A Book Of Five Strings - online tutorial

Strategies for mastering the art of old time banjo.

	Do you see the pattern here? Strum through each group of chords a few times. That's right. Any F position chord anywhere on the fretboard is going to have the IV and V "A" position chords right below it. That's the F position. Now let's look at the D position. Example Two
	D position chords follow a similar pattern to the F position chords illustrated in example one. Example Three
	The A position works under the same principal as the other two positions. Experiment with the various chord positions on your own and see what happens when you start adding minor chords into the mix. Once you start getting a feel for these patterns you will be able to blend them together as you gain mastery of the fretboard. Other Scale Patterns And Modes When you are comfortable with the movable scale patterns you can start exploring some different modes and variations of the major scale. The Blues Scale The blues scale is a variation of the major scale. I know that isn't much of a definition, but this is one of those musical ideas that has so much nonsense attached to it that it's real usefulness is kind of hard to visualize. When I was a kid most of the old guitar players I knew said it was good to use the blues scale as a guideline, but not as a separate scale. The standard blues scale drops the second and sixth notes from the major scale and rearranges the scale to fit a pattern of 1- b3 - 4 - #4 - 5 - b7 - 8. You play the first note of the scale, flat the third note, play the fourth note and then the fourth note sharped. Follow that sharped fourth note with the fifth note of the scale, a flatted seventh note and end it on the eighth note for the octave.