Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

New Practice Strategy

This year I want to try a new practice strategy since I would like to be a multi-instrumentalist. I plan to practice guitar, banjo and mandolin by learning/practicing the same song on all three. I know there are some songs on the site that have lessons for all three on the same song but it’s kind of hard to determine without wading through everything. Is there a list or an easier way to find what specific songs have lessons for multiple instruments?

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Hi Keith to the best of my knowledge there is no easy way to identify which lessons cover all three instruments. @BanjoBen has covered a lot of topics on all three instrument separately and if you only study the lessons that cover all three instruments you’ll be missing out on a lot of important detail.

That said perhaps the easiest way to identify which lessons cover all three instruments is to look on Ben’s YouTube Channel. Where you see Ben playing all three instruments on screen in the taster videos provides the key of where to begin looking on the website. https://www.youtube.com/user/BanjoBen1/videos

As an example look on Ben’s YouTube Channel for St Anne’s Reel which as recorded about 6 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mcBABTgJjA

Once you find the lesson on the website look just below the video to the right ( as indicated below by the red circle ) and you will see links to the other instruments. Just click to jump to the lesson on that instrument

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Thanks

Sounds like fun. It seems like most “normal” songs have parts for all three. The fingerstyle guitar stuff typically does not. If I were trying to do what you are, I’d pick the song I wanted to try and see if it had all three (if not, pick another). Once you do a few of those, I’d say you’d be pretty adept at taking a melody on one instrument and writing a break for another one. So at some point, that becomes a worthwhile goal as well.

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Agreed, I just wish there was a faster way than having to look at every single song .

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Still not ideal, but maybe a little faster… when you’re on the lessons page, click to highlight all 3 instruments.
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That’ll pull up every lesson. Then look below the Courses videos and right above the Lessons videos for “Sort Lessons By” and choose “A-Z”

You’ll then see lessons in alphabetical order and you can note the little icon on each video thumbnail to see which instrument it is.

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Thanks for the input. I think I’m gonna start out with good 'ol 9 pound hammer. It’s a melody I am familiar with and has all three instruments. Banjo in G but guitar and mando in A - This is good because I want to study more mando tunes in A and they makes capos for everything else.

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This is the way. Good luck, @Stixx3969! Keep us posted!

Thanks Ben,
I’m not sure if you saw my previous posts lately about the Vidami video control foot switch. It works exactly as advertised on You Tube videos. As of right now it does not work with the videos on your site…but it could. I was speaking with the owner when I was getting support. It does work with a handful of teaching sites right now but just not everyone as of yet. I hope you guys will consider looking at these units and possible compatibility. If your site videos were compatible with these I think you could sell a ton of them through the store. Any way…just my opinion. https://vidami.com/