Play Classical Tenor Banjo! Studies 1 to 7 from "Classical Studies for Tenor banjo" - Rob MacKillop
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 พ.ย. 2023
- Pitch Alert: I sometimes tune my banjo down two steps - a whole tone - to BbFCG, to lower the tension and increase sustain for playing classical music. This happens to correspond with 392 pitch, not 440, and in Bach's day this pitch was quite popular. I think the tenor banjo can do a lot more than Irish and Jazz music, and as the tuning is the same as the cello, albeit at a higher octave - you can play all of his six cello suites on it. This studies book will help any "post-beginner" to prepare for playing Bach and other great composers. More videos to come. I teach students across the globe via Zoom. Let me know if interested. If you like what I do, why not "buy me a coffee" by making a donation to www.paypal.com/paypalme/Suppo... All donations go to help fund my free videos, research and websites - a sadly not-for-profit venture! Rob
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Just bought the book. Love the accompanying video too! Fantastic stuff, thank you!
I got the book and hope to start working through it soon. I hope you'll add more videos of performances of pieces in the book. It's great material and expertly presented.
Cheers, Joe. Best wishes for your musical progress! Remember to download all the soundfiles. They will help you with phrasing, which is very important. Rob
Hi Rob. Loved your work for years. I work for my local Music Hub and have used your Scottish Lute arrangments with my kids. Keep up tha fantastic work sir. An inspiritation.
Hi Eoin. Great to hear you are getting the kids involved. That’s made my day. Best wishes to you all! Rob
Thanks Rob, It's so instructive to see how much music you can pull out of a single line with effective phrasing and subtle dynamics. The lower pitch really warms up the tone as well. I'm enjoying the book - consider this a yes vote to continue further through it!
That’s good to know, Frank. Some great music later in the book, but I want to get the earlier studies on video, so people get an idea of not just what can be played, but also how it might be played, some thoughts for interpretation. Great to have your feedback.
I liked your analogy of the harpsichord, not just concerning dynamics but the relative lack of sustain it shares with the banjo (and the mandolin). It's a challenge to connect the notes in slower, stately pieces and imply legato when it's not really there. I guess Bach did something similar on a different level by implying multiple voices in the solo string fugues.
@@frank19142 Absolutely. And connected with that is a wonder at Bach’s use of constant streams of semiquavers or quavers for an instrument that could sustain a single note for as long as the player could remain awake! It strikes me as a bit odd. But it is one of the reasons why I think his cello suites work so well - as I believe they do - on the tenor banjo. The instrument has little or no sustain, and is perfectly happy running around visiting various harmonic relations. Actually it reminds me of the clavichord, Bach’s favourite keyboard for domestic use. It too had almost no sustain, but it could employ a little vibrato by wiggling the finger on the key. By contrast the cello seems expert at sustaining long notes. The answer lies in the type of cello he used - the violoncello da spalla, meaning “of the shoulder”. I mention it in the book. It was more like an overgrown fiddle, and perhaps he related it more to folk music, and folk musicians do not tend to use much sustain in their playing. We’ll never know. But I do think he would not have been too put out, if at all, by hearing his music on the tenor banjo.
I first came across you from your book of the suites for tenor banjo. I played it for my friend, who plays jazz on a tenor banjo in a single note style. We were both really impressed at how well they worked and I did think of the harpsichord. That "shoulder cello" may have evolved from the medieval vielle and the rebec - now we're talking folk music! I agree about the clavichord. I have the series of recordings by Richard Troeger of much of the keyboard music on clavichord. It's beautiful, you have to calibrate your listening to pick up the delicate nuances, such a far cry from ripping through that music on a modern piano. The Met Museum of Art in NY has a nice collection of clavichords and virginals - too bad they don't let you touch!
@@frank19142 Thanks for introducing me to Richard Troeger. I've been listening to Wim Winters. All good stuff. Yes, folk music was closer than in much of today's classical music. The bowed string instruments had lower and flatter bridges, the bows themselves were very different, concave instead of convex - resulting in a less penetrating, and with gut strings an earthier sound. Anyway, you probably know all this. The main thing is that Bach said clearly in an interview with the BBC, that the banjo was his favourite instrument overall, especially the tenor variety. He was a very wise and forward thinking man!
Greta video, Rob, and very good explanations. I played clawhammer 5-string as a kid, but today find myself increasingly drawn to tenor. The symmetry of the tuning and chords is very appealing. Thanks for demonstrating your arrangements here.
Cheers, Joe. Glad you got something from the video. And good luck with your musical journey, wherever it takes you!
Rob, thanks for all of the great content you make freely available. I recently purchased the Kindle version of this book, and there's something a bit off about how it renders. It looks like the music is meant for a "portrait" orientation, but it's rendered in the Kindle app in "landscape", which results in the lower sections being cut off. I wonder if you might raise this with Mel Bay and/or Amazon. Cheers!
Oh, FFS. That should have been a simple thing to get right. Thanks for telling me, David. I'll make sure Mel Bay knows about it, and you should make sure Amazon knows about it, and you should get your money back. Of course, I have nothing to do with such things, but I offer you my sorrow and apologies. Let me know what happens. And thanks for the opening sentence. Much appreciated. Rob
David, I’ve been on your case. The boss of Mel Bay - his son William Bay - wants you to email him personally, but doesn’t want to give out his personal email address online. So I suggest you email me - robmackillop at gmail.com - and I will put you in touch.
@@RobMacKillop1 You're a gent. Email inbound.