Free Videos: How to Play a Mandolin, How to Play a Banjo, How to Play a Fiddle

A Ralph Stanley type bluegrass rendition...

Wayne Erbsen's Log Cabin Band performing "Sweet Jenny Lee" and "Black-eyed Suzie" at Shindig on the Green in Asheville, NC.

Wayne clarifies the difference between a violin and a fiddle.

How to play a basic D scale on your guitar.

A basic C scale on the guitar

Start with a D string open, then with my index finger I'll  play E on the same string.

Read more: Watch this video in a new window Wayne Erbsen Teaches a D Scale on the Fiddle

I think this is one of the last songs that Carter Stanley wrote. 

This tuning goes back a long way and was probably Clarence Ashley or Tom Ashley from Mountain City Tennessee who first came up with the term "Sawmill."  Sawmill tuning on the banjo has other names; some people call it Mountain Minor or G-modal.  It's basically a G tuning.

The clawhammer lick is your basic rhythmic stroke.  It's just three parts...

This is a ballad localized to North Carolina, also called the graveyard blues.

One of the reasons I like this tuning so well is that the melody is frequently on the first string which is easier to play in clawhammer style.

Wayne shows you the G Scale on the mandolin.

Wayne teaches the C scale on the mandolin

D Scale on the Mandolin

How to make a G-Scale on your guitar

In Bluegrass, you will often be in the key of G which means you will frequently be changing chords to C.  In this lesson, Wayne teaches you different fingering options for the G chord to help you most efficiently change chords.

Wayne Erbsen at Warren Wilson College October 4, 2009 demonstrating a minstrel banjo. Wayne plays the pre-Civil War tune Pattyroller in the clawhammer style.