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Topic: Banjos - My Winter Hobby - Bishline - Gold Tone |
Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Robert Murphy
From:
West Virginia
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Posted 10 Jan 2021 5:13 am |
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| I like to play tenor and classical banjo , tuned gCGBD, and plectrum. They lend themselves to using a flat pick and working with sheet music. The tenor banjo is turned in 5ths like cello, viola, violin, mandolin so many fingerings are the same. Fun. |
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Andy Jones
From:
Mississippi
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 10:46 am
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Greg,I listened to your sound clip and was impressed with your level of play after just a few weeks.I'm glad you chose a good course to learn.I play 99% Scruggs style,with a few chromatic licks and runs thrown in.
I wasted a year trying to learn on my own,never having seen anyone play a banjo or talked to anyone who played.I happened up on a player by accident,who was kind enough to help straighten me out.Took me about three years to play at a level where I could play most anything that I wanted.That was after three hours practice every day.Then I got out of school,got a job,and got married,which ruined it all.Not really,as I'm retired now and still married.
Those banjos look really nice,especially the Bishline.I don't know anything about either one of those,as I am only familiar with Gibsons.Just like steel guitars,I'm sure there are many fine makes of banjos.
Have fun and keep practicing! |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 11:58 am
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Andy, the Scruggs style as you know consists of a ton of different picking sequences. I've covered a few pages of his course one sitting and at other times spent 5 days getting one 8 note sequence timed properly. His timing and picking is very precise and extremely complicated and quite varied although it just sounds like a flurry of simple finger rolls to the average guitar player. I'm very grateful that Scrugg's was willing to share all the secrets and that the author took the time to create sound files and tabs.
I really didn't look at the Gibson banjo's much but they have always been the standard. The number of banjo manufacturers is huge and I was not able to sample any of them locally. |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 12:01 pm
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| Robert, when I worked for IBM in Kingston, NY there was a band orchestra I believe in Poughkeepse that had a ton of tenors in it. Leon Rhodes the country guitarist was a great tenor banjo player. |
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gary pierce
From:
Rossville TN
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 12:26 pm
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| I've had a few Gibsons, but I really regret selling my Stelling Masterpiece #10 to buy a Jeep.lol |
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Tom Keller
From:
Greeneville, TN, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 2:38 pm
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| Greg, you might be interested to know that Bill Keith pedal steel player and banjo player extraordinaire supplied the tablature for the Scruggs book. If I don't miss my guess Bill wrote 99% of the book. There was a lawsuit several years back Bill claiming he didn't get his fair share for "assisting" in writing the book. I never heard how the lawsuit came out. I am of course speaking of the book "Earl Scruggs and the 5 String Banjo" originally published by Peer International. I don't want to sound like I am bashing Earl I grew up adoring him and I still do. |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 4:25 pm
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| Tom, I had the Oak Publications book that Bill Keith wrote. He included a great story about meeting Bobby Thompson along with Tony Trishka. I lived a few miles from Woodstock, NY so there was a lot of musical activity back then. |
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 4:37 pm
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Gary, Jeep?: got mine:
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Greg Cutshaw
From:
Corry, PA, USA
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Posted 11 Jan 2021 8:57 pm
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Just read the reviews on Amazon and a few mentioned the lack of credit given to Bill Keith for his work on the tabs. The tabs are extensive and the amount of effort taken to write them must have been exhausting. I agree Tom that Bill should get a paragraph for credits in at least the reprints of this book if not co-authorship guessing that he pry contributed to the book in a lot of areas.
That are a lot of faster and hotter players than Scruggs but his tone and machine gun perfect timing still beats most players. |
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Andy Jones
From:
Mississippi
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Posted 12 Jan 2021 10:19 am
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I don't remember if there were tabs when I started playing.I sat at a record player many hours dropping that needle on the record over and over to try and figure out the runs and licks.
Believe it or not,several licks came to me in dreams.I'd wake up and get the banjo out to see if they were right.
The toughest part for me were the fill in licks between the different runs to keep the tune flowing.
I wish I would dream some steel licks,but it just ain't happening. |
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