Music Education

Learning Banjo - How to Play By Ear

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Example Seven: G Tag (G chord)

This is one of those really flexible licks. I do something different with it every time I use it, but this will at least give you something to work with. Try sliding into the first note.

Example Seven: C Chord Run (C chord)

The only thing that might trip you up with this one is using your pinky. We don't use our little fingers much and as a result they tend to be kind of weak. Make this lick part of your daily practice routine for a while and build up your hand strength a bit.

Now licks are a lot of fun to mess around with- but you don't want to rely on anybody else to come up with them for you. Part of finding yur own voice on the banjo is going to revolve around just messing chords and playing with sounds.

A good way to get started on this is to take a basic song you already know and start experimenting with ways to spice things up.

If we go back to Boil Them Cabbage Down there are a lot of things you can do to change the way the song is presented without losing the songs identity.

For example, we could play Boil Them Cabbage Down in C, but instead of just using the fist string for the "bump" we could try the second string. We could even take things further and add in a hammer-on.

Here is the first few measures of Boil Them Cabbage Down in C trying that idea: