Lousy Tone
So, I'm sitting in my office practicing a banjo break for one of the songs I'm supposed to help out with in the upcoming gospel show to be held at the Grand Bay Wesleyan Church on August 12, 2007, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM. The song is In the Sweet By and By. Having played it a few hundred times by now, I'm feeling reasonably comfortable with it, and I'm thinking "hey, this doesn't sound too bad!" At this point I've even got the speed at a reasonable pace while maintaining a fairly clean sound. At least that's what I'm thinking.
I get up from my chair to see if I can play it as well while standing up. I go to the closed window and face it so as to hear some of the sound reflect back at me and that's when I get the rude awakening. My tone sucks, and so does my playing in general. Pull-offs aren't clean nor consistent, hammer-ons are weak and I can't pull decent tone out of the banjo.
It's not the fault of my new Huber banjo. I know that because it sounds great when Jim Mills and Harvey Arbo play it, although the tone from each player is completely different. That's how I expect it to be with me too - a different tone, but not the cruddy one I'm producing! And even though my strings need changing, I can't blame my poor tone on them either.
Banjo players - listen up! This is more evidence, proof as far as I'm concerned, that at least 80 percent of the tone produced comes from the hands of the player, not the instrument. Obviously, a decent instrument is required as well, but hear me well when I tell you the tone you are able to pull out of your instrument is largely dependent on your technique. A lot of people claim it's the picking hand that counts the most, but I'm hear to tell you your fretting hand is every bit as important when working on producing great tone.
I've had this rude awakening before. In fact, I've posted about it previously at least twice back in July and August of 2006. Here's some advice: if you want to work on your tone, face a wall or a window while playing so you can hear the sound of the banjo coming back at you. On the other hand, if you don't want the possibility of being disappointed, stay away from the walls!
I get up from my chair to see if I can play it as well while standing up. I go to the closed window and face it so as to hear some of the sound reflect back at me and that's when I get the rude awakening. My tone sucks, and so does my playing in general. Pull-offs aren't clean nor consistent, hammer-ons are weak and I can't pull decent tone out of the banjo.
It's not the fault of my new Huber banjo. I know that because it sounds great when Jim Mills and Harvey Arbo play it, although the tone from each player is completely different. That's how I expect it to be with me too - a different tone, but not the cruddy one I'm producing! And even though my strings need changing, I can't blame my poor tone on them either.
Banjo players - listen up! This is more evidence, proof as far as I'm concerned, that at least 80 percent of the tone produced comes from the hands of the player, not the instrument. Obviously, a decent instrument is required as well, but hear me well when I tell you the tone you are able to pull out of your instrument is largely dependent on your technique. A lot of people claim it's the picking hand that counts the most, but I'm hear to tell you your fretting hand is every bit as important when working on producing great tone.
I've had this rude awakening before. In fact, I've posted about it previously at least twice back in July and August of 2006. Here's some advice: if you want to work on your tone, face a wall or a window while playing so you can hear the sound of the banjo coming back at you. On the other hand, if you don't want the possibility of being disappointed, stay away from the walls!
Labels: poor playing, poor tone
posted by Michael Floyd at 10:11 AM
1 Comments:
Just was searching for a tab on sweet by and by and got to your blog...wandering if you can give me any help on finding a tab for the song...thanks
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