Comment by thereallyniceman on April 7, 2023 at 10:08

Very nice to watch and listen to all the thought processes. Thank you for going to so much trouble. I have never played this piece but hope to have a go soon!

That is a spiffy looking banjo too!  A C Fairbanks or Vega? ....  Is it really a Stefanelli?

Superb and all kudos to Eric !!!

Comment by Jody Stecher on April 7, 2023 at 11:43

Thanks, Ian.  Yes this is the same Stefanelli banjo I have played on some other videos, most recently The 50/50 rag. The inlays  (based on Fairbanks/Vega....yes) are all hand made by Eric Stefanelli from shell and Eric made the varnish from fruit trees outside his house in France.   

Comment by TONY BRYAN on April 9, 2023 at 10:35

A really excellent analysis, Jody!  It also goes to show why sightreading banjo music is so complicated - there are so many alternatives.  Every banjo player must be prepared to write lots of reminders on every piece of sheetmusic.  I certainly do as I otherwise forget which alternative I have chosen, and if I go back to a piece after not playing it for a while I have to work it all out again. 

If I may, I would like to add two additional topics to your analysis, and they relate to the fingers of the right hand.  They are finger sequence and emphasis.  In your video you take phrases and work out which one would be more suitable, but one of the problems with taking phrases in isolation is that you can end up with a difficult - or impossible - sequence of fingering to get to the next phrase.  So the analytic process has to be selecting the most appropriate way to play a phrase together with the best way to escape to the next phrase.  It looked to me as though the places where you consistently stumbled were places where you had to execute a tricky fingering sequence to get from one phrase to the next. 

In the matter of emphasis, each finger of the right hand brings its own emphasis to the sound.  You remark at the start of the video that playing a series of notes on the first string sounds very staccato, which is true, and that playing the three notes consecutively on three strings held down as a chord sounds smoother, which is also true.  But in terms of emphasis it makes a difference which fingers you use to play those notes.  You lead a lot with your thumb, which means that you like to use the thumb when playing the downbeat.  Can't fault that as it almost guarantees that you will always get the rhythm right, but it does mean that you will want to avoid using the thumb on the preceding upbeat note.  So, going back to working out how to play a phrase, I would try to avoid playing the fifth string - thumb string - if I don't want the G note to be accented.  That's not a hard and fast rule as it sometimes can't be avoided and some pieces have you play the fifth in quick succession, but it's something that one should be aware of and possibly worth a scribble on your score. 

Anyway, sorry to go on so about this, but I do think we need to discuss more how we play our pieces as I guess that almost noone plays anything 'as writ', and we end up with no record of the practicalities of banjo playing for future generations. 

Regards

Tony

Comment by Jody Stecher on April 9, 2023 at 14:43

I agree. And... I did speak about getting to x from y where I could not join phrase x with one of the ways of playing phrase y without repeating a finger and I spoke of how I solved the problem.  My stumbles as they present themselves to my imperfect mind were due to lack of muscle memory in playing Dill Pickles.  I am still in the process of learning the piece. But perhaps you are right. I do know that when I played the piece up-to-speed at the end there were times when muscle memory of playing *other* pieces of music kicked in and overrode the way I *intended* to play it and that may have resulted in a clumsy repeat of a thumb or digit.  I will study the video and try to learn from it.

Comment by TONY BRYAN on April 9, 2023 at 16:09

Jody, I was certainly not intending to write any kind of critique of a piece of work that was so well thought out and so perfectly executed.  I was merely trying to use your video to make a couple of my own points about right hand techniques. 

'Muscle memory' is absolutely right.  It literally takes me years of going over a piece before my fingers automatically fall into place each time I play it.  If, after, say, five years I am still stumbling at the same point each time, I try one of the other options for another five years.  The trouble there is that once you know you have a stumble coming up it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and you atomatically fall at the hurdle.  Banjo players who start with lessons at the age of six probably have all the fingering alternatives worked out by the time they are in their teens, and I suspect they are the only ones who can play a score exactly 'as writ'. 

I have also found that people who have played banjo in other styles bring their accumulated experience to classic banjo.  In the period when I played with finger picks on steel strings I found that the finger picks themselves made some classic right-hand sequences pretty much impossible, so I spent some time rationalizing what I did with my right hand.  Those ways are now set and characterize the way I play just about everything. 

It would be interesting to learn what other players made of the way you approached Dill Pickles. 

Regards

Tony

Comment by Jody Stecher on April 9, 2023 at 21:49

I posted a ridiculously detailed response an hour ago and thought better of it and took it down. Here is a sensible reduction of the essence of that post:

 I've studied the video at full speed, half speed and even quarter speed. By doing this I discovered even more errors than I had been previously aware of. But none of them were caused by  the previous phrase being played by using the same right hand finger I will need to use to start the next phrase.  So I agree with you in principal but in this particular case the diagnosis seems to not apply to the stumbles in this video.

The times I stumble during the presentation/explanation portion of the video are due to my forgetting what happens next. There is no occasion of tricky fingering sequences.   In the performance section stumbles I again sometimes forget what happens nex. At other times  I use the proper RH  finger for a note but I land on the wrong string and this is a jolt to my mind. 

Comment by Rob MacKillop on April 10, 2023 at 6:33

Yup, playing fingerstyle banjo is hard! 

I like the old Renaissance-era thinking: there are strong and weak beats in a bar, and there are strong and weak fingers in the hand…so let’s match them up! 

Strong: middle and thumb

Weak: index

Let’s take a simple up and down scale, root to 5th: CDEFGFEDC

Played with thumb on strong beats, index of weak beats, we get C d E f G f E d C (upper case - strong, lower case weak). Notice that the strong beats sound out a C Major arpeggio: CEG. Interesting. Scale runs have ‘hidden’ chords in them. 

Syncopation is rife in ragtime, so with this method you sometimes put a strong finger on a nominally weak beat, thereby giving it a boost - syncopating! 

Do I utilise this method all the time when playing banjo? Not much. But there are certainly passages where it becomes advantageous to use it. The important thing is that you don’t have to try to put weight on certain beats, it just happens naturally, by using the natural inequalities in the hand. This is the complete opposite of what I was taught when playing classical guitar, where the differences in each finger are ironed out, so to speak, so that any finger can play any note at any time, but the subtle dynamic nuances have to be manufactured. I rejected classical-guitar technique three decades ago, once I discovered what those Renaissance cats were getting up to. It seemed more organic. 

Will it help play Dill Pickles? I don’t know, can’t stand the damn tune! But I imagine it might be worth exploring. On the face of it, utilising the inequalities in the fingers to match the inequalities in the beats sounds a good, natural and possibly obvious thing to do, but in practice odd moments crop up where it doesn’t lie comfortable across the strings, and it does imply the 5th string is always strong because it is always played with the thumb. But maybe that’s an accepted peculiarity of the banjo harking back to its African roots? Who knows? Not me. 

Comment by Jody Stecher on April 10, 2023 at 12:43

The problem with the Renaissance lutenist's perspective is that it is based on an assumption that this will be true for all hands. It seems to me that it is true for some hands and not for others. Sitarists play entirely with the index. Rudra vina players use both the index and middle (and the pinky for the drone strings) and in that context the index is considered to be stronger stroke, not the middle. 

The middle finger up-stroke of *my* hand is indeed stronger than its index equivalent. But the downstroke when powered by the wrist is stronger when I use the index. And I use downstrokes occasionally in my classic banjo playing.

There is another factor. Downstrokes (such as the typical thumb stroke) are aided by gravity. Of course the thumb is heavier than the digits so there is that too. But with a plectrum the whole hand weight comes into play along with gravity.  Up strokes need to overcome gravity if they are to be equally strong as downstrokes, But as you point out, equal strength is not always a virtue, But with sitar the UP stroke is the strong one.  I think this is because of the position of the right hand. Basically the index finger upstroke on that instrument utilized the prehensile grip. Is grabbing stronger than its opposite? Hmmm.... not on my hand.

Short version of the above: It all depends.

Comment by Trapdoor2 on April 10, 2023 at 12:48

Apologies, this morning is the first time I've felt comfortable sitting at the computer since my surgery two weeks ago (they're pulling 75+ staples tomorrow. Ow!).

Rob's comment reminded me of going to the 1992 Tennessee Banjo Institute and sitting in two consecutive classes where one emphasized syncopation via the strength/attack of each finger (I actually think we used the Dill Pickle three-note roll) and the next taught us to "flatten" our fingering so that every finger used the same weight/volume...and of course, my Scruggs training was to put the thumb on anything with a strong accent.

I practiced all three until I got tired of it and just did what the music wanted. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!

Jody, I enjoyed your video. This type of "breaking down" the intimacies of learning is very valuable...and it took me ages to really understand that humans do what humans do...regardless of what your tutor (person or book) tells you to do!

Funnily, I went thru a phase where I would tab out different variations of particular measures or sections, esp. if I couldn't figure out which was "right". I just stuck in an extra measure with the variation...and then I caught myself learning the tune with extra measures...wait a minute, that doesn't sound like the tune!?!

I've also found that my technique has changed over the years. When I play old favorites (ex. "Sunflower Dance") and look at my original tab, I find I've changed my technique from my original. Sometimes it is newer stuff as well...I'll sort out a fingering only to wake up one morning and think "What was I thinking?" and write out a better, more efficient, more comfortable version.

I find that I stumble when playing more due to inattention than to poor transitions. When I have a bad/awkward transition, I tend to overtrain it until I can do it smoothly...and then promptly stumble over something simple because I've "relaxed" after the tough part. Then my internal critic speaks up, I lose my place...or a squirrel walks past or my ear itches...

Comment by Jody Stecher on April 10, 2023 at 12:55

Marc, yes this is all familiar in my own behavior and with my students as well. Best wishes for a pleasant full recovery from your surgery and from whatever necessitated the procedure.

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