question regarding Grimshaw exercise no 5

[Adam Grimshaw]

Hi all,

I'm working on exercises from the Grimshaw, How to Excel on the Banjo book. And I have a nitpicking question regarding exercise number 5. The purpose of this exercise is to practice the slide from D to F, but I'm unsure of the timing. At what point should I begin the slide? Should I begin sliding immediately after striking the D on beat one, and then pluck again when arriving at the F on beat 2? Or does the slide happen all at once on beat two - striking the D and arriving at the F all in a half beat? 

I found a YouTube video of Rob MacKillop performing the exercise. It sounds lovely to my ear. But I'm curious to know if his timing on the slide is the orthodox method.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MydEW3Yk5mE&list=PLgqVFhrbL66eL...

Like I said, perhaps I'm nitpicking. But I'd like to understand how this was intended to be played.

[Jody Stecher]

I think that starting the slide right after playing D will produce the singing effect that seems to be the purpose of the exercise.  So the slide is the means to this end. That's how it works when I play the exercise. If I delay the slide there is no effect of vocalism, just a kind of smeared F that shoots up from below.  I also found that starting out with the metronome at 100 as indicated was  a bit too fast for me for the first attempt. 100 makes sense because if it is much slower the slide will sound like a series of half steps. But for learning I started a bit slower  I also found it helpful in learning, to begin the first two measures at full speed with just the thumb strokes. C D, D- F. That helped me get the timing.

[Adam Grimshaw]

Thanks Jody, that's helpful. Great idea on isolating the thumb to begin with. I will try that.