Eddy Davis' 4-String Banjo Video Lessons

Eddy Davis

Tenor banjo legend and Hall of Famer Eddy Davis (AKA Mr. Greenmeat, AKA The Manhattan Minstrel) has started posting a series of 4-string banjo video lessons to YouTube.  These lessons are primarily designed for banjos tuned CGDA, but are also broad enough to cover general music basics as they apply to any four string instrument.

Why should you care?  Well, anytime a player of Eddy's stature provides this kind of direct insight into his or her philosophy of music it's worth taking note, even if the material being covered doesn't directly apply to your specific musical genre or "dialect".

Here are the first few videos.  There are at least 14 of 'em!

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Skype Lessons with Stevie Dunne, Irish Tenor Banjo

Stevie Dunne

Traditional Irish Banjo player Stevie Dunne has started giving lessons over Skype/FaceTime. Lessons will look at each individual's style to identify areas for development. Stevie will then work with that person to formulate a plan to enhance his or her playing and meet individual needs. The techniques Stevie intends to pass on will be designed to enable each player progress to their maximum potential.

If interested you can contact Stevie directly by Facebook or email.

Baron Collins-Hill's MandoLessons site and Patreon page

Baron Collins-Hill

Have you checked out Baron Collins-Hill's MandoLessons site?  On it he's posted quite a few fiddle tunes, including Bill Cheatham, Cooley's Reel, Blackberry Blossom, Swinging on a Gate, Spotted Pony, Road to Lisdoonvarna and more.  Each tune has a video where he plays the tune and then breaks it down phrase by phrase.  Baron encourages you to learn simply by watching the video and using your ear, but he also provide pdf mandolin tabs for the tunes on the site.  The MandoLessons are absolutely free - at no cost to the end user.  However...

Associated with his MandoLessons site is a Patreon page where for as low as $1 a month you can become a Patron and help support his MandoLessons initiative.  Patreon is kind of like Kickstarter, but instead of helping fund a one-time project, Patreon allows you to help sustain an artist's ongoing work by contributing at a "name your price" level on a monthly basis.  On Baron's Patreon page he offers varying incentives to Patrons who donate $5, $10, $15 or $20 or more per month.  For example, Baron will give the next five donors at the $10 per month level a one on one lesson in person or via Skype or Google Hangout.  I took him up on this and really enjoyed the lesson and the generous amount of time Baron spent with me.

Baron's YouTube channel is even more extensive, with a wide selection of 150+ fiddle tunes in a variety of styles including Irish jigs and reels, oldtime, Quebecois and Cape Breton, Scandinavian, contradance tunes, original compositions and more.  I particularly like his videos of the tunes Road to Malvern and a special version of the Irish tune Morning Star in F (usually it's in G).

Baron is one half of the instrumental duo Velocipede (check out their album here) and is also a regular instructor at the esteemed Maine Fiddle Camp.  His partner in Velocipede, fiddler Julia Plumb, also has a pretty nifty YouTube profile with some fiddle instruction videos and she also teaches at Maine Fiddle Camp.  As a recent fan of their music and teaching style, I can tell you that Baron and Julia are two young traditional musicians to watch out for!

The fact that Baron's MandoLessons site is free is a great thing, for sure.  It provides a resource for those on a tight budget to learn more about playing music.  Although, if you can afford to make a contribution, you might consider becoming a patron to help support this great work he is doing.  Even at $1 or $5 a month you're helping make a difference without breaking the bank!

Skype Ear Training Lesson with Nick DiSebastian

I've been working with music transcriber Nick DiSebastian to notate the entire Bonne Humeur album by the Etcetera Stringband as well as some other songs.  I'm fond of the transcription work he did for me, so when Nick said he could do Skype lessons and offered to do a special ear training oriented lesson with me I took him up on it.  It was the first time I had ever done a Skype music lesson.

Nick studied at the Berklee College of Music with ear training as a main focus.  He took Ear Training level 1-4, Advanced Harmonic Ear Training, and Advanced Ear Training.  Nick believes that having that connection between hearing what’s happening, understanding it, and being able to play is the most important skill as a musician.  I agree and it's those same skills that I am trying to nurture so I definitely wanted to see what someone with this area of expertise had to teach.

Nick DiSebastian

The lesson essentially boiled down a semester's worth of music theory and ear training into one hour of teaching.  It was a lot to take in, but I took good notes and recorded the audio from the lesson to listen to later.  I found Nick to be a very patient, detailed and competent instructor able to adapt his methodology based on my level of expertise and understanding.  I was a little hesitant about doing this type of lesson over a webcam instead of in person, but it was basically the same as being in the same room, and it worked for what he was going over.

Some of the points covered were:
How melody and harmony relate - how the notes relate to the chord of the moment. 
Singing/humming root notes at chord changes to better hear where the motion is happening.
Writing out the scale degree for each note in the melody.
Chord inversions - singing descending and ascending triads in all inversions.
"Voice led" chord progressions in different places on the neck.

It'll take a long time and a lot of work to fully realize these conceptual practices, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I plan to take additional Skype lessons from Nick DiSebastian once I've had time to let some of this sink in.  To schedule your Skype lesson with Nick, check out his contact page or email.

Ready For More Music Lessons

I'm ready to resume private music lessons with a new teacher or teacher(s) to address some critical weaknesses in my playing.  My first lesson is tonight and I have another one scheduled with a different instructor next week!  

The area most in need of work (in my perception) is ear training.  For example, I struggle with hearing the chord changes in a simple fiddle tune like Soldier's Joy (it's complete guesswork), and playing a common melody such as For He's A Jolly Good Fellow by ear is a challenge.  I flounder all over the place not knowing if I've found the right notes or not.

Technique I'm already fairly decent at because I have memorized basic versions of over 100 tunes that I got from tune books and other written sources.  Theory is also something I'm relatively comfortable with and fascinated by.  For someone who primarily plays traditional music - historically passed down by untrained musicians - the words "dorian" and "mixolydian" don't give me brain freeze.  But, trying to pick out Happy Birthday or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star by ear can cause me immense frustration.

Music Teacher Jan DeWeese

Back in March when I took a couple one-on-one lessons at an Irish music workshop, the instructor was under the impression that he was providing instruction on "Irish tenor banjo".  That was, I suppose, correct, but what I'm really trying gain in any situation like that is musicianship skills that will apply across the board.  Even though I mostly play Irish and Appalachian tunes on tenor banjo, the musicians who really inspire me are guys like Jerry Garcia, Trey Anastasio, Bela Fleck, John Medeski and Bill Frisell -- artists who transcend genres and have an open-minded and original outlook toward music and complete command of their chosen instruments.  

There’s a music teacher in Portland, OR named Jan DeWeese who places music theory at the center of his teaching method, emphasizing the cultural roots of the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic elements of music.  DeWeese states that “European traditions leading to classical music gave us our chordal foundations, Irish tunes delivered the melodic invention of bluegrass, and through the Malian blues and the African diasporas in Cuba and Haiti came the polyrhythmics of ragtime and New Orleans jazz.  It's here that much of my music theory teaching now focuses.”

Through learning by ear, DeWeese helps his students break free from rote dependence on notated collections.  He emphasizes that understanding the harmonic (European), melodic (Celtic), and rhythmic (African) features of each is central to this learning process.  Jan DeWeese isn’t local to me, so he’s not the instructor that I’ll be using, but I’m hoping that the teachers I work have a similar approach!