Learn how to play and use banjo rolls for fingerstyle guitar

Beginning - Advanced Online Guitar Course

Fingerstyle Rolls edition of On Location.

One of the most common techniques in Fingerstyle Guitar playing is actually borrowed from banjo players - a technique referred to as “the Banjo Roll”. These rolls use the thumb and fingers on the picking hand to arpeggiate chords, establish grooves, and even for playing melodies.

If you’ve ever listened to Fingerstyle guitarists like Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Tommy Emmanuel, or Buster B. Jones then you’ve heard the banjo roll technique in use.

I’ve organized this course into six lesson sets, each of which focuses on a new banjo roll. We’ll start with some simple exercises to build the necessary motor skills. Then we’ll work on more advanced applications of the rolls, and ultimately we’ll put each to work in a short performance study with a unique style and flavor. You’ll also have all of TrueFire’s learning tools to work with along the way. In the first set, we’ll work on our forward roll to arpeggiate chords and play a flowing melody in the key of A minor. Next up a funky tune in B minor that uses a backward roll with open strings and chromatic notes - what Jerry Reed would call a “swarm”.

In the third set we’ll work on an E Blues that utilizes a mixed roll to play a catchy melody with open strings, slides, pull-offs, and arpeggiated chords in the bridge. Double-Stop Waltz is a relaxed ballad in the key of E Major. In the fifth set we’ll learn a performance study in D minor that uses a Drop D tuning and has a latin inspired sound and groove. And finally, we’ll learn to combine single-and-two-string forward, backward, and mixed roll techniques into a bright and fun to play Waltz in A Major.

Are you ready to get started? Join me here in my home studio, and let’s explore the amazing sounds we can get when we use Banjo Rolls for Fingerstyle Guitar!