How Far to Take Each Lesson

[Mark_Rocka]

Fiddle? That’s so cool!

You’ve already been introduced to both camps of thought here. I’m in Steve’s camp. When I learn a song, I will literally play nothing but that song until I can play it without thinking about it. On average, that’s usually about 1,000 times (no joke.)

It also depends on your goals. While I rarely play in front of people, I keep that as my goal, so I learn with the intention of performing, and often imagine I’m on stage while I practice.

That’s my 2 cents, adjusted for inflation.

[cassell90]

I agree that it depends on your goals. I am a guitar player. I like to jam with other pickers. I need to be fluent in a lot of songs, so I have a list of common songs that I practice. Mostly I want to learn the chord progression and hopefully the melody! I spent practice time trying to improvise off those melodies. I have a few songs I lead at jams and have a break or kick worked out ahead of time for those. Overall, I’m working in a different skill than playing a song thoroughly from a lesson.

That being said, we’ve got our eyes on a couple of local open mic nights. For those I’ll learn songs as thoroughly as I can and do up an arrangement with the other players. Thats a different skill set - for now!

And fiddle tunes are a different story! Those I learn an arrangement note for note and work it up to speed.

Stephen

[HeloSteve]

A good rule of thumb is, if your family members aren’t screaming, “For the love of god, would you please play something else!”, then you’re probably not practicing enough.

[JohnM]

Anything but the 2 things you mention probably, cause otherwise I would have given up long ago. Fiddle, cool!

P.S. Quickly reading other’s views, mine sounds like a bad practice! But watching Gunnar’s play, he doesn’t play it to perfection or to speed, but I think he tries out a lot of music, and now he does play it perfectly and to speed.

[Mark_Rocka]

“For the love of god, would you please play something else!”

Funny story… years ago I had decided to pick out Dancin’ On My Grave because that was the first song I ever saw Ben, Penny, and Katy play, and it’s such a cool song. I must have practiced it for a month straight. My office is right off the living room, so my family was pretty tired of it… but they didn’t know the name of the song.

About 2 months later we went to see the Purple Hulls live for the first time. They got finished with their sets, left the stage, then were brought back out for an encore. Penny turned to Katy and said “We’ve played so much… what are we gonna play?”

I yelled out “DANCIN ON MY GRAVE!” Penny said “Oh, that’s a good one.”

They broke in to that opening lick “DING DING diddly-dee ding” and my wife and daughter literally screamed out loud “NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

[Treblemaker]

Well said. If you want to ever perform, strive to get it as perfect as possible, even if it’s not up to full speed. Otherwise, just play to enjoy.

[Flatpickin_Libby]

I’d say it depends what your goals are for each song. Some of the songs I learn are just for technique purposes, and I don’t worry about getting them fast. Others I know I’ll be performing so I don’t stop practicing them till they’re at my target speed. If you’re just going through Ben’s lessons one after the next, it might be a nice balance to learn some of them at a moderate tempo for learning purposes, and get some of them as fast and polished as possible - performance ready. And then be sure to actually perform them someplace! To sum it up, a relatively equal balance between practice tunes and performance tunes has always been good for me. Also, I always like to be working on at least 2 tunes at a time (usually more). That way burnout can’t really happen!

[Dragonslayer]

Well, I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already, but I would like to welcome you to the wild world of fiddling! It’s really fun. And if you are looking for lessons I recommend bluegrassdaddy.com

[theCrazyEight]

Thanks everyone! I definitely am a perfectionist, so it drives me nuts to move on from a song if all the notes aren’t perfect. At the same time, I LOVE speed! I liked the idea of working multiple tunes and setting a goal for each one, whether for technique practice or for performance quality. Oh, and thanks for the fiddle site, Gunnar. I actually already looked into it and hope to use it here and there, to supplement the lessons I’m taking in person.

So funny thing about the family telling you to stop playing, my little siblings actually like to hear me play! The little ones (ages 6 years to 9 months) like sitting in a semicircle at my feet as I practice in my room. Or, if I made them leave because they were distracting me, they crouch at my door and try to be quiet. I usually can see their little eyes peeping through the crack at the bottom! Gotta love siblings!

[Archie]

Hi Taryn. I should have added that learning to relax is the key to reducing errors. If your the slightest bit frustrated you will make mistakes and the more mistakes you make the more frustrated you’ll become.

[theCrazyEight]

Thanks Archie, I keep that in mind.

[Dragonslayer]

fiddle site, Gunnar. I actually already looked into it and hope to use it here and there

Cool, they’ve got a great forum too, I hope to see you over there!

little siblings actually like to hear me play

That’s good! Some of mine like it, some are indifferent, none of them dislike it

[DLS]

Hey folks,

Just curious…for these forums, how can you copy and paste to a word document in order to save lots of valuable info like this here topic? I am new to the forum.

thanks

DLS

[xmark]

One way to save it is to bookmark it. I use this quite frequently:
First, expand the … beside reply by clicking on it as seen circled in RED below, and then click the bookmark icon as seen with the green arrow.

After that, you can come back to it by clicking your login picture/icon inside the FORUM, which reveals the image seen below, then click on the bookmarks icon as shown with the BLUE arrow.

[xmark]

To do exactly what you are asking, simply highlight (by holding down the left mouse button and drag over the desired text and release) the text you seek, then right click your mouse (on PC) and then select copy as seen here:

Then just paste it into word as you normally would by either right clicking and selecting paste, or with the paste icon, or with Control_v.

I prefer the bookmark so I can look at other info inside the thread as well since sometimes there’s more good info or maybe someone might add something later that could be usesful.

[DLS]

Thanks, easier than I thought!!! got it down. its a Boomer thing!!!

[Peg_E]

Hi CC…
I repeat most of the songs many, many times. I do add to my playlist, and when I go back to the earlier songs, I find they are easier after playing “harder” songs. I am not very speedy most of the time. I will be honest that I haven’t used the tef files much. But have made a new goal to do this and to play along with Ben’s various speed recordings more. I think this will help get my speed up.
Best wishes, Peg

[BanjoBen]

Well I don’t think you should have it perfectly up to speed before moving on, but there’s a balance there as many have stated so well here. I like to have a song’s melody and chord progression down well enough that I can jump in and give it a try, at least. My overall skill level is what allows me to be able to do that with most songs to a certain expertise, though there will be “tough” songs and “easy” songs.

[Buckeye]

Ya know, I’ve been thinking about how I’d respond to this question for a few days and quite simply I try to keep it fun. I know some can play the same thing 1000 times in a row, and I respect that, but that’s not me. So when I practice, I’ll run through the songs that I know (that helps my speed) and maybe try to add a lick or melody and then work on 2-3 new songs. I have found that each song requires a different approach. For example, at Banjo Camp last October, we were given a list of songs to learn. I made a playlist on Spotify and looped songs like 9 Pound Hammer and Wabash Cannonball during my drive from Indiana down to Tennessee -cuz it’s hard to play when you don’t know the melody. I then typically print off a PDF tab and start with @BanjoBen videos and then, depending on the song, utilize TEF files, the Amazing Slowdowner, or both. Another example: I can play simple versions of Amazing Grace and Red River Valley by ear, but I’m now moving “up the neck” as I add licks and melodic segways. I will say that I fell in love with the Purple Hull version of What a Friend we Have in Jesus and I DID probably stick on that tune 1000 times until I got it pretty close to “right.” Great question @theChristiancowgirl!

[DLS]

Hi Ben,

I saw a video of Janna Kim playing “Classical Gas” on banjo! WOW!!! I figured Bela Fleck could do that, but she is great!!! I know Mason Williams wrote that in the 1960s (I remember). Would that be a hard song for you? Pretty amazing what banjo players can do~~~~~ we aint as dumb as people think we are due to “THAT MOVIE”.

Always learning.