Virtual Frailing Banjo

Back in 2005 Dear Old Dad and I decided to experiment with the newfangled concept of podcasting. The end result was an eight-part project titled Virtual Frailing Banjo.

This series received a lot of attention when we launched it because it broke ground in two ways: it was one of the first podcasts dedicated to teaching a folk instrument and it had a pretty clever twist in terms of audience interactivity with each show being released only after our students had sent in sound files. The original plan was to post a workshop and then wait until five or ten people sent us audio files before posting a follow-up. We figured that this would be a way to let us know for sure that people that people were actually using the material before going to the trouble of producing a whole series.

Then we were Boing-Boinged.

Just as our earlier boingboing.net exposure introduced The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo to a young, hip audience looking for something cool, funky and down-home, the interactive feature of Virtual Frailing Banjo suddenly had a whole new demographic picking up banjos. We were soon flooded with audio files from around the world.

Back in 2005 we were still working with a dial-up connection. The influx of data overwhelmed our mailbox so we gave up on the homework idea after a few shows and started looking for other ways to interact with our students.

As it stands today Dear Old Dad and I look at this series as another unique milestone in our musical journey.

Note: Some computers may have issues playing the audio files on this page. Alternative formats can be downloaded from archive.org. http://www.archive.org/details/FrailingBanjo

Lesson One: Basic Frailing
In the first banjo lesson Pat and Patrick go over the basic skills required to play frailing banjo.
Original airdate: 06/30/05

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Lesson Two: Chords
In the second banjo lesson Pat and Patrick go over some basic chords and present some picking exercises.
Original airdate:07/05/05

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Lesson Three: Boil Them Cabbage Down
In the third banjo lesson Pat and Patrick walk your through The old folk song Boil Them Cabbage Down
Original airdate:07/12/05

Tab file

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Lesson Four: A Simple Scale Run
In the fourth banjo lesson Pat and Patrick go over the material presented in the first three lessons and then Patrick walks you through a simple scale exercise.
Original airdate:07/21/05

Tab File.

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Lesson Five: Your First Solo
In the fifth banjo lesson Pat and Patrick walk you through your first banjo instrumental. By the end of the lesson you will have developed a back up and lead break for the old folk song Skip To My Lou.
Original airdate: 08/9/05

Tab File.

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Lesson Six: Red River Valley
In the sixth basic frailing banjo workshop we are going to run through a bare bones break of Red River Valley. It’s up to you to mess around with the tune to come up with your own break. The tab here is just to help you get the feel of the rhythm, chord progression and melody line.
Original airdate: 08/29/05

Tab File.

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Lesson Seven: Salt & Pepper
Pulloffs and other stuff to dress up tunes.
Original airdate: 09/14/05

Tab File.

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Lesson Eight: Playing & Singing
Playing and singing.
original airdate: October 11, 2005

Tab File.