Banjo For Dummies. Bill Evans

a song that just about everybody knows, “She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain.” Figure 3-11 shows the lyrics with slash marks indicating where each right hand strum is played. Above the lyrics are the chords you'll fret along the way. Check out my strumming and singing on Video Clip 3 and Audio Track 2 and just jump right in and play along. The sooner you memorize the chord progression and pull your eyes away from the printed page, the quicker you'll feel like you're really playing music. Listen to how the chord changes relate to the melody as you get used to strumming and changing chords smoothly.

      Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

      FIGURE 3-11: Strum along to “She'll Be Comin'Round the Mountain.”

Most new players find that the trickiest part of strumming along to a song like “She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain” is going from the G to the C chords smoothly without interrupting the steady flow of the right-hand strums. If you run into this same problem, try switching back and forth over and over again between the G and C chords until you've mastered this transition.