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Bradbury Book 2
Having played through the entire first volume I now have turned my attention to volume 2. I found the first book to be excellent instructional material sequenced in such a way as to give the student a gentle prod to improve at the same time as building confidence in using what was learned on earlier pages. The downside was occasionally vague instructions and a few badly constructed sentences.
Will volume 1 be similar? I expect the music will get harder to play.
The Norwegian Folk Dance and its preparatory exercise introduces new rhythms and fingerings. The piece is fun to play and relentlessly jolly and therefore does not remind me of Norwegians.
The second page of The Sailor's Refrain is Darling Nellie Gray. Once again the title is a bad fit to the music. The musical arrangement is excellent and not as hard to play as it is to read. There are some tricky position changes. The arrangement and fingering instructions provide the means to play these changes with confidence.
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Permalink Reply by Jody Stecher on
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Next we come to the section on F major and D minor on pages 6 through 11. In the newer edition the pages are 70 through 75. I think I’m going to stop giving the page equivalents as those using the new book will find the pages easily enough. By the way, one reason I prefer the 1960s version is because the pages stay open easily.
All good for pages 6 and 7. Then things go a bit weird on page 8. I’d already been warned that the chords of F major would be misprinted as in E major. And so they were.
OK. A typo. But also title of the section is inconsistent with the how chord sections in other keys are titled in both book 1 and 2.
It says : Chords in the Key of E Major-Adapted to the Banjo.
E means F. I got that. But why “adapted to the banjo”? On other pages the chords of the other keys are presented as what they are, which is chords in the key of X, chords in the key of Y etc. But when we get to F Major these chords —which are not formed differently from chords in other keys — are described as “adapted to the banjo”.
It creates the impression that F is somehow different and is In Need of adaptation or that the banjo is somehow unable to handle the normal chords of this key. But that is not so. So it’s a puzzle and a distraction.
Further down the page is The Banjo Caprice. It’s a study in timing. The title is more capricious than the musical content which is not particularly abnormal. A “caprice” in music is a virtuosic tour-de-force played with wild abandon. This banjo solo has a second part that is loaded with consecutive triplets. This contrasts with part 1 which has only a few triplets. No wild leaps of octaves. No daring techniques or unlikely musical ideas here. The fingering is chord-based/ position-based. Oh well, I’m getting used to the titles not fitting the musical mood.
But then on the next page is Alabama Moon which seems a fitting title for a somewhat romantic piece of music.
The next page takes up the key of D minor. The top of the page presents the D harmonic minor scale with the tonic, 4, and 5 notes harmonized with chords. There are problems here (and on other similar pages) that could have been avoided with a few explanatory words.
The 1-3-5 version of D minor starting on the bass string is unplayable on the banjo in its usual tunings. Presenting it this way is musically correct and educationally important but the student should be told this chord is shown for theoretical purposes and not intended to be played on the banjo.
At the bottom of the page is a fingering exercise in the same scale. It is all closed strings. This makes it viable in any key. The instructions say this very thing but in such an oblique way that I did not understand the meaning of a “uniform” fingering. Bradbury describes this as an “excellent way to learn the banjo fingerboard”. I agree. But the excellence is in the exercise and not in the description. As I played it I wondered why the open G string was not used. Eventually I found the answer.
At the top of page 11 we are given several inversions of the three main chords of D minor. As usual they are printed clearly and are easy to read. Below that Bradbury describes 3 choices of fingering for the G minor chord at fret 7. He says that one is good if playing arpeggios and going to a certain fingering of D minor. I found no difference in sound or difficulty in play this Gm formation arpeggiated or all 3 notes at once. I tried going from each of the Gm fingerings to the particular Dm and found no difference. So what can he mean? There is also another reference to “squeeze” fingering. I now think Bradbury had fatter fingers than I do so that three fingers in a two-fret chords was a less spacious affair than stopping one string with the index and barring the other 2 strings with one of the other digits. Photos of Frank Bradbury suggest pretty large hands.
The rest of the page is given to an Etude in D minor. Bradbury describes it as “an excellent study for the left hand”. I agree!
I found fingerings I had never tried before and may never have thought of myself. They made the music more playable. I particularly enjoyed learning and playing this etude.
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One thing I forgot to mention: in the section on the chords of the key of D minor numbers appear to the left of each note. This looks exactly like the numbering of the fingers used to make chords throughout the book. But in this case the numbers, which are 1, 3 and 5 (and 7 in the A7 chord) are meant to represent the position of the notes in the scale. This is clear to me as a professional musician. But this is potentially confusing to the student who is new to the banjo and/or new to music theory. One short explanatory sentence would have been a safeguard against confusion.
Jody Stecher said:The next page takes up the key of D minor. The top of the page presents the D harmonic minor scale with the tonic, 4, and 5 notes harmonized with chords. There are problems here (and on other similar pages) that could have been avoided with a few explanatory words.
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Pages 12 through 21
Pages 12 and 13 present well-stated theory and a useful chord exercise. Page 14 and 15 are devoted to a medley of "chestnuts" with a flavor of the Old South in a style using banjo techniques that make the music sound like.... well, like banjo music. I discovered the arrangements are not far from how I would instinctively play these pieces by ear.
The next two pages present studies in syncopation, and exercises to help develop command of a variety of slurs and glissandos. All useful stuff, clearly presented.
Pages 18 and 19 incorporate these techniques in a banjo solo called Old Virginia. This would be fairly easy to play were it not for the many glis (glide) passages. I had to go measure by measure and play quite slowly to get it right. Definitely worth the time and effort.
Page 20 was a surprise. Six applications or ways of playing triplets on three strings using positions on the fingerboard are methodically taught. The surprise was in discovering these things being taught, because I have been using these positions for decades, having discovered them myself. But I never knew that anyone taught them. A happy discovery indeed.
Page 21 is full of things I found harder to read than to play. In other words after carefully studying what the notation represented, and having the sound somewhat firm in my mind, the music was easier to play than when reading "cold".
This page has exercises in octaves using two different systems of fingering, an exercise for playing in 10ths and a waltz.
The actual melody of the waltz is not complex but each measure is played with varying sub-rhythms and techniques so it takes a bit of study to get it right.
And then at the bottom of the page I came at last to a Bradbury-ism by which I mean a statement that must mean something but I dunno what. In this case we are tasked with ascending and deciding chromatically (that is, by half steps). Our attention is called to the first note on the second string during the descent. It's a D flat played with the right index finger. We're not told why this is noteworthy or why it is better than using the thumb. It might well be better. I tried it both ways and one seems as good as the other.
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Permalink Reply by Joel Hooks
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Well, I tried to embed this for easy access but I can't get that to work. So here is the link:
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1895. I'm not surprised. It sounded old and the title seemed to fit the music. I continue to enjoy using the book page by page.
Joel Hooks said:Well, I tried to embed this for easy access but I can't get that to work. So here is the link:
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Pages 22 through 27.
In these next pages I am reminded that Bradbury has set out to not only to teach the student to play the banjo but also to read music written for the banjo. I think he was clever and insightful to put the next two banjo solos at this point in the book. The focus is on improving reading.
The Yankee Clipper is on pages 22 and 23. It presents elements of notation not found in early pieces in the 2 books and combines familiar ones in new ways. It is not at all difficult to play once the notation is sorted out but that took some time as I could not read and play it through at a steady pace without stopping to decipher several instances of "Whoa.. what's this?" This is not a defect in the notation, it's a defect in my reading skills. I can recognize rhythmic patterns whole when I read ragtime or jigs and reels but I've never encountered this strange beast called a Polka March. To my mind to march and to polka is to move through space in dissimilar ways. But it turns out to be a real thing. Guests at a wedding party manage to polka and march all at once.
Anyway once the notation was sorted out the actual playing was not a challenge.
The next four pages are devoted to a sequence of tunes called Kentucky Medley. Kentucky had produced a lot of good banjo music but these tunes have nothing of what I have found to be Kentucky "flavor". This medley is....well... a bit cheesy. But its purpose is not to be authentically Kentucky-ish but to improve reading skills and to connect the neural pathways in the brain that connect cognition and hand movements. As such it is successful. As something to listen to, not so much. Not for me anyway.
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I like this medley, but I find medleys in general tend not to land with people.
here is me playing it with Paul Draper.
https://youtu.be/C2_ycMBfKrw?si=Ai1s9j8GC5w1Tulk
I’ll post Bradbury playing it later.
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Well I've got to admit it sounds better when you play than when I did.
Joel Hooks said:I like this medley, but I find medleys in general tend not to land with people.
here is me playing it with Paul Draper.
https://youtu.be/C2_ycMBfKrw?si=Ai1s9j8GC5w1Tulk
I’ll post Bradbury playing it later.
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Attached is Bradbury playing it.
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05 Kentucky Minstrels.mp3, 2.3 MB
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Frankly, Paul did a far better job coordinating rhythmically with you, than the big gang-o-banjos do accompanying Frank B.
The recording of Bradbury (curiously labeled Kentucky Minstrels) reminds me just a bit of a scene from a Jeeves and Wooster TV episode where Bertie Wooster is at his club and they all are playing banjos of various sorts It's cacophony, pandemonium, and chaos and we soon find out why. One of the gentlemen jubilantly yells out that he finished first. Miles ahead!
Here's the scene, found easily on Youtube:
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