metronome, you can use a drum/percussion application like Hammerhead. Band-in-a-box is also a very nice application with lots of possibilities (this applications runs on midi’s). The freeware application BestPractice makes it possible to slow down music, like the music on cd’s.

Building up speed
Building up speed means that you have to be patient. Speed does not come overnight. Start with an easy instrumental (as mentioned above) and play it at a speed you’re comfortable with. Play it at a speed which allows you to play the instrumental smoothly and without errors. Let’s say you start at 80 bpm (bpm = beats per minute). If you can handle the song at this speed, without any discomfort, try to increase the speed a little bit. You may notice that this next step isn’t as hard as you thought it would be: staying on a comfortable speed for a little while means that you are building a ‘platform’ on which you can take the next step, without a lot of strain or discomfort. But, if the next step is too much, decrease the speed and go back to your old level. Don’t force yourself to play at a speed you cannot master. You will not make any progress if you force yourself; your muscles will protest. And, there’s another important thing: don’t use excessive force. Increasing speed doesn’t mean that you have to ‘dig’ your way through the song. Again: your muscles will protest because playing is not a workout. To end this little story: a banjo sounds great at high speed, but it’s not all about speed. Sometimes a banjoplayer hits the throttle and plays a mean instrumental, but a lot of songs on a regular (bluegrass)playlist are not at topspeed.
Good luck!

Talking about (five)speed...