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Bluegrass Guitar & Banjo Heroes
Learn Signature Techniques of Banjo, Mandolin & Guitar Legends JD Crowe, Tony Trischka, Alan Munde, Tony Rice, Sam Bush, and Edward Van Halen
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About this course
Every musician has a long list of other musicians, past and present, that have inspired, influenced and helped shape their own sound and musicality. It's the natural evolution of music. We asked Ned Luberecki to pass on to you some of the key learnings that his Banjo Heroes passed on to him.
”JD Crowe, Tony Trischka, Alan Munde, Tony Rice, Sam Bush, and Edward Van Halen are just a few of the musicians that greatly influenced my sound. In this course, I’ll first show you a few of the techniques and approaches that I picked up from each one of them and then we’ll play through a series of performance studies for musical context.
We’ll start out with the excellent timing and drive of JD Crowe. Next we’ll explore the adventuresome, improvisational spirit of Tony Trischka. I’ve always thought of Alan Munde as being the most melodic banjo player and I’ll share some of his influences on my own playing as well.
My influences go farther than banjo, Tony Rice’s bluesy guitar playing had a huge impact on me! Sam Bush was my bluegrass introduction to Rock n' Roll. It seems a stretch to say that Eddie Van Halen was an influence on a banjo player, but his style affected me in ways that I didn’t even realize until now.”
Ned will first introduce his heroes to you and describe why he found them so influential. After each discussion, he will then present a performance study illustrating those influences in a musical context, over a backing track. A breakdown follows every performance and he will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches in play.
You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.
Grab your banjo and let’s dig in with Ned Luberecki!
”JD Crowe, Tony Trischka, Alan Munde, Tony Rice, Sam Bush, and Edward Van Halen are just a few of the musicians that greatly influenced my sound. In this course, I’ll first show you a few of the techniques and approaches that I picked up from each one of them and then we’ll play through a series of performance studies for musical context.
We’ll start out with the excellent timing and drive of JD Crowe. Next we’ll explore the adventuresome, improvisational spirit of Tony Trischka. I’ve always thought of Alan Munde as being the most melodic banjo player and I’ll share some of his influences on my own playing as well.
My influences go farther than banjo, Tony Rice’s bluesy guitar playing had a huge impact on me! Sam Bush was my bluegrass introduction to Rock n' Roll. It seems a stretch to say that Eddie Van Halen was an influence on a banjo player, but his style affected me in ways that I didn’t even realize until now.”
Ned will first introduce his heroes to you and describe why he found them so influential. After each discussion, he will then present a performance study illustrating those influences in a musical context, over a backing track. A breakdown follows every performance and he will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches in play.
You’ll get standard notation and tabs for all of the performance studies. Plus, you’ll be able to use TrueFire’s learning tools to sync the tab and notation to the video lesson. You can also loop or slow down the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace. All of the backing tracks are included to work with on your own as well.
Grab your banjo and let’s dig in with Ned Luberecki!
What you'll learn
- Apply performance studies to understand musical context of various influences
- Understand Tony Rice's influence on bluegrass banjo playing despite being a guitarist
- Understand the value of playing along with non-banjo recordings to develop original parts
- Develop awareness of how rhythm playing creates space for lead instruments
- Develop awareness of cross-genre influences in your own playing
Release date: 06/07/2021 • 1h 32m runtime
Sample lessons
Edward Van Halen
My Banjo Heroes: 6
Nedscape Navigator
Performance
What's included
26 lessons • 6 charts • 5 Jam Tracks
My Banjo Heroes: Ned Luberecki
Hi, I'm Ned Luberecki and welcome to My Banjo Heroes.
You may have noticed that not all of my heroes are banjo players and that's because, just like most musicians, I feel like my style has been influenced by all the music I've listened to, not only banjo players. Earl Scruggs was obviously influenced by the Big Band jazz sounds that were popular in his day. Don Reno was also heavily influenced by jazz and rock and roll.
Influence doesn't necessarily mean that I've copied their licks or their style (although I've done that, too) but to me it means about how their music has affected me and then how I've internalised that and now it's showing up subliminally in my playing. A few of them actually even surprised me! Let's dig in and I'll show you what I'm talking about.
You may have noticed that not all of my heroes are banjo players and that's because, just like most musicians, I feel like my style has been influenced by all the music I've listened to, not only banjo players. Earl Scruggs was obviously influenced by the Big Band jazz sounds that were popular in his day. Don Reno was also heavily influenced by jazz and rock and roll.
Influence doesn't necessarily mean that I've copied their licks or their style (although I've done that, too) but to me it means about how their music has affected me and then how I've internalised that and now it's showing up subliminally in my playing. A few of them actually even surprised me! Let's dig in and I'll show you what I'm talking about.
JD Crowe
Setting aside Earl Scruggs (who would be every bluegrass banjo player's primary influence) my next banjo hero would have to be JD Crowe. JD was the banjo player on some of the first bluegrass records I ever owned.
For me, the great thing about JD is not so much what he played as how he played it! JD took the established vocabulary of Earl Scruggs banjo licks and added an extra rhythmic punch. JD also had such a variety of tones he could get from the banjo. Sometimes it was as powerful as a jackhammer while other times as subtle as a feather. It could also be slippery and greasy when he needed it to be. And rather than being the stand out front man, JD was always a team player. He did much of his best work in a supporting roll. Here's some of how I think JD's playing has influenced me.
For me, the great thing about JD is not so much what he played as how he played it! JD took the established vocabulary of Earl Scruggs banjo licks and added an extra rhythmic punch. JD also had such a variety of tones he could get from the banjo. Sometimes it was as powerful as a jackhammer while other times as subtle as a feather. It could also be slippery and greasy when he needed it to be. And rather than being the stand out front man, JD was always a team player. He did much of his best work in a supporting roll. Here's some of how I think JD's playing has influenced me.
Roving Gambler
In addition to his solos, JD's biggest influence on me is probably through his backup playing. In this video, I'll play the kickoff to the song "Roving Gambler", but then also backup to the first verse. Please pay more attention to the backup banjo than to my lead singing! ;-)
Roving Gambler
Here's the kickoff and backup for the first verse of "Roving Gambler", a tune I'm sure I've heard JD play a few times.
Roving Gambler
In this section, we'll take an in-depth look at the solo and the backup section to "Roving Gambler". Finding JD Crowe's influence shouldn't be very hard.
Tony Trischka
I hadn't been playing banjo very long when I discovered my first Tony Trischka record Banjoland. I was just learning about bluegrass music and bought it because it had a bunch of banjos on the cover. One side of the album was very bluegrassy with Tony Rice, David Grisman, etc., but the first song on side two had drums, electric guitars, keyboards and sounded like rock music with a banjo. That track changed me forever and opened my ears to how the banjo could fit in so many different musical contexts. I think I feel a more emotional connection with Tony's music than anything else. He can play happy and joyful banjo music, melancholy banjo music, frantic and angry banjo music...and his willingness to experiment and general fearlessness is what makes Tony one of my greatest banjo heroes.
John Hardy
Tony's greatest influence on me would have to be in the spirit of improvisation. His playing always feels so free. Tony once told me that he and Andy Statman used to just take a standard tune and just jam freely over it. Throwing everything they could into it. I've gotten to do this with Tony a couple of times and it was amazing. Often, we'd play a standard tune, but in an unfamiliar key, just to make it interesting. That's what I'll be doing here.
+ 19 more lessons
Reviews
6 results
zowilveram
Verified buyer
12/03/21
I gave it a 5 and now you want a dissertation. Get over it and but it for yourself
KenMattern
Verified buyer
11/13/21
This course is a little too advanced for me now, but I will grow into it. Ned is a great storyteller and musician and the background stories behind the musicians are fun to hear.
jmharper
Verified buyer
09/23/21
Luberecki Banjo Heros
Excellent course!
petrah
Verified buyer
07/05/21
Great Compilation
Some unusual Influations for Bluegrass Banjo, but nicely curated with lot´s of information and actionable lessons.
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