Banjo Lick No. 4
December 21st, 2019This is a V7-I change taken from the song Nola. An interesting mix of melodic and single string technique to get you from A7 to D.
Video
Banjo Lick No. 3
December 7th, 2019Here is a lick that uses a flatted 3rd, 5th and 7th to give it a bluesy sound. In the key of G these blue notes are Bb, Db and F.
Banjo Lick No. 2
November 28th, 2019Banjo Lick No. 1
November 24th, 2019This is a melodic lick inspired by Bela Fleck. The tricky part is fretting the 5th string with your pinky.
Key of G
Foggy Mountain Special
September 14th, 2019Foggy Mountain Special
Key of G
Personnel:
Sean Ray – Banjo, Guitar, Bass
Brian Ray – Mandolin
Paul Kienitz – Violin
Get the tab!
Tab in PDF and TablEdit formats - $6.00
Flint Hill Special
August 18th, 2019Flint Hill Special
Key of G
D-Tuners = G/F# – B/A
Personnel:
Sean Ray – Banjo, Guitar, Bass
Brian Ray – Mandolin
Paul Kienitz – Violin
Get the tab!
Tab in PDF and TablEdit formats - $6.00
Blackjack
August 11th, 2019Blackjack – Jam tracks from The Session Book.
Key of B
Capo 4th
100 bpm
Personnel:
Sean Ray – Banjo, Guitar, Bass
Brian Ray – Mandolin
Paul Kienitz – Violin
Get the tab!
Tab in PDF and TablEdit formats - $6.00
Cripple Creek
August 2nd, 2019Cripple Creek
Key of A
Capo 2nd
Somewhere between Bluegrass and Old-Time is how I like to play fiddle tunes on guitar. Sure I may be playing a Santa Cruz Tony Rice model, in this video, but I relate more to Norman Blake and a laid back approach.
The intention of this video is to show you how to shape a basic melody into a lead line. More importantly it demonstrates that rhythm playing is equally important and doesn’t always have to be robotic strumming.
Another important element is to play with a bowing type pulse to give the music a lilt. After all fiddle tunes are traditionally played at dances.
Get the tab!
Tab in PDF and TablEdit formats - $6.00
The Lester Flatt Run – 12 Variations
July 28th, 2019Here are 12 variations of the classic Lester Flatt run also known as the G-Run. It’s a snappy tag lick that usually happens over a G chord but can be transcribed into any key.
There is no end to the possible variations but I figured 12 was a good starting point. Six in the key of G, three in C and three more in D.
Scale Harmony for Guitar
July 28th, 2019In this video we’ll take a look at harmonizing a C major scale on the guitar. It’s quite simple to do. First figure out the notes of the C major scale (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C). On piano this is all seven of the white keys.
Next you’re going to build a 7th chord for each note in the scale using only the notes from the scale. You build a 7th chord by using every other note.
For example starting on the 1st degree of the scale, which is C in this case, you would use the 1st, 3rd, 5th & 7th degrees of the scale C-E-G-B (Cmaj7).
Repeat the process on the remaining notes: D-F-A-C (Dm7). When you run out of notes you just continue using the same order. So the third group of notes would be E-G-B-D (Em7).
This is the first step toward understanding the seven modes of the major scale.
