Thanks fiddlewood. Some of Kenny’s fingerings were throwing me off but I guess that’s right.
Favorite Video to Play Along With
Your Welcome
yep, Mr. Smith is playing out of straight A without a capo
This thread is dead but I’ve got one for ya.
Been watching a lot of vids from Galax and I’m amazed at all the great pickers out there tearing it up. Almost every vid is good. I reckon when I get done with Galax I’ll move on to the next festival. I think I like watching/playing with these more than the pro’s sometimes.
Anywho, here’s a good 'un. About the right speed for tinkering with alternate chords, breaks and changing up the rhythm a bit.
His voice reminds me of somebody, can’t quite place it…and, it appears that Joe Rogan can play guitar. 
The vocals sound a bit like Dan Tyminski to me. Good vid!
I think you’re right Mike, he does sound like Dan. Love that sound!
Hello, my name is Shawn and I have a youtube video addiction.
This is a fun little tune to play along with. It has a little different feel. The amazing thing in this is that it looks like Kenny is just learning this tune. It’s cool to see how quickly he picks it up and then starts improvising. I can listen to this guy all day. Smooth as butter.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bc02IosnqI&feature=relmfu[/video]
My name is Larry and I’m a youtube addict… but apparently my video of choice isn’t the same as your’s, Shawn, 'cause you keep coming up with stuff I haven’t seen. Keep 'em coming, 'cause I can’t get enough!
I like how he casually tweaked the capo about 3:08. It didn’t even sound sharp to me, but obviously not only are his fingers and brain better than mine, his ear is better too.
Haha, don’t tempt me Larry! You guys are pretty much my only outlet for talking Bluegrass since I don’t really have any pickin’ buddys yet (I have one but can’t hardly get him to pick up his guitar). I’ll have all of youtube on here.
I saw that little capo tweak Mike. Those guys are thinking on a whole different level than I am. If I miss one note in my break, I crash and burn. I’m gettin’ better at that though.
— Begin quote from "TNTaylor414"
If I miss one note in my break, I crash and burn. I’m gettin’ better at that though.
— End quote
Sounds like someone else I know Playing bluegrass by myself, I developed a bad habit… when I would not play a sequence to my liking, I would generally back up and repeat it. I play with others pretty regularly (and used to do it all the time), but not bluegrass. This year, when I started playing bluegrass with others and I didn’t play something the way I wanted, guess what I did? Of course, I would stop… it was involuntary. Even though I had a couple decades of performing live and knowing that the song will continue with or without me, I had taught myself to stop. Now, once a song is learned I try to play through, no matter how badly bungled it may be. I seem to be unlearning my stopping habit. It’s a work in progress.
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If I miss one note in my break, I crash and burn
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I struggled with this for a long time, too. I’d try to pull off one of Ben’s breaks at a jam and never make it all the way through, and even worse, since I’d memorized the break from tab, I had nothing to fall back on. I finally realized how badly I needed a good understanding of the chord structure and basic melody before I tried the flashier stuff.
Lately, I’ve been spending a large amout of my practice time learning simple melodies to the songs my jam partners like to play. I’m finding if I start with the basic melody, Ben’s licks kind of just sneak their way into my playing, and if I get confused, I can revert back to the basic melody rather than crash and burn.
For me, memorizing a break note-for-note works pretty good for a solo performance or for our netgrass collaborations, but isn’t nearly as valuable at a jam.
Funny you guys mentioned “crashing and burning”, stopping, etc in a break when you mess up. I used to fight this myself but have improved a lot after playing with others for a few years. I used to just crash and then shake my head and look around for someone else to pick up and that was all I had. Then as mentioned, the music continued on…well I then set a goal to simply jump back on board on the next chord change (easily recognizable place to get back on the wagon)…,then I said “well instead of waiting on the next chord let me get it down to jumping getting it back by the next measure”. I started getting pretty good at missing no more than 2-4 1/4 notes and could get back in time/where I was supposed to be and usually got back on the 1st note of the measure.
So set your sites on slowly getting back in time and before you know it you’ll only mess up for a note or two and really no one will think about it.
On another note I’d say that before getting to the level I am now (which i snot much but is a lot in the grand scheme of where I was 3 years ago) most of the time before it was me getting out of time simply by the pic sliding around in my grip and having to adjust that…you guys know how it is, you can feel the pick moving and you know it’s not coming back…is like and “itch”…you gotta scratch it and there is no way around it or it will drive you crazy…same goes for the pick moving around, it’s got to be fixed! So this messed me up a lot also.
Oldhat
— Begin quote from "ldpayton"
I struggled with this for a long time, too. I’d try to pull off one of Ben’s breaks at a jam and never make it all the way through, and even worse, since I’d memorized the break from tab, I had nothing to fall back on. I finally realized how badly I needed a good understanding of the chord structure and basic melody before I tried the flashier stuff.
— End quote
Good thoughts guys.
Larry, I think this was my problem too. I was just trying to jump into playing something at 240 bpm and at that point I’m going off of muscle memory and if it didn’t flow out perfectly, I was lost. I’ve really been listening to what I’m playing lately and knowing what chords I’m playing over and trying to better understand where I’m at. Seems to help me jump back in when I fumble a little bit.
— Begin quote from ____
most of the time before it was me getting out of time simply by the pic sliding around in my grip and having to adjust that…you guys know how it is, you can feel the pick moving and you know it’s not coming back…is like and “itch”…you gotta scratch it and there is no way around it or it will drive you crazy…same goes for the pick moving around, it’s got to be fixed!
— End quote
I fight this a lot, too, but I notice I’ve gotten to the point where I can use the slightest pause to make a tiny adjustment to my grip- maybe not back to exactly where I would like the pick to be, but in a better postion. It’s not something that I consciously tried to learn to do, but rather something that just started happening as I logged woodsheding hours. Grip slippage still causes me some inaccuracies, but doesn’t cause me to stop playing so much anymore.
And just to stay on topic, here’s a video I like. Not that I could play along with these guys. After every break, I was thinking, “I’d hate to be the guy to go next.”
Any other Darrel Scott fans out there. He has some pretty amazing stuff on the Youtube.
Darrell Scott is great! I try to always catch his performances when he plays nearby.
While psyching myself for this weekend’s Magnoliafest, I stumbled on this tasty video. It’s got a nice close up shot of both Tony’s hands during his break, and the ladies make the whole video easy on the eyes.
So I have to say I like the videos from the Transatlantic Sessions-BBC Show: They take Bluegrass and Celtic musicians and have them play together (since they share the same origin)
My Favs
Sam Bush, Bela fleck, Jerry Douglas :
Tim O’Brien, Jerry Douglas:
To be honest, I haven’t played along with this one. I’d end up laughing too much. Enjoy!
Sounds like some 16th note rolls for any banjer players that want to rip off a riff…
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRRb_65qvVo&feature=related[/video]
Haha! Looks like there might be a serial killer or two in that band.