Posts Tagged ‘backup’

Keep Your Eye on the Melody

Friday, February 12th, 2010
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

I’ve had a couple little students jams in the last month. After each jam I resolve to hold jams more often, but somehow I never do. This time, though, I really mean it. (Ha! How often has that been said?) Part of the problem is that at the moment I don’t have a group of students who are at the same level. I do, however, have two who are roughly compatible level-wise, and it only takes two people to have a jam, so I decided to go with it.

Ginny (the one who is now flatpicking the banjo) and Jean have enough material in common that we can jam for a good hour. Last night was an all-instrumental jam because my lingering cold prevents me from singing. We didn’t avoid the singing songs (Two Dollar Bill, Worried Man, Mountain Dew), we just played them as instrumentals.

I had a small revelation last night while I was watching them trade breaks back and forth. I’ve been thinking a lot about backup lately because I’m getting ready to film a new DVD teaching backup. Students are often impatient to learn backup because they find vamping boring. What I realized last night was that when someone else is taking a break, you shouldn’t be paying attention to your own vamping — that should just happen by rote (i.e. you should know the chords so well that you don’t have to think about them). You should be paying attention to, and watching, what the lead player is doing. The only reason students get bored vamping is that that’s all they’re thinking about. If you’re bored, then you’re not doing the right thing.

To use a sports metaphor (which I hardly ever do, but this one seems particularly appropriate): keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the melody.

When I was in eighth grade, I played basketball for our middle school team. One particular game sticks in my memory. I played forward; I was never much of a ball handler. We were down at our end of the court, trying to score. One of my teammates had the ball and I was between her and the basket. She was dribbling, dribbling, then she shot. The moment the ball left her hand I turned and looked toward the basket, hoping for the rebound. Unfortunately, her shot was considerably short and instead of hitting the basket, it hit me in the head. Yes. Hit me in the head. Why? Because I took my eye off the ball.

If you’re playing lead, you’ve got the ball. If you are vamping, you should always be looking at the person with the lead, ready to take it at a second’s notice, or with no notice. When you hand off the lead, you need to follow it to its destination (the other player) and make sure it gets there. Once it’s there, what do you do? Keep watching! You don’t want it to come back and hit you in the head.

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Posted in By Casey, jamming | 3 Comments »

Backup 2

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Casey HenrySomeone suggested to me, as I was getting ready to film the new Easy Songs DVD, that we do a video solely on backup. Of course, vamping is the first step in any banjo backup and we do have a video on that. There are some difficulties inherent in teaching more advanced backup. For one thing, in order to move beyond vamping, you have to be able to hear your chord changes absolutely cold. You can’t spend one second of time thinking about the changes if you’re also going to be thinking about doing backup licks at the same time.

For another thing, backup, by its very nature, is improvisatory. There is no set order in which to use backup licks. It’s more like there is a pool of licks and you have to be able to tell which one is the appropriate one to use in each situation, and you have to make that decision very quickly. But to teach the licks you have to teach them in the context of a song, so it’s almost necessary to make up an artificial “backup break” to a specific song so the student can learn both the licks and how they are used. [This topic is sounding familiar. I think I wrote a Banjo Newsletter article on it last year.]

But, all those difficulties aside, that idea is rattling around in my head and I’ll no doubt refine it throughout this year as I teach as workshops and camps, and with my live students. Chances are you’ll eventualy see a backup DVD in our new releases.

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Posted in By Casey, banjo | 2 Comments »

Backup

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Casey HenryIn the last couple weeks, with two of my more advanced students, we’ve been looking at a particular backup lick that Earl uses sometimes. It’s found on medium-to-slow tempo songs and is done with two-finger chords on the first and second strings way up the neck. (Here is where tab would come in handy. I could just show it to you and say–this lick!). One thing I sometimes have trouble with is finding the perfect example of a lick I want to teach. It can be a lick I use all the time, yet I’m not sure what song it came out of originally. For these backup licks I actually found three songs, which I’ll share, first of all so that you can go listen to it, second of all so next time I want to teach it I can come and look and see what songs I used!

1.) “He Took Your Place” – The lick comes in on the second verse, 1:08 on the counter. This is the earliest example, from 1955, which was pre-dobro in Flatt and Scruggs, so you can hear the banjo really well.

2.) “On My Mind” – Earl uses the lick in the second half of the chorus, starting at 1:08, and again at 2:29. Now there’s dobro in the band and therefore less banjo backup.

3.) “Crying My Heart Out Over You” – Two short uses here at 0:53 and 2:18.

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Posted in By Casey, banjo | 2 Comments »

Banjo Backup: How to Do It (more about listening)

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Red HenryWhen I listen to quite a few modern bluegrass bands, one thing I hear is the banjo. Playing and playing. Loudly. All the time. Through the vocals. Through the choruses. Through the other instruments’ breaks. And most of the time, the banjo player doesn’t seem to be listening to the rest of the band, but is just playing his own [or her own!] favorite licks and droning rolls over and over. It’s as if he thinks the rest of the band is playing and singing along with him! — he’s not thinking of listening and playing together with the group. The banjo is the giant in overshoes, stepping on everybody else’s music.

But when I listen to old Flatt & Scruggs records, although Earl’s the best banjo player in the world, he’s not stepping over anybody else. Earl keeps his banjo out of the way of the vocals and other instruments, and never crowds the music or detracts from it. And that was part of the magical Flatt & Scruggs band sound, one reason why it was so good and so many people liked it.

There was an article about Earl in a recent issue of the Fretboard Journal. In it, John McCuen quoted Earl about backing up a lead singer: “If he’s singing low I play high, and if he’s singing high, I play low.” Earl talks just like he plays, expressing the most with the fewest words! Just fourteen words, and he said so much! When he’s backing up a singer, Earl’s not just playing, he’s listening. Earl’s not there to show off his banjo licks. He’s there to make the music sound better. He LISTENS while he’s playing, to make sure he complements the music and doesn’t intrude or cover anybody else up.

Earl’s a musical genius, but you don’t have to be one to follow his rule. Listen to his records to get the idea, and then keep it in mind when you’re playing with others yourself. When you’re playing the banjo in a group, don’t let your banjo step on everybody else. Make the banjo be part of the group, not the giant in overshoes! Make yourself part of the music. That’s How to Do It!

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Posted in By Red, General | No Comments »