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Keith Style
The Keith style of playing the 5-string banjo emphasizes the melody of the song. Also known as the "Melodic" or "Chromatic style", it was first developed and popularized independently by Bobby Thompson and Bill Keith in the early 1960s. It is used primarily by bluegrass banjoists, though it can be applied to virtually any genre. Most banjoists who play Keith style do not use it exclusively, but integrate it as one aspect of their playing, a way of adding spice to the more common 3-finger style of Earl Scruggs. The Keith style is a fingerpicking style played with picks on the thumb, index and middle fingers. It centers on playing scales in a linear fashion. This contrasts with "3-Finger" or Scruggs style, which is centered on arpeggios, or chord tones played in rapid succession. Generally speaking, in the Keith style the fingers of the picking hand alternate between strings, rarely picking the same string twice. Frequently open strings are alternated with strings that are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans in the United States. The banjo is frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, and has also been used in some rock, pop and hip-hop. Several rock bands, such as the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and the folk culture of rural whites before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like biguine, calypso and mento. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone than the deep tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught " by ear" rather than via written music. Fiddling is the act of playing the fiddle, and fiddlers are musicians that play it. Among musical styles, fiddling tends to p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clawhammer
Clawhammer, sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or frailing, is a distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music. The principal difference between clawhammer style and other styles is the picking direction. Traditional picking styles (Banjo#Classic_era%2C_1880s-1910s, classic banjo), including those for folk music, folk, Bluegrass music, bluegrass, and classical guitar, consist of an up-picking motion by the fingers and a down-picking motion by the thumb; this is also the technique used in the Scruggs style for the banjo. Clawhammer picking, by contrast, is primarily a down-picking style. The hand assumes a claw-like shape and the strumming finger is kept fairly stiff, striking the strings by the motion of the hand at the wrist and/or elbow, rather than a flicking motion by the finger. In its most common form on the banjo, only the thumb and middle or index finger are used and the finger always downpicks, hitting the string with the back ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lick (music)
In popular music genres such as country, blues, jazz or rock music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes used in solos and melodic lines and accompaniment. For musicians, learning a lick is usually a form of imitation. By imitating, musicians understand and analyze what others have done, allowing them to build a vocabulary of their own. In a jazz band, a lick may be performed during an improvised solo, either during an accompanied solo chorus or during an unaccompanied solo break. Jazz licks are usually original short phrases which can be altered so they can be used over a song's changing harmonic progressions. Similar concepts A lick is different from the related concept of a riff, as riffs can include repeated chord progressions. Licks are more often associated with single-note melodic lines than with chord progressions. However, like riffs, licks can be the basis of an entire song. Single-line riffs or licks used as the basis of Wester ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Eldridge
Ben Eldridge, (born August 15, 1938) is a five-string banjo player and a founding member of the seminal bluegrass group The Seldom Scene. He also works as a mathematician. Biography Ben Eldridge was born in Richmond, Virginia. He began playing the guitar at age ten and later in 1954 the banjo. In 1957, he began his studies at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Four years later he moved to Adelphi, Maryland. Eldridge became acquainted with Bill Keith and Bill Emerson who were to become two major banjo picking influences in his life. In June 1970, Eldridge joined "Cliff Waldron and his New Shades of Grass". Eldridge was among five musicians who started playing in the fall of 1971 with mandolinist John Duffey, Dobro player Mike Auldridge, bassist Tom Gray and guitar and lead singer John Starling. They would ultimately be known as The Seldom Scene. Eldridge plays on all Seldom Scene albums, and his discography includes 55 albums. Eldridge contributed to solo albums by Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Courtney Johnson (musician)
Courtney Johnson (December 20, 1939 – June 6, 1996) was an American banjo player, best known for his work as an original member of the band New Grass Revival. Influenced by Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys, Johnson is often considered to be an inventor of the newgrass style of banjo playing, polished and improved later on by such personalities as Béla Fleck, Alison Brown, Scott Vestal of Sam Bush Band and Jens Krüger of Kruger Brothers. Early life Johnson began to play guitar at the age of seven, but didn't pick up the banjo until he was about 25 years old. He worked as a mechanic in a service station at his hometown of Hiseville, Kentucky before he earned enough money as a musician. Johnson played in several local bands, including the Rocky Road Boys with Bill Hatfield on fiddle and Bill Logsdon on guitar. Bluegrass Alliance In 1969, Sam Bush asked Courtney to join his band, Poor Richard's Almanac. They played together in local clubs until 1970, when Bush left to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Trischka
Anthony Cattell Trischka (born January 16, 1949) is an American five-string banjo player. Sandra Brennan wrote of him in 2021: "One of the most influential modern banjoists, both in several forms of bluegrass music and occasionally in jazz and avant-garde, Tony Trischka has inspired a whole generation of progressive bluegrass musicians." Music career A native of Syracuse, New York, Trischka's interest in banjo was sparked by the Kingston Trio's version of " Charlie and the MTA" in 1963. Two years later, he joined the Down City Ramblers, where he remained through 1971. That year, he made his recording debut on ''15 Bluegrass Instrumentals'' with the band Country Cooking; at the same time, he was also a member of America's premier sports-rock band Country Granola. In 1973, he began a three-year stint with Breakfast Special. Between 1974 and 1975, he recorded two solo albums, ''Bluegrass Light'' and ''Heartlands''. After one more solo album in 1976, ''Banjoland'', he went on to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Munde
Alan Munde (pronounced "mun-dee") (born November 4, 1946) is an American five-string banjo player and bluegrass musician. Biography Born in Norman, Oklahoma, Munde learned banjo from a well-regarded Oklahoman banjo player, Ed Shelton. He frequently played amateur gigs around the state where he first met Byron Berline at the University of Oklahoma. Shelton introduced Munde to three fine Dallas bluegrass players - Mitchell Land, Louis "Bosco" Land and Harless "Tootie" Williams - and the four of them joined to form "The Stone Mountain Boys" in 1965. Alan moved to Kentucky in January 1969 after he had graduated from college to play with Wayne Stewart and Sam Bush in a group called Poor Richard's Almanac. ''"Wayne Stewart had this idea for a group with this kid he knew in Kentucky named Sam Bush, who was probably 15. So I moved to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and we formed Poor Richard's Almanac. Not long after, I got my draft notice, but before I left, Sam, Wayne and I made this tape, lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Weissberg
Eric Weissberg (August 16, 1939 – March 22, 2020) was an American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist, whose most commercially successful recording was his banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos," featured as the theme of the film ''Deliverance'' (1972) and released as a single that reached number 2 in the United States and Canada in 1973. A member of the folk group the Tarriers for years, Weissberg later developed a career as a session musician. He played and recorded with leading folk, bluegrass, rock, and popular musicians and groups from the middle of the 20th century to its end. Life and career Weissberg was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Cecile (Glasberg), a liquor buyer, and Will Weissberg, a publicity photographer. He attended The Little Red Schoolhouse in New York's Greenwich Village and graduated from The High School of Music & Art in New York City. He went on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Juilliard School of Music. From 1956 to 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshall Brickman
Marshall Brickman (born August 25, 1939) is an American screenwriter and director, best known for his collaborations with Woody Allen. He is the co-recipient of the 1977 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for ''Annie Hall''. He is also known for playing the banjo with Eric Weissberg in the 1960s, and for a series of comical parodies published in ''The New Yorker''. Life and career Brickman was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to American parents Pauline (née Wolin) and Abram Brickman. His family was Jewish. After attending the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he became a member of Folk act The Tarriers in 1962, recruited by former classmate Eric Weissberg. Following the disbanding of The Tarriers in 1965, Brickman joined The New Journeymen with John Phillips and Michelle Phillips, who later had success with The Mamas & the Papas. He left The New Journeymen to pursue a career as a writer, initially writing for television in the 1960s, including ''Candid Camera'', ''The T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Monroe
William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, who named their group for the bluegrass of Monroe's home state of Kentucky. He described the genre as "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound." Early life Monroe was born on his family's farm near Rosine, Kentucky, the youngest of eight children of James Buchanan "Buck" and Malissa (Vandiver) Monroe. His mother and her brother, James Pendleton "Pen" Vandiver, were both musically talented, and Monroe and his family grew up playing and singing at home. Bill was of Scottish and English heritage. Because his older brothers Birch and Charlie already played the fiddle and guitar, Bill was resign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Keith (musician)
William Bradford "Bill" Keith (December 20, 1939 – October 23, 2015) was a five-string banjoist who made a significant contribution to the stylistic development of the instrument. In the 1960s he introduced a variation on the popular "Scruggs style" of Banjo#Five-string banjo, banjo playing (an integral element of bluegrass music) which would soon become known as melodic style, or "Keith style". Professional career Keith was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He attended Amherst College and graduated in 1961. In 1963 he became a member of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys.Trischka, Tony, "Bill Keith", ''Banjo Song Book'', Oak Publications, 1977, Keith's recordings and performances during these nine months with Monroe permanently altered banjo playing, and his style became an important part of the playing styles of many banjoists. After leaving the Bluegrass Boys, he joined the Jim Kweskin Jug Band playing plectrum banjo. He began playing the steel guitar and soon aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
