"Where do I begin, so I can play by ear?"

"Where do I begin, so I can play by ear?" by William Sheppard

1. Pick out a simple song (not an instrumental to learn)

2. Listen to it. Not how the banjo player is playing it on the CD but how the melody goes. If you can hum it than you're ready for the next step. Even better take a non-bluegrass simple song that you already can sing, like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Skip to my Lou, etc.

3. Just strum the banjo while singing the song, changing at the right chords so you know what the chord progression is. If the song is simple enough you should be able to hear where the chords change.

4. With you fingers in the full chord position play just the melody notes, most of the melody notes well be in the chord structure, if a melody note is not in the chord you are making see what finger you need to move and to where to make the correct melody note.

Don't just pick out the melody, because that by itself doesn't relate to what finger you will really be using when you actually play the song. Nor says anything about where the other left hand fingers are, nor the the relation of the melody note to the chord.

5. Now of course you want to fill in around that melody note. This is where most have problems with which fill in notes to use. So begin first by hitting the melody note and than just pinch while holding all the fingers in the chord.

Then try playing the song using just an alternating thumb roll (ex. TMTI). Next play the song using a forward roll, playing as many of the melody notes as you can within the frame work of the forward roll. Do the same thing playing with all the basic rolls (forward backward, Foggy Mt. Roll) etc. You will see that some rolls will be easier to get the melody on certain parts than another roll. Make a mental note of what roll seems to fit a particular phrase of the song the best for you.

6. Now try playing the song using the best roll that seems to fit a particular phrase of the song changing to the roll that seems to fit the next phrase of the song the best.

7. By now the song should recognizable. Next you want to imbelish it and see where you can add slides, pull-offs, hammer-on, etc. For example, if the melody is on the open 2nd string, rather than playing that you might want to play it on the 3rd string by playing a fretted 3rd string and sliding up to the 4th fret to make that melody note. Or at the end of the verse add that tag lick you learned that will bring you back to the beginning of the song. Here's where you can really experiment to come up with your version and put your style into the song. It won't sound like Earl, but it will sound like YOU.

8. At some point you'll find you don't have to go through all this to "improvise " on a song. You'll be in a jam session and will find you can find the melody notes within a chord structure without thinking about where you need to hit the string to play a certain melody note and what are you going to do next to fill in around it because you've done it so many times in your at home practice with many different songs and combinations.

9. You don't have to play all 8th notes - put in pauses, pinches, etc. If you play the first note of each measure with a pause after it, it can help in emphasizing the melody of the song.

So there you have it one technical method of answering the question "Where do I begin, so I can play by ear?"

Keep on Pickin'

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