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I think this is a great arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine.”
The first part is in every inch a ‘beginner’ level banjo part. However,
The second part, which carries the melody beautifully in an upper octave,
really belongs in the “intermediate” category, I think. So I would
call it beginner/intermediate arrangement. Whatever, you call it, I think
it sounds great! Especially when played by Mike Hedding!Mike, what is the trick to knowing which chord to vamp when in a jam session? Is the idea to watch the guitar player and see what chord they are playing in any particular song and that would tell you, as the banjo player, which chord to vamp? If that is so, then doesn’t it mean that you need to know by sight how guitar players form a C chord or an F or D chord on their instruments?
Do I have this right?Mike Landau
I think this is a great arrangement of Columbus Stockade Blues. The way Mike plays it, it has terrific drive and force, provided you keep the rhythm going. I found the first part pretty
easy to learn, but it’s the chorus that’s giving me trouble, specifically, these long slides which cover a lot of real estate on the fretboard. I confess that I find slides on the mandolin to be more challenging than on the banjo, and these from Columbus Stockade have to sound right if the song is to sound good. Mike, what do you suggest? Is it a question of the right finger pressure on the strings, not too soft or too hard? I have a Gibson “Loar” model mando; I can’t help but think that a higher priced mandolin would give me a better sound on the long slides up and down the neck. Short of buying a high priced mando, do you have any suggestions?Mike, this coming February I’ll be renewing my annual Pro membership simply because I’m very pleased
with both the selections for both mandolin and banjo, but most of all because I think your instruction is very effective and I’m sure many would agree with me. However, from a student’s point of view, please allow me to make one suggestion: very often, you will go back to a certain phrase and repeat it when you are teaching a tune. That in itself is very helpful
because the repetition really helps to reinforce it; however (and this is the ‘constructive criticism part!) it would be most helpful if you could more often identify by number the measure you are starting from. Without that, I often have to scramble back to try to see where you are ‘ picking it up’ from and when it’s a totally new song, it isn’t always easy to identify where you are beginning from and then I have trouble following. This was the case with ‘Red River Valley’ (and some other tunes as well). if you could identify the measure, it would be so
helpful! Thanks, Mike L.Thanks,
Mike
