Hi All : I have been playing a little over two years now and it seem to me that I am just playing notes and not music when will the music come if it comes at all

You are catching on quickly.  It took me thirty years to figure that out.  Here is what is going on:  you have to bring music to the banjo because the banjo will not bring music to you.  Banjo teachers don't teach music, they teach notes.  DVDs and such don't teach music either.  You have to take your own steps to learn it.  Do you dance or sing or play guitar?  You will find that music will pull all your practice and technique work together and make it sound like what you were hoping for when you started learning the banjo.

That's kind of a vague question there, Ralph.  What are you doing?  How are you practicing?  WHAT are you practicing?  Are you playing with others?

Give us a little more information and maybe we can answer.

Good question.  How is your timing?  Are you counting as you play?  If your timing is off, the music will not sound right.  How is your technique?  Are your slides, pulls, hammers sharp and crisp?  Can you make good, clean, clear chords and change chords with little trouble or do you have to slow down and think about how to make your chords?    

Many beginners have a hard time trying to learn everything at once:  how to hold your thumb pick and wear your fingerpicks, how to strike the strings, how to fret, how to chord, how to slide, hammer, pull, etc.  There's so much to learn all at once that many beginners tend to forget that timing is everything.  Without correct timing your song/tune won't sound like it should.  Without timing you can't play successfully with others.

If your timing is okay, then maybe striking the melody note a little harder then the "frill notes" is the problem.  If you're picking all notes exactly the same, then you probably can't hear the melody notes.  Try striking the melody notes harder than the rest and see if the melody doesn't come out for you.

Do you have any kind of software where you can play along and see if your timing is right?  If not, there are many things out there that will help you.

You are just playing notes.  That's half of the fun!  Now that you have some of that down (and I dare say, SOME) it is time, like you say, to add some pazazz and artistry to the notes!  This is the fun part since there aren't alot of hard fast rules any more than there are rules when painting a painting.....it's in the eyes of the artist......

SORTA.........

There ARE rules that painters generally need to follow in creating their art.  Rules regarding composition, color blending, contrast, etc.  Within all of these GENERALLY ACCEPTED boundaries the artists creates his masterpiece.

It is the same with playing the banjo.  There are guidlines for taking those dry notes and creating a piece of performance art.  Contrast in tone, high vs. low, fast vs slow, simple vs. complex, bounce, tone, accent and a hundred others.  The study of artistry is almost as demanding as the mechanical study of the operation of the instrument.  It is a study that you will enjoy for the rest of your life.....long beyond the time when you are an accomplished 'operator' of the instrument.

And it will come as soon as you apply yourself to it's study.  Today, if you like.  Begin by INTENTLY.....you didnt hear                    me.....I N T E N T L Y  listening to and learning from the masters just like a painter would do as he learns his trade.....just as we all do with any learning situation.

Listen to Crowe, Scruggs, Mills and all of the master banjoist as they do their own thing.  Get these sytes into the fiber of your banjo being by listening and understanding what they are doing.  Watch youtube videos with a single purpose of WATCHING what they are doing.  Learn their different forms of bounce and accents, their styles, their methods.

This will give you the inspiration you need to pursue your style.  There are many good pickers here who are very good at explaining these issues.  One is Richard Dress, another is Jody Hughes and still another is John Boulding (Banjophobic).  Search on and read their posts on this subject.

tex

Good question. I feel the same way much of the time. I'm no expert, but let me relate a story of something that happened to me. I learned from tab--mostly from the Earl Scruggs book. One of the tunes I learned was Nashville Blues. The difference was that I had a recording of that tune that matched the tab I had. I would memorize the notes and then play along with the recording. Once I got it up to speed I thought it sounded pretty good, just like the rest of the tunes I knew. I even taped myself playing my tunes. One day a musician friend of mine came over while I was listening to the tape I had made. When Nashville Blues started to play he asked who the player was. When I told him it was me, he argued with me until I took out my banjo and played it for him. It took me years to learn the lesson that was in that one moment, and it's a lesson I seem to have to keep learning. For just that one tune, I had learned to play music. For the others only learned from tab, I had learned to play the notes. Listening to Earl play it, I naturally emphasized the notes he did. And the rhythm as well.

Learning the Scruggs tab and playing along with the exact break is a technique I recommended to my students.  It can be very effective with intermediate learners if they are comfortable with necessary tempo.  

It works like this: once you can match Earl note-for-note on the recording your are, in a sense, living in his music for a short time.  

This glimpse of real music in action can be captured and reproduced as Fred describes above.  

Some of us have absorbed a lot of music over the years and it sits there somewhere inside us, a reservoir of music.  But maybe we haven't figured out how to express it or draw on it.  

Fred's little trick can be the crack in the dike that lets you tap into that hidden internal musical resource and release the musical flow that is trapped inside you.  

The big issue that many pickers have is connecting their technical knowledge with their latent musical ability.  

Fred's snapshot gives us the experience of how music really connects with technique.

Edited by - Richard Dress on 02/21/2012 10:28:45

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Originally posted by eagleisland

That's kind of a vague question there, Ralph.  What are you doing?  How are you practicing?  WHAT are you practicing?  Are you playing with others?

Give us a little more information and maybe we can answer.

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I think what he's getting at has to do with things that go beyond merely the notes.  Those things are the things that really can't be taught so much as they can be caught.  Ralph, I think, is touching upon the feel, symmetry, and overall flow (which ties together things like timing, and drive), and not just the sound of the notes.  It's the feeing, energy, and tone that are produced by the unseen things on man's soul.  Hence, these elements are hard to teach in many ways. I believe it's that part of music which is the spiritual aspect.    One way that can help someone learn to do more than merely play notes, is to find a way to deeply fall in love with the music in all its aspects.  The Tones, the harmonies, the movement, the drive, and down and dirty great pounding in-your-face thumping feel.  Learn to tie your memories, emotions, and values to the sound, and story of this wonderful music.  That, I believe, helps us to really feel and hear the music, and the pay off is being able to put all those memories, and emotions into the music we are playing.

Sorry about that ,Skip I have 15 TO 20 song that I keep playing over and over, I practice 3 to 5 hours a day 15 to 20 min. at a time I play to back up most of the time . Thanks to all for your input

I'm surmising: You've got 15-20 songs you've memorized and want some music to come out of your fingers.

That's like saying you've memorized 20 speeches in French and wonder why you can't just speak French.

Here's what you do instead. (Seriously, if you want something different to happen, practice doing something different). Try some of the songs on this page: http://moxcey.net/mike/minstrel/songs/index.html
Only try songs you can sort of sing the melody to.
Do not do any songs you've officially 'learned' on banjo.

Just strum thru them like a guitarist sitting around a campfire would. You can also 3-finger pluck if you've played long enough to make that sound good. Use different chords up and down the neck. Get the song to sound like a song to you first just with the chords. Then try picking and make it sound better.

That's the one best way I know of to get folks doing music on their own. They've got to do it and the only way it works is for them to try a song on their own. Two other ways also work. One is jamming with others. Eventually, the memorized stuff turns into a song in your head or more likely, you gradually learn to pick some tune you don't know from doing the backup (which is what improv is all about).

The other method is halfway between. Get Wernick's Bluegrass Songbook with the chords, words and tabbed melody. Play the melody line and the chords and work out your own break. Don't worry about making it sound like Earl. Worry about making it sound like the song.

I can certainly understand the feeling of just playing notes and notes but it not sounding like music. When I first started, I would try to memorize tabs, put in lots of time and effort, but still could not really "hear" the song I was playing and when I moved to something else, would forget the first one. My breakthrough was when I attended one of Pete Wernick's jam camps and found out real quick any memorized breaks or leads were not going to work in that setting...doing lots of strumming, vamping, singing and basic rolls got me through it. The advice he gave and "preached" during the camp was very similar to what Minstelmike put out in the above post. I got Wernick's song book along with couple of others and began to relearn songs not by tabs but by what they were supposed to sound like - add a forward or alternating thumb roll with the melody and I was surprise how quickly I learned the songs, they sound pretty good and I didn't have to "memorize" anything, also I have found out that when I learn songs in this manner I don't forget them, or feel like I have to practice a particular song every day or its gone. Also, learning this way, I am now very comfortable looking at someone else's tab, seeing if it works the way I want, if not, I'll change it to suit me or toss it.
I agree, in summary, that learning the song first is the best way to "play music".

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Originally posted by ralph3820

Sorry about that ,Skip I have 15 TO 20 song that I keep playing over and over, I practice 3 to 5 hours a day 15 to 20 min. at a time I play to back up most of the time . Thanks to all for your input

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Okay - with that said, I think The Texan (and several others) have given you some great advice.
And if you're not already doing so, play with others - jams or, better yet, the same group of friends 'n' neighbors on a regular basis.

Ralph, it's not clear how you've been learning, but let me ask you this:  Can you play a forward roll at moderate speed with good rhythm?  Not just good timing, but with rhythm.  With flow -- something you can tap your foot to.  Accenting the downbeat (with a secondary accent on the third beat -- the fifth note -- of the roll).

Learning to play a rhythmic forward roll, then learning to play it over a chord progression, and then learning to drop melody notes into that roll will take you farther and faster toward "making music" than learning a lot of note-for-note arrangements.