HOMESPUNIdeas, Advice and Music
Taught by John Hartford
Available in DVD or VHS
Two-video set, includes tab booklet
With Chris Sharp, guitar & fiddle These two highly-packed video lessons provide a rare opportunity to get John Hartford's personal take on how he plays the five-string banjo. A thoughtful and knowledgable musician, John has a treasure-trove of ideas and techniques that he enthusiastically shares with learning players.
Video One
This is the first of two highly-packed video lessons that provide a rare opportunity to spend time with John Hartford and get his personal take on how he plays the five-string banjo. A thoughtful and knowledgable musician, John has many unusual theories and a treasure-trove of ideas and techniques that he enthusiastically shares with learning players. With Chris Sharp backing him up on on fiddle and guitar, John's video lessons provide invaluable insights into his trademark banjo sound. On this lesson, John works with several well-known traditional and original songs taken from his vast repertoire, demonstrating a variety of ideas pertaining to his banjo style. He shows you a number of important rolls and licks, along with invaluable tips about getting good tone (finding the "sweet spot"), phrasing, accenting, using picks, playing backup and lots more. John reveals his personal tricks for playing fast (using hammers and pulls, triplets and "ghost" notes), and illustrates how he "plays the words" to a song to give his banjo solo depth and meaning. The tunes John covers on this video include "Cumberland Gap," "Old Time River Man," "Cripple Creek," and his best-known hit song, "Gentle on My Mind."
Video Two
On this second part of his unique banjo lesson series, John Hartford once again imparts numerous ideas and a myriad of techniques for the learning player. He explains chromatic scales and teaches his famous "slide whistle" lick, which allows you to play ear-catching runs that will enhance any tune. You'll also learn to add color and excitement to your banjo solos with John's trademark "fiddle style" melodic licks, which you will learn to play anywhere on the fingerboard. Sally Goodin and Old Time River Man provide the perfect examples for this dynamic technique.John provides words of advice for everything from using a metronome and a tape recorder for your practice sessions to detailed instruction on dancing while playing the banjo (complete with his "footlature" notation system. Among other topics he covers are licks based on diminished and augmented chords, banjo back up licks, pushing the beat, how to create "accidental counterpoint," and how John writes his original breakdowns for banjo.
Some of the other instrumentals John and Chris demonstrate include "Leather Britches" (backup), "Goin Back to Dixie," " Cackling Hen," "Annual Waltz," "Your Tax Dollars at Work," "Lorena," "Boogie" and "Foggy Mountain Landscape."
You probably knew the late John Hartford as the extraordinary fiddle and banjo man who danced, played and sang to delighted audiences at festivals and concerts around the nation. You certainly heard his hit song "Gentle on My Mind," and saw him as a regular on TV, from the Glen Campbell show to the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. He also appeared on the Grand Ol' Opry, Hee Haw, Nashville Now, Letterman and a host of other shows through the years, and was one of the voices on Ken Burns' Civil War series on PBS. John made numerous albums and CDs, and was a frequent headliner at concerts and festivals.