"Thank you for making this process so accessible. I feel like you share your passion in the lessons, the breakthroughs and discoveries you have made for yourself. That is really special."
- Mark Bauscat
PROVIDED WITH THE PURCHASE OF THIS WORKSHOP
- a pre-workshop handout (2 tunes and some chords to learn before the workshop with video examples)
- access to video of the Zoom workshop as it went down live on October 3/2021
- an 27 page written overview of the topic (including tab examples)
- Video examples of everything that is tabbed out
Workshop Description
One of the most common requests that I get at workshops is to shed some light on playing in the upper portion of the fretboard. For many of us, getting beyond the fifth fret is like going into some foreign land where we don’t know the language and we have no map. But, don’t worry, It doesn’t have to be this way.
In this workshop, I hope to de-mystify playing up the neck in both G and Double C tuning. I have two approaches for playing up the neck. One is chord-based and one is a single-string "dulcimer" method. By using some common chord shapes as “anchor” and “take-off” points I show you how to replicate first position phrases up the neck and up the octave. I also focus on using the first string for melody up the neck, and the fingerings that help make that more possible.
We revisit some concepts we looked at in some of my previous workshops, especially “What to Leave in and What to Take Out”. In that workshop, we looked at listening “through” the melody in order to not get trapped by trying to play melody notes that aren’t essential, or that may be impractical to the style, or your level of playing. I consider the ability to re-phrase and interpret melodic lines without losing the heart of the melody to be an advanced skill that many intermediate players struggle with, and one that is very important when it comes to playing up the neck.
We will work with a couple of common tunes, which you can access before the workshop. The arrangements are in the first position. You will learn those arrangements before the workshop, then during the workshop, we’ll look at some strategies I might approach playing the same tunes up the neck. I will also send you a few chords to learn in both tunings (many of you will already be familiar with these). I leave you with 3 more arrangements to work on after the workshop, so you will end up with five tunes. My hope is that if you learn these tunes, you’ll have everything you’ll need to start playing just about anything you want up neck, and before you know it, the other half of the banjo won’t seem like a foreign land!
The original workshop took place over Zoom on October 3, 2021. It is 2 hours long. There really isn't much difference between taking the workshop live or in re-run format. If this description sound interesting to you, I hope you'll consider taking the full course.
