Banjo For Dummies. Bill Evans

strings with enough of a vertical angle with your left-hand fingers so you don't block the sound of the open 3rd string.

Your hand should look something like Figure 3-7 when you fret the D7 and C chords.

      

Seeing is believing, so if you're having trouble figuring out how to fret these chords, take a look at Video Clip 2, where I provide left-hand technique tips and show you how to fret the C and D7 chords.

      Photographs by Anne Hamersky

      FIGURE 3-7: Here's how your hand looks fretting the D7 (a) and C (b) chords. Note the position of the thumb.

Checking Out Chord Diagrams

      Looking for an easy way to remember how to fret a chord with your left-hand fingers? A chord diagram not only communicates which strings are fretted for a particular chord but also where on the fingerboard you put those fingers and which left-hand finger you use to fret each string.

      

Chord diagrams aren't the same as banjo tablature, which is the written form of banjo music that I explain in Chapter 4. Chord diagrams show you how to fret a chord with the left hand, but they don't tell you what to play with it. However, when you play with others, you use chords all the time. Chords are also the basic building blocks of just about every melody, and the following sections help you get comfortable reading chord diagrams.

      Reading a chord diagram

If you're already familiar with reading chord diagrams for the guitar, you’ll find that banjo players use the same system. If you turn your banjo around so that the fingerboard faces you, that's how the banjo neck is represented in a chord diagram (check out Figure 3-8 to more fully break down the parts of a chord diagram):

       From left to right, the vertical lines represent the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings on your banjo. Most banjo chord diagrams don't include the 5th string, because you rarely fret it, especially when you're just beginning to play.

       The top horizontal line represents the banjo nut. The nut is what guides the strings from the fingerboard to the peghead. One way to think of the nut is as a “0” fret, because your banjo strings are open at this location on the neck.

       The second line from the top stands for your banjo's 1st fret, and the line below that represents the 2nd fret, and so on.

       The black dots that appear on the vertical string lines indicate behind what fret and on what strings you should fret.

       The letters located underneath the chord diagram indicate the left-hand finger you use to fret each string. For the left hand, I = index finger; M = middle finger; R = ring finger; and P (or sometimes L) = pinkie (or little) finger. Some books use the numbers 1 through 4 to represent the left-hand fingers in the same way.

      Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

      FIGURE 3-8: The chord diagram for a C chord.

Check out the chord diagrams for G, D7, and C chords in Figure 3-9. Of course, there are lots of other chords you can play on the banjo, and Appendix A has most of them. My advice is to tackle just one or two new chords at a time, practicing them when they appear in a new song. Don't try to learn them all at once without playing a song where you can put them to good use.

      Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

      FIGURE 3-9: Chord diagrams for G, D7, and C chords.

      Interpreting up-the-neck chord diagrams

As you become more proficient, you can fret chords all up and down the neck of your banjo. To represent a chord that's played above the 5th fret, a chord diagram includes a number that usually appears to the right of the diagram — either next to the top fret line or adjacent to the uppermost fretted note in the chord. This number indicates exactly where you need to position your left hand on the banjo neck (see Figure 3-10).

      If you need to fret the 5th string as part of a chord, a fifth vertical line is added to the left side of the chord diagram to represent this string. The 5th string is often fretted up the neck with the left-hand thumb, which is represented with the letter T in a chord diagram.

      Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

      FIGURE 3-10: Up-the-neck chord diagram for a D7 chord, featuring a fretted 5th string.

Chord Progressions: Playing Your First Song

      The chord progression of a song is the part of your musical road map that indicates what chords you play, in what sequence these chords occur, and how long each chord lasts before you move on to play the next one as you play a song. Although you can find about as many different chord progressions as you can songs, you can count on some predictability in how chords follow one another in most songs you play on the banjo. This makes figuring out and remembering new chord progressions much easier as you encounter them in new songs.

      Many songs use only the G, C, and D7 chords (which are covered in the earlier section “Fingering G, D7, and C Chords”). However, the more chords you know, the more quickly you can play along with new songs.

      

Familiarize yourself with the chord progression of a new song just as soon as you begin to work on it. The chord progression not only lays out the form of the piece, but also provides the foundation you use later on for playing (and remembering!) the melody and for improvising. The chord progression is also what keeps everyone on the same page as you play a song with others in a jam session. In this situation, everyone plays through the chord progression repeatedly until all the players agree that it's time for the song to come to an end.

      

When you're working through a chord progression, try strumming with an even downward motion of your thumb across all five strings of the banjo, striking all five strings in an even sweeping motion with the thumb. In the next few chapters, you find more interesting things to play as you accompany a tune, but for now, strumming is just fine! You're working on the crucial new skill of changing chords in the left hand without losing the beat as you strum with the right hand. This takes a