Music Education

Learning Banjo - How to Play By Ear

Share page

Visit Us On FB

To get an idea about just how cool this is try running this little sippet of a G scale:

Now lay your finger across the first fret and play the same thing we just played:

And that piece of scale goes from G to G#/Ab. If we play the same thing pver again but with our finger across the second fret:

It becomes an A scale.

Everything on the fretboard can be moved up or down to play in another key. By putting a capo on the second fret everything you know in G is all of the sudden in the key of A.

Chords are no different. When we capo at the second fret the songs we know in the key of C wind up being in D. Why? Take a look at the chromatic scale starting on C:

C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B C

So get your capo out and start messing around with Boil Them Cabbage Down in G and C. See if you figure out how to play it in E or F.

We are also going to look at playing "up the neck." Here are two examples of the first two measures of Boil Them Cabbage Down in G to mess with:

In this example we are playing around with the fact that your D chord moved down to the ninth fret becomes a G chord (look at the chromatic scale again) and that you can blend the "high" G with the "open" G: