I’m having fun at a local beginner friendly jam, mainly just working on backup with the goal of eventually leading a song or two when I get my courage up. Even though they are beginner friendly, they tend to play fast! A lot of mandolin players and guitars. I’m getting pretty comfortable with up-the-neck vamping and partial rolls and even some little fills hear and there, but I generally cannot keep up with any kind of down the neck rolling backup. Any advice when things are just going too fast? The idea of anticipating chords, walking up/down, and picking rolls that start/end at the right place is just beyond me. It’s one thing to follow the lessons on here about these topics and even practice the example song, but as soon as the song is one that you haven’t practiced (which is almost all at a jam), I just can’t keep up at all.
Banjo backup advice when tempo is too fast to keep up?
Didn’t feel like typing it all out, so here’s a video. Hope this helps.
Thanks for putting that together so quickly! I think the big help for me here is being able to just do a roll per measure like that so when you flub it you can start again at the next measure. I find that I can run through the songs I know by heart at pretty quick tempos so my fingers are there, but as soon as I start to just “make it up” my fingers don’t have a memory to follow and my head gets in my way. And when the chord isn’t changing for a few measures, I also get lost in continuous forward rolls so I need a place to anchor the start of each measure. Maybe I need a bunch of single measure go-to “licks” that I can count on (some of which are just roll patterns). Is that basically what you are getting at?
Yeah, if you just keep doing forward rolls over and over, you’ll eventually get lost. That’s why it’s important to put in that little slide on the 4th, the pull off, and that 8th note on the open G to start the measure. All of those come together to break up the monotony and keep you on track.
Hi @sejman Steve
Further to @Mark_Rocka 's excellent advice. It would really help you to work through @BanjoBen 's Basic Banjo Backup Course where he discusses the theory to backup, how to play two measure and one measure rolling backup patterns. Chord Walking, Fill ins and other great stuff
https://banjobenclark.com/courses/basic-banjo-backup?from_track=beginner-banjo
Thanks all - I’ll try to put some of this to practice at tonight’s jam!
Well that didn’t go very well…I’m realizing that I’ve way more theoretical understanding of how to play the banjo than actual skills. The pace that most of the songs (often fiddle tunes) are played at simply are way beyond my ability to roll. Even the licks that I can do in my sleep aren’t within my ability to insert most of the time - I’m always on my heels just trying to keep up with the chord changes.
On the plus side, I led two songs which was a first for me and it wasn’t a train wreck (Nine Pound Hammer and Old Joe Clark). Probably the slowest, blue-siest versions of those songs that they had ever played (you could probably have taken a sip of beer between the 4 and the 1) but hey - we were jamming.
I think I’m going to have to commit to learning/leading more songs or else I’ll be in high-speed fiddle tune hell for a long time. On my list - Worried Man Blues and maybe Man of Constant Sorrow. Any other ideas for good jam tunes that I can learn/lead that don’t have to played at 250bpm to sound good?
Hi @sejman Steve I’ll let you into a little secret, most fiddle tunes are way too fast for me. You just gotta work with the skills you got and keep on practicing.
Please keep challenging yourself by playing along (or trying to play) with these folks. You will get there much faster if you do.