Lessons

It is banjo month here at Bluegrass Unlimited (December 2022) because Earl Scruggs is on our cover. This week Dan Miller plays an arrangement of “Little Darlin’ Pal of Mine” and then demonstrates how to create some variations.

Last week Dan Miller presented a basic arrangement for the tune “Fireball Mail” on the 5-string banjo. This week he demonstrates how that arrangement might be modified in order to add some variation in the context of using the major blues scale.

In this short video Dan Miller demonstrates an arrangement of “Fireball Mail” on the 5-string banjo. In a follow-up video he will demonstrate how to create variations of this arrangement. Tablature for this arrangement will be uploaded to the Bluegrass Unlimited website after the 30th of November 2022.

In this video lesson, Dan Miller continues the topic from the last banjo improvisation lesson by demonstrating how you can practice using various right hand roll patterns over chord changes to begin learning how to improvise on the banjo. In this video he uses the tune “Boil That Cabbage” down as an example.

In this video lesson Dan Miller discusses how to start thinking about improvisation on the 5-string banjo. He first talks about playing a solo just using the notes of the chords combined with banjo rolls, then he discusses adding notes from the major pentatonic scale and the major blues scale.

After performing with David Grisman and recording several “space grass” albums, Tony Rice came back to bluegrass with a new and broad vocabulary of chords. Ever since then bluegrass guitar players have been curious about those chords that Tony masterfully used. In this lesson, Jason Keiser (who is featured in the November 2022 issue of…