Customer Reviews

Banjo Picking Styles

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Suppose you decide to study Latin and you could have Cicero drop by now and then to drill you in your conjugations and declensions. Or, you become fascinated with plane geometry and you could have personal tutorials with Euclid to elucidate his axioms and propositions.
If you are a banjo player, you can have something better. You can add a copy of "Banjo Picking Styles Taught By Bela Fleck" to your DVD library and have lessons any time you like from the most accomplished player of this instrument who has ever lived.
Bela Fleck has been nominated for 22 Grammy awards (and won 9). Born in Manhattan in 1958, Bela is the banjo's first virtuoso. As a bluegrass player, he cut his teeth on Earl Scruggs and studied with Tony Trischka. Fleck identifies banjo titans Ralph Stanley, Don Reno, Eddie Adcock, Sonny Osborne, John Hartford, Bill Keith, Alan Munde, J.D. Crowe, and Raymond Fairchild among influences in his development. Bela's musical interests are universally encompassing. He studied jazz legends Charlie Parker and Chick Corea, incorporating into his own compositions more rhythmic and harmonic complexity. Throughout his career, Bela has explored other cultural traditions to adapt to the banjo's lexicon, notably African, Indian and Chinese musics. Fleck was also ineluctably drawn to the Western classical tradition, demonstrating that Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and Tchaikovsky sound every bit as expressive on the banjo as they do on the pianoforte.
"Banjo Picking Styles" is not for beginners. Produced on videotape in 1984 (re-released on DVD in 2005), 26 year-old Bela patiently dissects six tunes for the purpose of explicating various techniques that are there to be mastered, demystifying the complex coordination of picking patterns with chord positions, and providing insight into each song's structural elements and sensibility. It is presumed that the player already possesses rudimentary musical knowledge and some fluidity on the instrument. It is requisite to know how to "pinch", "slide", "choke", and "chop", what it means to "hammer on" and "pull off", and how to execute forward, backward or inside rolls and triplets. If you love banjo music but never knew how the player achieves those ringing tones and lightning runs, it's a revelation. If you are a musician intent on learning these techniques, you get to practice with the best banjo player on the planet.
The Homespun Video production is low-key in every respect. Because it is a collection of lessons, Bela has not been provided with a script, gag lines, patter, or stage business. He simply sits there with his banjo on his lap, intent on explanation. In his live performances, Bela Fleck projects unaffected warmth, self-effacing humor, and the ready wit of the seasoned performer. There is little of that here. This is serious business. This is about the music.
In the first two songs, "Texas Barbecue" and "Brilliancy", Bela parses the "melodic style" and discusses left-hand positions among various tunings. Demonstrating how he employs Scruggs pegs (banjo hardware), he remarks dryly, "Some awful things can happen if you don't get this right."
In the next two songs, "John Henry" and "Natural Bridge Suite", the focus is on the rotating thumb of the right hand (Bela shrugs, "The trick is keeping your thumb doing that forever... 'til the sun goes down.") and alternative finger positions for chords. "If you mess up and use the wrong finger," he confides, "you just have to compensate by sticking whatever finger you can get into the right place."
Bela uses "The Wind That Shakes The Barley" to expose the elements of the single-string Irish style, emphasizing that attention to the "spirit of the tune" is paramount. His own composition, "Sammy's Blues" is his template for a general discussion of blues as a "springboard for improvisation."
Director Happy Traum employs a split screen, ideal for instruction in stringed instruments so that close-ups of right and left hands can be abutted and the student can examine the coordination of each with the other.
When Bela Fleck sets his hands in motion, no objects in this world are so graceful and exquisite. The sound of the banjo itself can be as thrilling as a fireworks display or as bittersweet as your first heartbreak., In the hands of Bela Fleck, an American international treasure, the instrument has been summoned to evoke music that will be with us forever... 'til the sun goes down.

This DVD consists of Bela walking through a selection of tunes in order to illustrate several picking techniques. As such, it's sort of a "see and hear it" then "do it" approach, much like the Murphy Method videos. Fine. And the selection, picking, and commentary is excellent. Frankly, you can't do much better. The video is excellent (in spite of this being converted from tape), and gives you split-screen on both the picking and fretting hands. The audio? Not so much. While it's clear, the levels are not properly balanced between Bela's commentary and the banjo's sound. The difference in volume actually forced me to turn the volume up to hear Bela at times, and turn the volume back down when he played. Given the frequency at which Bela speaks throughout, this is a major pain. Forewarned is forearmed, but the pain is worth the gain in this case.

You can't beat an instructional video by the one and only Bela Fleck....This DVD covers different styles and techniques, including improvisation and songs to practice on.