rck@iham1.UUCP (R. C. Kukuk) (04/09/84)
This last Saturday (4/7) I had an opportunity to attend a banjo workshop put on by Bill Keith. (Any of you banjo players out there heard of him? :-) ) He started out the workshop talking about music "facts", "It's NOT music THEORY!!", he said. Starting with the G major scale, Bill Keith proceeded to derive other modal scales based on the G scale: A Dorian, B Phrygian, C Lydian, etc., and then he played examples of Bluegrass tunes based on these modal scales. (Need I comment that every time he played an example, a few jaws dropped?) His point by showing us this was that once you get the G scale down, a whole set of possiblities of playing other songs in other keys opens up; just by playing the other modal scales. He said he did not want to hold a workshop just to teach a few hot licks, but he wanted to teach some general principles that he found useful in his 25+ years of banjo playing. He covered some basic patterns (TITM, TIM, MIT) and some not so basic (MIMT, ITIM) patterns. He described and played examples of these patterns as performed by Munde and Trischka, and talked about when the various patterns are appropriate. He spent a fair amount of time talking about the mysterious "Circle of Fifths" and pointed out some fascinating relationships between families of chords that can be represented on that circle. He reminisced about his early banjo years with Earl Scruggs, and he talked about his later dealings with Tony Trischka. Later in the day he worked his way into pentatonic scales, and there, too, he played several examples of Bluegrass songs based on this type of scale. (For example, did you know that the Lester Flat "G run" is just a takeoff on a pentatonic scale?) Keith went into the thought process involved in writing a song, and used his "Clinging Vine" (based on an E-flat pentatonic scale) as an example. He ended the workshop by playing "Nola", a ragtime-like song written in 1916. To hear him play it was enough of a treat, but to see the fingering and picking action as well ... well it made my day. Bill Keith appeared to be genuinely interested in getting the material across to us. He dealt with every question we asked, both during and after the workshop. He was so interested in getting the material across, that he went well over an hour beyond the scheduled end of the workshop. My bottom line is if you've ever got the opportunity to attend a Bill Keith workshop, don't pass it up! Ron Kukuk AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, Il.