Extended Kickoffs

Howdy there.

As promised this post will focus on extended kickoffs.

The extended kickoffs I'm talking about are the 4 or so measure ones where the banjo leads the way and the rest of the musicians wait to break in when it is clearly time (usually indicated by some standard leading tones as seen in the short kickoffs).

The first one I'm going to put out uses an old standby lick that anyone who's ever played Cripple Creek should be familliar with.



It plays this lick 4 times then breaks off to another standard Scruggs lick.

Here's what it looks like (you may want to click on it to view it big and clear):



You can follow it up a couple ways to go into the tune. Extended Kickoff 1a adds leading tones to get you to a G note (open 3rd string) for melodies beginning on G. The leading tones will be familliar from the short kickoff post.



Extended Kickoff 1b ends with leading tones that bring you to a D note (open 1st string) for melodies beginning on D.



The leading tones at the end should be familliar from the short kickoff post. In fact just about all of the short kickoffs can be grafted on as endings to this extended kickoff. Play around with it.

The second extended kickoff begins up the neck and works its way back. Here it is:




Again, you can graft leading tones on at the end to pull you into the melody of whatever song you are playing. These next 2 examples do that;





That's really just the tip of the iceburg as far as kickoffs go. My advice is to go right now and listen to some recordings. See if you hear some of the things we've done here turning up and what sorts of variations are happening.

Also try grafting these kickoffs on any and all of your favourite tunes and see what you come up with.

Kickin' it Off Part 1- Short Kickoffs

Being as this is my first post here aside from the brief introduction I thought it might be appropriate to tackle kickoffs; how a tune is begun.

How many ways can a tune be begat? Alot. So many that this first post will only cover the quick kickoffs (1 measure or less) and I will follow it up with a post on longer kickoffs.

It has been said that the most important parts of any song, story or performance are the beginning and the end. The beginning is where an audience will form its first impression (what is this? do I like it?) and the ending is where all things are tied up and judgement is passed (was that good? did it stink?). Obviously the body is extremely important as well but I have found that a glorious middle section (the 95% between the intro and ending) coupled with an unclear and unappealing intro and ending usually won't fly where a mediocre middle section with a stunner of a kickoff and a great big 'bring down the house' kind of ending often will. If everything is happening then look out!

Most short kickoffs can be accurately described as a handful of notes leading to the the first melody note (the first pitch sung in the case of a non-instrumental). It is therefore important to know what the first melody note is as that is the note the kickoff will lead to. Most tunes begin on the 'I' chord (the G chord in the key of G) and most melodies begin on one of the 3 notes in that chord (for the G chord the 3 notes are G, B, and D, which are the open notes on your 3rd 2nd and 1st strings respectively). For all the examples in this post I will stick with the good old key of G.

So without further adieu here are some kickoffs in G. Kickoff #1 is very standard and leads to a G melody note.



Sound familiar? This next one is almost identical but the replacement of the E note with an F gives little grittier sound.



Kickoff #3 leads to the G melody note from above.



Kickoff #4 is a little more difficult; it contains the low notes from Kickoff #1 but adds a high harmony part. A little bit of contrary motion (one part rises, one part descends) going on here.



Kickoffs #1-4 all led to a G melody note but for kickoffs #5-7 we'll try leading to a B melody note.







These last 4 kick off to a D melody note.







Kickoff #11 is a series of hammered triplets.



Here is a video summary of all the kickoffs :



So there you have a few kickoffs to get things started. Hope some of you enjoyed that/ got something out of it. My blog will cover alot of banjo related things and sometimes the lesson style posts may seem either too advanced and too basic for any paticular individual. If you have any questions or feedback just shoot me an email or post a comment.

Up next: extended kickoffs...