Fingerstyle 10 - Banjo Rolls

‘Banjo Roll’ is a term that comes from Bluegrass music. It can be defined as an 8th note arpeggio pattern that can be played using any chord.

The important thing is that banjo rolls always divide a bar into 8ths, but not in the fashion covered in this course so far. The pattern of a banjo roll usually splits the bar into a pattern of 2, 3, 3 or 3, 3, 2. See the example below as an illustration of a 2, 3, 3 pattern.

This pattern should be played using the claw hand principal covered on page 5.

Banjo Roll Pattern Example

This shows how this pattern can be played using all the diatonic chords in the key of D major. This exercises uses triads to play the diatonic chords while keeping the root note always on the open D string. Feel free to move between any of these chords to come up with your own sequences. Use the loop feature to loop and play along to any particular chord.

Song example - Clocks by Coldplay

This arrangement uses a similar pattern of three to the exercise above. Give it a go as a real work example of this technique for a great song!

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