Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

O Holy Night (practicing for next year...!)

#1

Heres 2020’s attempt at learning this wonderful arrangement… I know its rough & still got LOTS of stuff to work on & fix, but this is where I’m at for now.

The arpeggios are tuff to get clean without deadening the E string with your hand. In this video, I think they came out better the 2nd time thru the song. Ben said no set picking directions, HOWEVER, I’m PRETTY sure you’re not supposed to be doing the thumb-over fretting thing in measures 33, 45, & 48… :upside_down_face: The good news is I’ve got plenty of time to get this ready for next Christmas :grin:!!

@mike_thomson recently mentioned “No Fear” regarding working songs above your playing level, and I agree with him. This song is above my level, yet here we are, and I’ve had a lot of enjoyment just working on it! (To compare what this sounded like when I first started playing it - to now in this video, I’m feeling like I’ve won the lottery, yeah it was THAT rough :rofl::+1:t2::smiley::sunglasses:!)

Merry Christmas and a Blessed, Happy, Healthy, & Musical New Year to All! :slightly_smiling_face:

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#2

The song is certainly there Simone well done!

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#3

Excellent! And it will be even better next year. :+1:

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#4

Hi @Simone, I hear it, If it is any consolation it took me about six - eight months to learn the banjo arrangement and it still wasn’t perfect when I uploaded it.

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#5

Great job @Simone, that ones on my learning list for next year, you’ll have it mastered by then. :+1:

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#6

Really good! :+1:

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#7

I like it. Thanks for sharing.

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#8

It’s slow, but it’s not easy!! Also, you played it like WAY faster than me :joy::joy::joy:Which means it’s harder…to me, anyway. You’re doing so great with your improvement!

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#9

That’s a major piece to accomplish…not “above you’re level” at all…just needs some fine tuning.

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#10

Certainly my sentiment’s as well @Fiddle_wood just needs a polish (Which is just time and repetition)

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#11

Great picking!!

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#12

Thank you @David-Gear! Will be polishing for sure!

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#13

Thank you @Treblemaker ! Here’s to being hopeful :slightly_smiling_face:!

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#14

Thank you @Archie ! Yeah, I think it’ll also take me months to get it where it needs to be, which is fine, I’m enjoying the ride! It took me months to get my part of the Emmanuel duet with Gunnar to the tone I was hoping for…

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#15

Thank you @D_HRRFan7303 !
Can’t wait till you post us your version! Even if it isn’t till next Christmas!

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#16

Thank you @JohnM ! Glad you liked it!

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#17

Thank you @Stuart.Gamble !
Happy to hear you enjoyed it! Hows that “We Wish you a Merry Christmas” coming along??!! :slightly_smiling_face:

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#18

Thank you @BanjoBen ! Appreciate that!
Definitely not easy, but enjoyable! Yes, admittedly I was going too fast… which I realized after seeing the video… Twas actually harder for me to get it slow like it was meant to be. Which is where all those pretty sounds come from…

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#19

Thank you so much @Fiddle_wood !
I will definitely be working in the fine tuning department. If I can get it fine tuned this holiday season, then next Christmas I’ll just have to dust it off and do the little tweaks :grin:!

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#20

Thank you @Dragonslayer ! :sunglasses:

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