Stelling's Approval & Banjo Intonation

We got approval from Geoff Stelling to use the Stelling Trademarked logo and banjo design (flange and peghead design) for our 23' banjo sign. This is so exciting!!! Terry and I have some more work to do before it's ready to be put up, but it's more than half way done. I am hoping that we can get it up within two weeks, but you never know...

While I'm thinking about it, I want to mention something about instruments playing in tune. James came and saw me last week, and he's certainly not the first to talk about this, but we were discussing the intonation of his banjo. I think it's a common misconception that instruments are perfect in pitch and that electronic tuners will tune them perfectly. In reality, neither of these two statements is true. For instance, James and I noticed that after tuning the 3rd string to the tuner, we then changed the pitch slightly and the tuner still read the same. We could both hear a slight difference, but the tuner did not reflect this. Secondly, after tuning the banjo to the tuner and re-checking bridge placement, not all the strings were perfectly in tune when using the string to string tuning method. This is especially true with 2nd and 3rd strings on all banjos, in general. Some banjos are better than others, even within the same model and brand, and some brands (like Stelling, which compensates the nut) make adjustments on their banjos to try to correct this.

Anyway, this out of tune G string was driving James crazy. It's the kind of thing when you hear it, you just start listening for it and you can't seem to concentrate on anything except waiting for that out of tune string to be played again. These are the suggestions I made to James, and I would make these to anyone that is concerned with banjo intonation:

1. First off, make sure you're not using old strings.
2. When fretting, put your finger as close to the fret as possible.
3. Don't use more pressure than necessary to fret the string.
4. Change to a thicker gauge of strings. These won't be as sensitive to stretching or pulling.
5. Make sure you are not pushing or pulling the string up or down as you fret.
6. Most important - don't rely entirely upon your tuner to tune your instrument. On a banjo, the 2nd string when fretted at the 3rd fret is inherently sharp when compared to the 1st string open. Tune the 2nd string down slightly so that when fretted at the 3rd fret, it matches the 1st string open. There are too many songs that use that fret position for it to not match the 1st string. The 3rd string also tends to be sharp, which is the very reason why compensated bridges came into being. A compensated bridge can help somewhat, but you will probably also have to do some pitch adjustment when tuning. I try to go up slightly with one string and down slightly with another to get a "happy medium."

Hopefully, these tips will help out anyone who is experiencing intonation problems.

We had a good jam last night, but I don't have time right now to write about it. I'll post about it later this week.

Learning by Ear vs. Reading Music

I get asked about this often, so it seems like a subject that would be of interest to folks. I think the first question to ask is "What are you wanting to do with your music"? For orchestra and band students, it is very important to learn to read music. For bluegrass, country and folk musicians, it is not necessary to know this. Can it help? Yes, but playing by ear is more important for this type of music. Now let me explain why.

If you are playing bluegrass music, everyone gets together and just plays. You might not know all the songs or even the people with whom you are playing! It is important to have developed your ear skills because you need them for this type of get together. You just don't see bluegrass musicians setting up their music stands and reading music. (Now you might see them with their words to songs, though.) Usually, whatever method you learn first is the method that you will be most comfortable with. So if you learn to play by ear, you'll do it just fine. If you learn to read music, then you won't want to get rid of your music.

If you are going to play in an orchestra or band, or if you want to play classical music, etc., it would be impossible to do this without knowing how to read music. You are expected to play everything exactly the way it is written on the page. No improvising, no ad libbing...

By contrast, in bluegrass music, there are as many ways to play a song as there are people who play the song. It is desirable to improvise and come up with your own style and/or way to play the songs, as long as you stay within the chord structure and rhythm of the song. There are songs that are even played slightly differently in different parts of the U.S. This even includes different words to songs from time to time! Since this music was passed on from person to person, there will always be these variances.

Do you think you're tone deaf, or have a "tin" ear? Chances are, you are not. A truly tone deaf person speaks in a monotone because they cannot hear variances in the voice. I have never met anyone that spoke in a monotone. I HAVE met people who couldn't sing on pitch or couldn't tell the difference between pitches. That is not tone deaf. Even if you can't sing on pitch, you can train your ear so that you can play by ear or even sing in tune. I have seen this over and over. It's not what you were born with, it's what you develop.

What about learning rhythm? Is that possible? Yes. From a teaching standpoint, I think teaching rhythm is much harder than teaching pitch. When a person doesn't have natural rhythm, they can't play with other people. When a person doesn't have good pitch, they can still play with others, though they might not be in tune all the time until they develop this aspect of their playing.

What about people who have played a long time and still don't "have it"? My thoughts on this is that many people don't realize they have a pitch or rhythm problem, so they don't work on it. Or maybe they don't work on the right things or have the right teacher to help with these issues. For instance, it is popular belief that a metronome will help people that don't have rhythm. I don't believe this is true. A metronome is very hard to stay with even when you have great rhythm. How in the world can someone who doesn't have natural rhythm stay with it? I think a much better way to develop good rhythm is to play along with the song on a CD. Some students prefer to import the songs to their iPods and play while they listen to it. Either way, a person with poor rhythm should avoid playing alone. Playing guitar also helps people who don't have natural rhythm.

People who have poor pitch can practice playing a fiddle with an automatic tuner. Someone who wants to learn to sing needs another person of the same sex to work with them. That is because the voice differences between men and women are too great for those with the poorest pitch. You don't even need a voice teacher, per se, just someone who has a lot of patience and who can help you learn songs that are the appropriate difficulty level for you.

One more question - What about trying to memorize all those songs? Even you can do this! You will develop your memory just like you develop everything else. Once this gets on track, you will amaze yourself at how fast you can learn a new tune. I have had banjo students that could only memorize four notes at a time in the beginning. I would have to write things down and record them, and then the students would go home and practice and try to memorize as much as they could. Those with the worst memories would have a remarkable improvement by the end of the first year. Usually by that point, I can teach an entire song in a lesson and the student can remember it all. Maybe not play it all perfectly or up to speed, but they can retain everything fairly well. With a CD to take home, they don't have to worry about forgetting it later.

Feel free to post your comments and questions, or e-mail me.