Columbus banjo lessons

Banjo Lessons in Columbus, GA. Amazing Teachers. In person or online. Background Check This teacher successfully passed a thorough criminal background check with SterlingBackcheck.

This badge verifies trusted teacher status. Karen D. Teaching Locations: Online. Quick View. About Karen Hi! Recent Reviews. Richard W. Andrei P. About Andrei Teaching music is one of my passions. Matt O. This badge demonstrates subject mastery on a nationwide scale. John B. Private Banjo Teacher Learn how to play Banjo! About John I have been playing for about 35 years and teaching music and guitar for 25 years. Edwin I.

About Edwin Hello! Browse Online Teachers. I am a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter working in a variety of genres. My primary musical influences include folk and. I have been teaching since and have a BA in Music. I can teach all the basics any banjo player needs to get rolling. I can teach both 5 string and tenor banjos. I teach many different right hand banjo rolls, chord shapes, and their application in different songs.

Teaching music is one of my passions. I value each student and the time I have with them; helping them to explore the world of music. After each lesson, my students walk away with a deeper understanding of music and have enjoyed their time.

Music is a lifelong skill that can always be practiced and. Although I have been a professional fretted stringed instrument instructor since , Banjo is my newest instrument. I am genuinely passionate about your success in becoming the best banjo player you choose to be!

I like to teach with repetition wax on wax off and prefer to present the big picture first so that every obstacle may potentially never be an obstacle for you. I take years of teaching experience and what have been topics of frustration brought to me by students in the past. I try to smooth the road and teach you, so you get the highest yield of success for your money with as few headaches as possible :. Hey musician!

I hope you will pick me to help you avoid common setbacks in your progress. I look forward to helping you be your best on your instrument! I play fretted and fretles. Loud, jangly, and twangy, the banjo is an instrument with a distinctive voice that immediately evokes the spirit of the American South. Long a mainstay of bluegrass music, banjos have recently been incorporated into pop music as well by bands like Mumford and Sons.

And, if YouTube trends are any indication, it looks like the banjo is making another genre shift! A pack of viral videos featuring banjo covers of hard rock classics are making the rounds and proving that banjos can shred just a …. Banjo Lessons in Columbus, OH. Amazing Teachers.

The first is a uploaded audio recording by the Kentucky Colonels , from a now out of print Rounder Record album entitled The Kentucky Colonels, - The second is an audio upload of the great bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman , a singer noted for his talented pick-up band.

Adcock shows off his mastery of Reno single string style on this cut. Michael Coleman on bass. The Scene, with this same line-up, later recorded the song on an album entitled Scenic Roots , released on Sugar Hill Records Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder are in the next video, from a Minnesota casino gig in Jim Mills is on banjo, about a year before he left Skaggs.

They had recorded this years earlier, on an album called Ancient Tones, recorded in , when Mills first joined the band. There are two non-bluegrass videos that I thought were kind of interesting. The first is a video of John Denver , from a live concert in Japan in The second is a cover by a rock group called String Cheese Incident , from a concert in Ashville, North Carolina.

The last video presents the Jameson Mountain Boys; actually the folks at the Thurday night bluegrass jam in Billerica.

This tape was made a few years ago, when the jam was still being held at Brian Clancey's silk screening shop. It has since moved to the Unitarian Church in Billerica Center. Ed Cowden, who led the jam in those days, is the guitar player sitting in front of the Stop sign; he appears to be doing the singing. To his left on guitar is Brian Clancey. Brian and I played together in a band called Wry Whiskey some years ago.

Keith Hillyard is the banjo player to the right of Ed who kicks it off, and takes a break again around Edmond Boudreau is the first mandolin player to take a break, at around Zoel Sawyer does the fiddle break at about , followed shortly after by Tom Mirisola's banjo break at Bill Kobin is the guitarist taking a break at I don't remember the names of any of the other participants. The successful double album, later digitally remastered and released on CD, brought acoustic bluegrass and old time country music to a whole new audience, and showcased a number of classic country and bluegrass performers, including Roy Acuff, Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Merle Travis and fiddler Vassar Clemens.

The guests each performed a few of their signature hits, backed by the Dirt Band members, who set aside their usual amplificatied instruments for the acoustic sessions. It was to be the first cut of the album. Martin performs the song in the key of F. McEuen employs standard C tuning, capoed on the fifth fret. The fifth string is capoed at the 10th fret. The tablature follows McEuen's intro and back up fairly closely, but also includes a banjo break not on the recording.

Overall, it provides a good example of one strategy for playing in the key of F. The banjo player is the legendary J. I have included two vidoes of interest. It appears to be from the late 80s, during a period when McEuen was on a long hiatus from the band. The second video is a posting of a backyard jam session by some Mount Airy, North Carolina bluegrass pickers, led by mandolinist Johnny Dearmin.

The banjo picker is Rick Pardue, who takes a fine break around The fiddle player is Jim Vipperman. Shelton is. He played with Jim and Jesse from through , and returned again about ten years later. Shelton played banjo on most of the McReynolds classic bluegrass recordings, and is known among bluegrass pickers for the "bounce" he puts in his picking, which helped define the McReynolds sound.

The song was released in , on the group's second album for Epic Records, Bluegrass Special, now out of print. When you listen to the Louvin's original version, you can hear how much their tight brother-style harmony influenced the singing of the McReynolds brothers. The second is from a episode of The American Music Shop, a television show which ran for three years on the Nashville Network. On banjo is Herb Peterson.

I've also included two other notable YouTube Videos. Earl's work on this recording showcases a lot of his archetypal back-up licks; most are now standard among bluegrass pickers. This makes the recording an excellent exercise in three-fnger style back-up noodling. Skinner recorded the "chain gang" song for release through several vanity record labels, before making his first commercial recording of the song in August, , for a small Cincinnati label called Radio Artist.

Possibly recognizing the rising influence of bluegrass, Skinner had his multi-intrumental brother, Esmer, play the banjo in an up-picking, two finger style.

The Grascals video is from the Podunk Bluegrass Festival, August, , with Aaron McDaris on banjo; his picking closely imitates Earl's, demonstrating Scrugg's continuing influence in bluegrass music. McDaris now plays with Rhonda Vincent. The last video is a performance by Cash with former bluegrasser, now retro-country star Marty Stuart, which I thought was an interesting contrast. Notes: We are going to continue our emphasis this week on learning to play spontaneous back-up, and breaking away from the tab.

The tune is the Sitting on Top of the World, an old bluegrass standard, and while the tab includes an open position break, the basic pinch style back-up measures are just placeholders, to be replaced by a selection of rolls and licks demonstrated in the four back-up exercises. Two of the exercises use open rolls, the other two closed position patterns. The idea is to take the relevant licks in the back up measures from the exercises, and use them in the appropriate places in the back up for Sitting on Top of the World.

The banjo picker was the late Don Stover , who lived and performed for many years in the Boston area, playing first with the Lilly Brothers , and then with his own band, the White Oak Mountain Boys. One of my favorite bluegrass recordings was made by Harry and Jeannie West , for their now out of print Prestige International album, Country Music in Bluegrass Style , featuring Bill Emerson on banjo.

Sitting on Top of the World is not a traditional song, it was originally recorded for Okeh Records in by a black string band called the Mississippi Sheiks , and was written by two members of the band, Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon.

The original performance was in a much slower country blues style. The legendary Doc Watson credits the Sheiks for his elegant finger style version, recorded on his debut album called Doc Watson, released in by Vanguard Records. Inspired by Watson's rendition, I worked up a banjo version in open D tuning that I recorded in , during a living room practice session with my friends Brian Clancey and Tom Speth.

We called our trio Wry Whiskey. A few of the more interesting one include a video of western swing pioneer Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys , in the slow, bluesy style of the Mississippi Sheiks, which demonstrates the black string band influence on Western Swing.

Ben Eldridge is the only original member left in the band today. Notes: We are going to continue to work on spontaneous back-up, and playing without looking at the tab. The tune for this week's lesson is the old country song Wabash Cannonball. Given the complexity of the instrumental breaks for this tune, we will apply the same basic back-up patterns from the last lesson to this one. Wabash Cannonball was first recorded by the Carter Family for Victor Records in November, , but it was not released until three years later by Montgomery Ward, under the retailers own label.

Carter is generally given the writer's credits for the song. It would remain one of Acuff's signature numbers throughout his life. The slide guitar player was Clell Summey. Two years later, Acuff was invited to join the Grand Old Opry. Summey was replaced by Pete Kirby, better known as Bashful Brother Oswald, who would remain with him for the rest of his career. Perhaps the first bluegrass recording of Wabash Cannonball comes from the legendary singer Mac Wiseman, who recorded the song for Dot Records in Nashville harmonica great Charlie McCoy sat in for this recording.

Sadly, Scruggs takes no lead on this cut. The banjo player is Bill Holden. There are quite a few YouTube postings of Wabash Cannonball; I have highlighted three as worth particular note. He is known for the train whistle sound effect he gets with his voice. There is an upload of a fine guitar version by Nashville legend Chet Atkins , with a fine banjo break by Sonny Osborne starting at Notes: This week's lesson provides practice in playing in the key of C out of open G tuning.

By using open G instead of drop C tuning, you are still able to use the largerepertoire of closed position back up patterns and licks available in G tuning. The disadvantage is that you no longer have that nice deep low C note. For many tunes, it is a worthwhile trade off. This was recorded in , three years after he parted ways with Lester Flatt. Scruggs is joined on this cut by his sons and by members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The back up in the tab is not based on the recording, and is elaborated; instead, you will have to improvise by inserting back-up phrasing you have already memorized.

The last time through the chorus, the song modulates to the key of D; I have left that out of the tab for now. There are four back up exercises to add to the list of licks that you should memorize and learn to use for this lesson. The first two, Exercises 13 and 14, use the basic open position rolls, but translated to the key of C. The second two exercises use closed position patterns, again in the key of C.

The same year, the song was covered by country singer Dickey Lee , on an out of print album entitled Never Ending Song of Love. The band reprised their performance in a video uploaded to YouTube, from a live concert in Japan in This was the second of eleven albums the two stars would collaborate on.

Notes: Worried Road Blues was the first song I worked out for myself on the banjo, over forty years ago, so I thought it appropriate to use in your first lesson in making up you own banjo breaks. The tablature starts with a simple rendition of the vocal melody on the banjo, showing you where you will find the melody notes in the open position on the neck. Go back and look at the roll patterns that you used in other breaks by Scruggs, Crowe, Reno, Stanley, and others, to get ideas on how to work up the break here.

You will also practice improvising back-up against a fiddle break, both open roll based and closed chord back-up, as you have in the last four lessons. For now you should still use the forms laid out in Back-Up Exercises 9 through The tablature does include a simple up the neck, and this will also give you some additional clues for working up the open position break.

It is important to note that there are two common melodic structures to Worried Man Blues. In original Carter Family recording, the first line is only repeated once, so that the entire song is only 12 bars, or 14 beats in length, close to, though not exactly, a traditional blues structure. A number of other performers in the list of examples still followed this original structure, including Woody Guthrie, Wade Mainer, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and George Jones. When the folk boom began in the late 40s, performers like Pete Seeger repeated the first line a second time three times in all , stretching the tune to at least 16 bars.

Seeger actually adds an extra couple of beates to the last line, making it a 17 bar performance. This 16 bar version is the one more commonly heard today, and thus the one I used here. Carter had learned the tune directly from a black guitarist names Lesley Riddle , who taught the Carter many of their songs. Worried Man Blues was the Carter Family's biggest hit that year. It became one of Guthrie's signature songs.

The Trio reportedly learned this version from Pete Seeger, and it is the earliest recording of the 16 bar version I could find. Flatt and Scruggs recorded the song a few years later in February, , with Maybelle Carter , one of the original members of the Carter Family, guesting on autoharp.

Mainer was born in He first started recording with his brother, J. Mainer, for Bluebird in , but soon struck out on his own. The Mainer Moutaineer many recordings for Bluebird heavily influenced later bluegrass bands, and contributed much of the early bluegrass reperoire. In , as country and western music pushed more traditional groups off the charts, Mainer abandoned music and moved to Flint, Michigan, to work in a GM assembly plant.

It was his first recording in twenty years. Mainer died in November, , at the age of , still peforming until shortly before his death. The last MP3 is a performance by George Jones , who I consider to be the greatest country singer who ever lived.

It was the first cut on the CD. I have selected five of particular note. The first is a live performance by the Stanley Brothers appearing on Pete Seeger's folk music television show Rainbow Quest, in June Carter was Cash's wife of course, and the daughter of Sarah and A.

It is interesting that She sings the 16 bar version of the song, and not the original Carter Family 12 bar version.

Four years later, Cash had Pete Seeger as a guest on his television show, where Pete performed Worried Man Blues, accompanying himslef on banjo using a two finger, up-picking style, similar to Mainer's. Worried Man Blues is still fashionable with younger bluegrass musicians. The banjo player is Dave Asti. Notes: "Here's Earl Scruggs now with the old five string, where he does a little bit of tunin' and a whole lot of pickin'.

It goes like this Named after the western North Carolina community where Scruggs was born, the tune was originally recorded by the Foggy Mountain Boys ten years earlier, in November, , and released as a single a month later, with Dim Lights, Thick Smoke on the flip side.

The great Benny Martin is on th fiddle. It is thought by many to be the first bluegrass long-playing album ever produced. It is this earlier version that I have used as the basis for this week's lesson, except for the ending, which is based on the Carnegie Hall performance, where it gets such thunderous applause, Earl ends it twice.

The ending, though it has a few extra notes, is easier to master. Flint Hill Special was the first tune that Scruggs recorded that made full use of the cam style Scruggs tuners on both the 2nd and 3rd strings, allowing him to essentially retune on the fly between the open G and open D tunings. Scruggs used these cam style "chokers" on his famous Gibson Granada until , when he partnered with Bill Keith and Dan Bump to form the Beacon Banjo Company , and installed the new self-contained Scruggs-Keith style tuners on his banjo.

On Flint Hill Special. Scruggs restricts the use of the tuners to a bridge section that serves as the introduction, and comes again after each of the first three breaks. On this first recording, he only melodically employs the technique once, twisting down the 2nd string near the end of the 2nd break, but this is an often imitated lick. Both Flatt and Scruggs recordings are included here.

This comes from the collection of the Digital Library of Applachia , an on-line archive drawing from the collections of twenty-nine Piedmont colleges and universities. This is an important resource for traditional old-time music. By the time of this performance, Kentucky-born Cox had already settled in Topsham, Maine, where he still builds banjos and manufactures banjo parts that are used by most of the major luthiers today. I have highlighted four YouTube videos that I thought were especially notable.

The first is a live performance of J. The second video features Bill Emerson, performing at a club in Massaponax, Virginia, according to the posted description in , but I suspect it was ten years later, when Emerson teamed up with Mark Newton as Emerson and Newton. The sequins are shinging bright in the next video, when Buck Trent , the father of the electric banjo, was a guest on the Marty Stuart Show, on the RFD channel in March, For years, Trent played his electric banjo behind Porter Wagoner, the stalwart country singer who also gave Dolly Parton her start in country music.

The last video is a fine, clean job of banjo picking by Jonny Mizzone, the youngest of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys , from a July, appearance on the Letterman Show,when he was eight years old. It's enough to make a grown man cry. Notes: Shoulder up your gun and call up your dog, 'cuz this week we're gonna learn Ground Hog. Ground Hog. Sometimes it's spelled as two words, sometimes one, but I've used the two word spelling throughout for consistency.

When Jim Mills included it on his Sugar Hill debut solo album, Bound to Ride , it immediately replaced the Dillards' recording as the definitive bluegrass version of this old Appalachian folksong. His instrumental break is an simple masterpiece of fluid Scruggs style picking, and the effective use of right hand dynamics to highlight the melody. Throughout the recording, Mills employs a roll-based, mostly open position back-up, more suitable than vamping for the modal flavor of the song as he preforms it.

Mills includes a quick demonstration of his picking of Ground Hog on a DVD lesson sampler uploaded to YouTube; the tune starts ar The Dillards were a group of young bluegrass musicians, mostly from Salem, Missouri, who went west to Los Angeles instead of east to New York, to take advantage of the folk boom of the early sixties.

Though far more traditional sounding than the "newgrass" bands that would spring up in the seventies, their relatively more urbane stage presence, repertoire, and style of bluegrass was more comfortable for the broader folk music audience than some of the more traditional bluegrass bands.

Back Porch Bluegrass was their first album for the folk music label Elektra Records, recorded in shortly after their arrival in Los Angeles. Ground Hog is a very old folk song widely throughout both the Appalachian and Ozark mountains. One of the earliest recordings I have found is a fanciful, wandering melodic reverie from North Carolina fiddler Marion Reese, recorded in his home by folklorist John Lomax for the Library of Congress in Reese is playing a fife, a small wooded flute, similar to the Irish pennywhistle, that was commonly played in the Appalachians.

The fife had been the principal marching instrument used by military units until the late 19th Century, and many of the fiddlers either had performed military service in either the Mexican or Civil Wars, and would have been accomplished on the instrument, or had learned tunes from veterans who were. It is available for free download from an on-line blog called the Allen Archive of Early Country Music. The next MP3 is a rousing performance by Cynthia May "Cousin Emmy" Carver, one of the first women to make a solo career in country music.

Her hard driving banjo style was typical of the popular country performers of her day. This is a transcription of a live performance, probably from around , from her radio show on WHAS, in Louisville, Kentucky. The next MP3 features Mike Seeger , brother to the legendary folksinger Pete Seeger, who was a well-respected old-time musician in his own right.

In , Seeger recorded a number of three finger banjo pickers who preceded or were contemporaries of Scruggs, including Snuffy Jenkins, Oren Jenkins, J.

Sutphin, and Scruggs older brother, Junie. Seeger included one cut of his own performances on the LP, this early three-finger style recording of Ground Hog, with vocal by Bob Baker; Seeger was playing with Baker at the time in a Baltimore area bluegrass band called the Pike County Boys.

A few years later in , musicologist Ralph Rinzler would visit Deep Gap, North Carolina, to record a little known blind guitar player, Arthel "Doc" Watson and his family. Folkways Records would release these early watson recordings in , on an album entitled The Watson Family. The first cut on the album was the song Ground Hog, with Doc playing the autoharp, his son Merle picking bluegrass style banjo, and his father-in-law Gaither Carlton on fiddle.

Doc would go on to become the father of bluegrass guitar flat-picking. If his picking style sounds strikingly close to Cousin Emmy's, it may be because Emmy was the person who taught him how to play. Featuring just fiddle and banjo, the Round Peak style has come to define the archetypal old-time sound for later revivalists, and the elegantly precise clawhammer style ably played here is in marked contrast to the closely related but far more rambunctous "knock-down" style of frailing represented by Cousin Emmy and Grandpa Jones.

While all three of the Round Peak musicians on this album were equally at home on both fiddle and banjo, the banjo work here is done by Fred Cockerham, with fiddling by Jarrell and Jenkins.

I found two very fine recordings of Ground Hog in the music archives of the Banjo Hangout. Jim's bluegrass style arrangement includes a very elegant up the neck break. The second is a clawhammer version by Tom Meisenheimer , of Washington, Missouri, uploaded in May, I have picked out two YouTube uploads of particular interst. The first is the lesson by Jim Mills, mentioned above. The clip was filmed around , when Lunsford was making an extended visit with many of his musical discoveries.

It features singer and three-finger style banjo picker Obray Ramsey, from Madison County, North Carolina, who picks and sings Ground Hog, and also shoots one dead with his scoped 22 rifle. I knew you'd like that!! It was one of four sides Martin recorded in his first session as a solo performer, in May, , for Decca Records. The banjo picking is very simple; the back up for the vocal and mandolin is basically just a repeat of the banjo lead break, with a few minor variations.

Note that during the instrumental breaks, the IV chord C is held for just one measure, while in the vocal verses, it is held for two measures. Hit Parade of Love was released on 78 in December of that year, and was an immediate hit for Martin. Hutchins would switch to guitar behind banjo wizard Hensley, his brief career as a bluegrass banjo picker essentially over. Since the song melody and chord structure is simple, and the banjo work elementary, this would be a good song to try to use as an exercise in working up your own up the neck break.

Look at other banjo lessons with both open position and up the neck breaks, to see how open positions licks are translated higher up. Often, when a song or tune is closely associated with a particular artist, the way Hit Parade of Love is thought of as Jimmy Martin song, other major artists will shy away from doing covers.

I have included two notable exceptions. Kenny Ingram is picking banjo; shortly after this recordng was made, he would leave the rage to play with the Larry Stephenson Band, and would be replaced by Aaron McDaris. I have picked out five YouTube videos I thought were of particular merit.

The banjo player is Suzie Gibson, who used to live in the Boston area, and was a regular at the Billerica jam sessions. The audio is not real crisp, but the banjo picker, Mike Bont, is great fun to watch.

The banjo picker is Gina Britt. The banjo picker is Dave Johnson. The last video is a live performance by former Sunny Mountain Boys J.

You just can't beat Crowe's bluegrass picking. Notes: This week will be our first combined lesson, and for the tune we will be learning the banjo instrumental Cowboys and Indians, by Bill Emerson.

Emerson first recorded the tune in February, , during his time with the County Gentlemen , shortly after returning to the band after Eddie Adcock's departure in In the original Country Gentleman cut, only the banjo takes a complete break, so while the banjo tab is based on Emerson's classic rendition, I have borrowed Stuart Duncan's fiddle break from the Mills recording for the tab. On both recordings, the banjo back-up is basically just a repeat of the melody rolls.

Since you will likely be jamming with other banjo players, I have instead tabbed out a simple closed chord back-up, so you can learn the positions for the various chords used in the tune.

This is not a simple three chord progression. Jim Mills is just about the only other top-tier professional bluegrass picker to have covered Cowboys and Indians. However, quite a few top pickers on the Banjo hangout have uploaded recordings; I have picked out three of special merit. He uploaded his fine performance in February, He uploaded his rendition in August, He uploaded his fine version in February, I have also selected four YouTube performances of Cowboys and Indians worth noting. The first is a live performance by the Country Gentlemen, taped sometime betweem and , when Emerson eventually left to form the U.

Navy's bluegrass band, Country Currents. Jimmy Gaudreau has been replaced in the line-up by Doyle Lawson. Charlie Waller, the long time leader of the Country Gentlemen, passed away in ; his place was taken by his son, Randy Waller , who bears a remarkable resemblence to his father both in appearance and vocal style. The second video is a performance of the Gentlemen with Randy in the lead, from a February, concert in Fayetteville, Tennessee.

The banjo picker is Adam Poindexter, who also played for many years with James King. The Delaney Brothers are a fine bluegrass band from Central New York; this video is from a live performance uploaded in August, Nick Piccininni is playing banjo, one of the few banjo renditions to go stretch out beyond the original Emerson recording. I am genuinely passionate about your success in becoming the best banjo player you choose to be!

I like to teach with repetition wax on wax off and prefer to present the big picture first so that every obstacle may potentially never be an obstacle for you. I take years of teaching experience and what have been topics of frustration brought to me by students in the past.

I try to smooth the road and teach you, so you get the highest yield of success for your money with as few headaches as possible :. Hey musician!

I hope you will pick me to help you avoid common setbacks in your progress. I look forward to helping you be your best on your instrument! I play fretted and fretles. Loud, jangly, and twangy, the banjo is an instrument with a distinctive voice that immediately evokes the spirit of the American South.

Long a mainstay of bluegrass music, banjos have recently been incorporated into pop music as well by bands like Mumford and Sons. And, if YouTube trends are any indication, it looks like the banjo is making another genre shift! A pack of viral videos featuring banjo covers of hard rock classics are making the rounds and proving that banjos can shred just a …. Banjo Lessons in Columbus, WI.

Amazing Teachers. In person or online. Background Check This teacher successfully passed a thorough criminal background check with SterlingBackcheck. This badge verifies trusted teacher status. Mark S. Teaching Locations: Online. Quick View. Private Banjo Teacher I play and teach both clawhammer and fingerpicking banjo styles. About Mark I am a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter working in a variety of genres. Recent Reviews. This badge demonstrates subject mastery on a nationwide scale.

Edwin I.