Part of what I do for a day job nowadays revolves around helping people play with other musicians. It's a pretty cool gig and I love what I do.

Anyway, the major point I try to get across to people is that it's perfectly okay to make a mistake. Never be afraid to try.

Yeah, you'll meet some real dipsticks out there sometimes who will give you a hard time - but the thing to keep in mind is that real honest-to-goodness "folk musicians" will be aware of what you are going through at the beginners phase. The people who snarl, laugh or pontificate are just bozos who have managed to memorize a handful of songs. Ignore them and find people who will celebrate the your strong points and help you work on your weak points.

Keep in mind that our tradition as folk musicians is not about playing perfectly, preserving traditions or fitting in with a peer group. The heritage of this music is all about fearless exploration, building communities and making the most out of whatever you've got.

When it comes to knowing what chord to play the first step is sitting next to somebody who will holler out the chords for you.

The usual advice of watching the guitar players hands or memorizing the chord progression beforehand won't help anybody much.

Using visual cues or relying on memory leaves you fighting against the flow of the rhythm and as a result you'll always wind up out of time with the group.

The way to get a feel for chord progressions is to get under the hood and become familiar with how and why they work.

Since I'm here . . .


So what "makes" a chord progression?

It's built on scales.

A scale is just a sequence of notes. The formal term is something more along the lines of "the key of E is a major mode with a root of E," but we won't be getting into modes for a while so thinking of it as a sequence of notes makes things easier for now.

In Western music we are only working with twelve notes. The twelve notes are named after the letters A through G with a note or half-step between each pair of letters except between B and C and E and F:

A | B C | D | E F | G |

Your half step is either a sharp (#) or a flat (b.)

The half step between A and B can be called either A# or Bb.

A# means that the A note is raised one half step higher. Bb is the B note lowered one half step. A# and Bb are the same note and the other half steps follow the same pattern.

So with all twelve notes laid out you have the chromatic scale:

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab

Once you understand the idea of half steps you can just write out your chromatic scale like this to save space and make it a tad clearer.
The " | " symbol will be used to represent a half step.

A | B C | D | E F | G |


To figure out the notes of the C scale we need to lay out the string of notes starting with our root note. In this case the root note is C so we start with the C note. Because we are only working with the letters A through G the notes after the G note is going to be A.
It might help to think of the notes as being laid out in a loop or circle.

C | D | E F | G | A | B C

Now if you notice we started on C and ended on C. That second C is called the octave. It is the same note as the root but higher in pitch.

What we have here now is a chromatic scale starting on C and ending on C.
Root, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step.

C is the root.
1. a whole step from C is D.
2. a whole step from D is E.
3. a half step from E is F
4. a whole step from F is G
5. a whole step from G is A
6. a whole step from A is B
7. a half step from B is C

So your C scale is
C D E F G A B C

Now, try writing out some scales on your own.

Once you have a scale laid out- and it might be a good idea to sit down and work out A couple of scales here for keys you will be using a lot on the banjo like A,D and G andd keeping them handy to use in the next step- go ahead and number each note:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C D E F G A B C

The notes numbered 1, 4 and 5 (C, F and G) will be your major chords for the key of C.

Go back and look at all the songs in the key of G that know (that is, if you are already playing a couple of songs.) You will notice that almost all of them use some combination of G, C and D. Some songs will only have two of the chords but most of the time you will see all three.

The note numbered 6 is going to be your relative minor. In this case Am.

Every root chord has a relative minor chord. We'll go into this in more detail later on, but every key has a unique number of sharps and flats. The key of C has no sharps or flats and the key of G has one sharp (F#.) The same rule applies to minor keys. Any minor key that has the same number of sharps and flats as a major key is the relative minor of that major key.

The key of Am has no sharps or flats. Therefore it is the relative minor of C.

It is good to know your relative minor chords (the 6 chord in the number system) because you can swap them around in some situations. If you are playing a song and cannot remember how to make an Am chord you can just play a C chord. It is different but it is close enough that you may get away with it.

The note numbered 2 is going to be both a minor chord and a major chord. In this case Am and A.

Number 3 is where it gets kind of neat because in folk music this is often referred to as an "off chord." In the key of C your off chord is E (remember in the introduction when I mentioned Freight Train?.)

Your 6 chord can be played as a major chord as well. But it is kind of funky. You will really only use the major 6 once in a great while. In some songs like "Little Maggie" you might run into what some players call a mountain seven. That is when you flat the 7 chord. That is why "Little Maggie" goes from G to F rather than G to F#. We talked about this in the last New Time banjo workshop.

The slang term for numbering a scale like this is "The Nashville number System." It didn't come from Nashville (you don't really think the people who brought us gems like "Achy-Breaky Heart" were responsible for something like a musicial concept, did you?) but they got the credit for it. Don't as me why, it's as much of a mystery as why there isn't a half step between B and C.

Now take a really simple song like Boil Them Cabbage Down
            
Boil Them Cabbage Down (4/4 time):
C             F
Went up on the mountain
C                      G
Just to give my horn a blow.
C                  F
Thought I heard my true love say,
C       G       C
Yonder comes my beau.

CHORUS:
Boil them cabbage down, down.
Turn them hoecakes down, down.
The only song that I can sing
Is boil them cabbage down.

Possum in a 'simmon tree,
Raccoon on the ground.
Raccoon says, you son-of-a-gun,
Throw some 'simmons down.

Someone stole my old coon dog,
Wish they'd bring him back.
He chased the big hogs through the fence
And the little ones through the crack.

Met a possum in the road,
Blind as he could be.
Jumped the fence and whipped my dog
And bristled up at me.

Butterfly he has wings of gold,
Firefly wings of flame.
Bedbug got no wings at all
but he gets there just the same.

Now they way the song is tabbed out here you are playing a chord progression that runs:
C / F / C / G / C / F / C G / C

If we compare that chord progression to our scale and the number system:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
C D E F G A B C

It's easy to see that we are working with the 1, 4 and 5 chords.

Now how would you play Boil Them cabbage Down in the key of G? How would you play the song in D, A or even E?

In the beginning when you first start going to jams the chord changes will seem almost random. If you stick with it and keep working on playing and singing stuff at home you'll start to "feel" the chord change coming. After a while it gets to be almost instinctive.

The other thing that helps is understanding rhythm.

In music everything from the notes you play to the rests where you don't play anything has a time value attached to it. That time value is defined as rhythm. Without rhythm the notes would have no context and everything would just come out like noise.

We break music up into measures with a specific number of beats. A beat is the term we use to describe the pulse of the music. The number of beats in a measure is dictated by the time signature.

The time signature tells us how many beats are played in a measure or group of measures. A time signature like 4/4 indicates that we will play four beats to a measure (4/) and that each beat will have the value of a quarter note (/4).

If the time signature was 3/4 it would indicate three beats to a measure (3/) and that each beat will have the value of a quarter note (/4).

6/8 indicates that each measure will have six beats (6/) and that each beat will have the value of an eighth note (/8).

A whole note is just that, a note that is counted for the whole value of the measure. In 4/4 time we would count out a measure of music with a whole note by tapping our foot once and counting to four:

"one"
tap   tap   tap   tap

A half note has one half the time value of a whole note.
In 4/4 time we would count out a measure of music with two half notes by tapping our foot on the first and third beat:

"one"       "two"
tap   tap   tap   tap

A quarter note has one half the time value of a half note.
In 4/4 time we would count out a measure of quarter notes by tapping our foot on each beat:

"one" "two" "three" "four"
tap    tap    tap    tap

An eighth note has one half the time value of a quarter note.
In 4/4 time we would count out a measure of eighth notes by tapping our foot on each beat and counting "and" each time our foot comes up:

"one" "and" "two" "and" "three" "and" "four" "and"
tap          tap            tap            tap

The reason rhythm and chord progressions are so important brings me to the best kept secret in folk music.

Ready? Here we go:

If you are in rhythm with the group and following the chord progression it's next to impossible to hit a wrong note.

I'm not kidding. Stick to the basics and keep things simple and you can be out there making music and having fun.

Don't worry. Don't wait to be perfect because it never happens - and if it did then it would be pretty freaking boring because the "good stuff" happens by accident.

Just go play.

-Patrick