Miniseries #003, Worried Man Blues II

Monday, May 11, 2009

Miniseries #003, Worried Man Blues II

Hi All,

Here is the version of Worried Man Blues on the Banjo. Now the first thing I would like to say about this video is.....after I reviewed this video.... concerning the D chord in this song, what I meant to say is that we are using two FRETTED notes out of the second string position for the D chord. I am using SEVERAL different notes to play through the melody section when playing through the chord change of D.

Using just those two fretted notes out of the second string position along with the open second, first and fifth strings gave that section a different Color within the solo. I'm going to be explaining why these different techniques sound like they do. It involves the Scales that different chords are built from. The second string (the open B string) is the seventh degree of the D major scale, but don't worry about that right now, just concentrate on the song itself.

Also in this video, you can see why this C chord played closest to the nut (also coming out of the second string position) is what it is. It looks a little different in the video because we are using different fingers of our left hand to make the formation more comfortable and versatile. You will see what I mean about it being more versatile when we start to work around that C chord in the future.

I would like to mention a few other things before you start on the Worried Man Blues as well. Once you become familiar and comfortable playing this song, I would like you to pick this song with different forces of the right hand. When I say forces, I mean play it harder and then play the song softly. Playing songs harder and softly will start to bring out finesse in your right hand. It will also help to bring out different accents (definition) when we start to explore advanced concepts of accenting melody notes and using these forces to bring out expressions on the Banjo.

What I say "expressions", I mean the different feelings you can create in your music. I'll give you an example and I'll use Ralph Stanely as this example. When you listen to Ralph, his singing and playing, In my opinion, is one of purest sounds you will hear in Traditional Bluegrass Music. His singing and playing is coming from deep inside. It is a very straight ahead sound, but that sound is filled with soul and great expression.

We will get into bringing out your own expressions on the Banjo as We get into advanced concepts on the Banjo in future lessons. Good Luck with Worried Man Blues everyone, and play well.

Rock On,

David