While reading a comment about playing Earl’s breakdown without tuners I was reminded of Mr. Fairchild’s playing and thought a few might get a kick out of this.
For those who haven’t heard or seen him, he pretty much mastered both Scruggs and Reno’s styles of picking and blended them into his own with some great imagination and lick replacement.
I had the privilege to see Raymond play live several times and was always inspired by his inventiveness and great shows he put on with the Crowe Bros…
Hi Dave, I stumbled on Raymond’s videos about 11 years ago not long after I took up the banjo and he blew me away with his playing. Truly a master of the five string.
Hi Gunnar, From what I have seen of your playing you should be able to figure out HSH on your own, compared to most Scruggs tunes it’s really not too difficult. Just keep the song in your head.
Retune your 4th string down to C and seek out the melody (for the most part) on the first two strings. Think in terms of the Waypoints Lessons
Where Raymond is bending the strings he plays an open string and pulls on it then slowly releases it. Just noodle around and you will find how easy it is to find the strings and the tone changes you need
That second video is impressive. Very talented player.
That poker face makes the playing even better! Mr Fairchild is the perfect opposite to Chris Thile in that regard.
Wow! 
@fiddle_wood that was awesome, if that doesn’t inspire you to get really good, then I don’t know what will. Definitely a lot of thinking “outside the box” in his playing. I was amazed by the “Whoa Mule” video how he stayed right back in time and spot on after all the other things he was doing.
Pretty neat
@Archie, I already know hsh, but it looked to me like he played it in dtuning, based on the fact that he was also playing Reuben. I’m away from my banjo right now 
but I’ll try and work this out when I’m reunited
You could be right, I thought it was drop C, that’s how Earl played it and how I learned it many years ago.
Drop C is also how I learned it, and you can see it in the vid swap thanksgiving gig
Just WOW!!!