Banjo Tabs Seem Impossible… Until You Know This!

You open your songbook, feeling positive you find a new tune you fancy learning and imagine yourself breezing through it.

A quick glance at the numbers and away you go, skipping through the music like a beautiful summer meadow.

That’s the expectation, anyway.

The reality? You’re knee deep in a muddy swamp, trying to work out where your fingers go while the tune disappears beneath the surface.

• One note

• Stop

• Check the tab

• Another note.

• Wrong string

• Start again.

Sound familiar?

Eventually…. The tune starts well. You recognise the melody, your fingers know where to go and you’re beginning to enjoy yourself.

Then you reach that bit.

A jumble of numbers and unfamiliar movements brings everything to a halt. You have another go, stumble in the same place and decide to take it from the top.

Before long, you’re getting very good at the beginning. The rest of the song remains a mystery.

It’s frustrating, especially when you’ve put the practice in. But getting stuck on an arrangement doesn’t mean you’re incapable of playing the song.

The tab is asking a lot of you

When you tackle an unfamiliar piece of tablature, you’re trying to do several things at once: read the numbers, find the strings and frets, coordinate both hands and keep time.

Somewhere among all that, there’s supposed to be a tune.

Expecting to breeze through it first time puts a lot of pressure on yourself. And trying to reproduce every detail straight away can make it harder to hear and enjoy the music you’re learning.

You don’t have to master every detail on the page before you can start making music with it.

Two ways to find your footing

In this lesson, I demonstrate two techniques you can use to make a complicated tab more manageable.

The aim is to give you a way into the song, so you can build confidence and keep moving instead of getting bogged down in the same few bars.

If you’ve got a songbook gathering dust because everything inside looks too difficult, grab it before you press play. Keep a pencil handy too, and think about how you could apply what I demonstrate to a tune you’d love to finish.

Watch the lesson below and discover two ways to make complex banjo tabs easier.

Once you’ve watched, revisit one of your half-finished songs. Try the techniques on the section that usually stops you and see whether you can find a clearer path through.

Happy frailing,

Ben