Click Here To Get The Lesson Tabs
Introducing the Ear Laboratory
Sending the music that’s in your head out into the world through your instrument is, in my view, the ultimate goal of any musician taking in part in an aural (i.e. passed along by ear) tradition, like the banjo.
It’s also a bottomless thrill, and something ANYONE can learn how to do.
For many, though, getting there may seem like an impossible task. And there is hardly any instruction that shows you how to get there.
Worse yet, much of the existing instruction ends up making it HARDER for you to get there (learn why this is in the 9 Ways To Practice Smarter book and video).
Teaching people this skill, as you may know, is a central focus of the Brainjo Method, and the Breakthrough Banjo course includes four dedicated “playing by ear” modules.
As an extension of those ear development modules, and in an effort to further ensure that nobody misses out on the fun, I’ve recently begun work on a new resource, the “Ear Laboratory.”
(RELATED: click here to learn about the “Playing By Ear” modules and take a tour inside of them)
The laboratory will include videos that take some of the the songs and tunes in The Vault and demonstrate how those clawhammer arrangements are built from the ground up (click here to see the current list of songs and tunes The Vault).
In other words, to break down the process of creating clawhammer banjo songs by ear in steps that, with a bit of practice, anyone can follow.
I’ll be sharing these tune building videos from time to time with subscribers to the Song and Tune of the Week, and I’m kicking it off here with the song “Pretty Polly,” a recent Song of the Week selection.