Rolls for Bluegrass Dobro®
by Ivan Rosenberg
Introduction
The last two lessons concentrated on traditional Dobro® licks that use straight-bar chord positions as reference points. Practicing those licks will give you a good foundation for playing out of closed positions in any key. Now we're going to start incorporating open (unfretted) strings with a picking technique called a roll.
Rolls are the basis of Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo picking and can be easily adapted to the Dobro®. A roll is a repeatable picking pattern where a different finger picks a different string for each note. The most common bluegrass roll is called a forward roll, which simply means a 3-note picking sequence in the thumb-index-middle direction. An example of a simple forward roll on Dobro® could have the thumb playing the 4th string followed by the index finger picking the 3rd string and the middle finger picking the 1st string, and then repeating the sequence: T-I-M, T-I-M, T-I-M, etc. When I refer to string numbers, the 1st string is high and the 6th string is low.
A reverse roll would be a picking pattern in the direction of middle-index-thumb, and there are variations that make use of both forward and reverse patterns, as well as rolls that incorporate pairs of strings instead of grouping everything in threes.
Most bluegrass musicians would agree that a forward roll has more "drive" than other rolls. In other words, a forward roll contributes most to giving rhythmic momentum to a solo and to the overall band sound. By adding well-placed rolls to a relatively simple melody, you can have a great sounding Dobro® solo.
Some examples of well-known Dobro® arrangements with rolls include "Just Joshin'" by Uncle Josh Graves, "Cincinnati Rag" by Jerry Douglas, and "Pickaway" by Mike Auldridge; I learned a lot of my roll technique from Rob Ickes. I use rolls very often on my own recordings, and I also cover this topic in detail on my instructional DVD.
Why practice rolls?
In addition to being a great musical technique, practicing rolls will help your tone, volume, and timing. Of importance too, practicing various rolls will get your fingers used to playing different strings. Ideally, you want to be comfortable picking any string with any finger without ever looking at your picking hand. If you want to play Dobro® fluidly, in tune, and in time, you can never look at your picking hand while you play; you have to look at your barring hand at all times to make sure the bar is in the right place. Your picking hand needs to be on autopilot, and rolls will get you started in that direction.
While rolls could use any 3 strings on the Dobro®, all rolls in this lesson use the 4th (D), 3rd (G), and 1st (D) strings. Your thumb will always play the 4th string, the index finger will always play the 3rd string, and the middle finger will always play the 1st string.
Roll Pattern #1: T-I-M Forward Roll
Roll Pattern #2: Two Forward Rolls Plus a T-M Pair
Practice these rolls until you can play them cleanly and in time without looking at your picking hand. While these are usually thought of as "G" rolls, which would go with a G chord, they'll also work over other chords including C and Em in certain contexts-experiment with them. Play them a lot slower than you're inclined to, using a metronome for optimum benefit. Try to play at the same volume on all of the strings. When you're feeling comfortable with these rolls, move on to the next roll exercise.
Roll Pattern #3: Incorporating a Slide
A common Dobro® technique is to play an open string and then slide into the same note on a lower string. For example, you can play an open 3rd string (G note), followed by a slide into the 5th fret of the 4th string, which also makes a G note. The following pattern does just that before getting to the roll; it starts with an open G (3rd string) followed by a barred G note on the 4th string/5th fret.
For your slide, try a short controlled slide from the 4th to the 5th fret, and be careful not to overshoot the 5th fret and go sharp as playing 2 notes that are supposed to be exact unisons just a little off will sound sour. If you're a little flat with the slide, you can keep sliding up, but if you're sharp it's already too late.
After the slide, the pattern continues with 4 notes of a forward roll pattern. This time the roll starts on the top string, so the picking on the roll portion of the pattern is M-T-I-M. This is a roll that would work well for the first measure of "Fireball Mail", "Cherokee Shuffle", or "40 Years of Trouble".
Melody with Rolls
The first note of a roll pattern will usually sound like the melody note, while the other notes will have more of a drone/rhythm effect. By changing the melody note with the bar, you can play a melody line on one string while continuing to roll on the other open strings. The following exercise will demonstrate this effect.
We'll use the 8-note pattern from Roll Pattern #2 above: T-I-M-T-I-M-T-M on strings 4, 3, and 1. Again, for these rolls, your thumb is always playing the 4th string, your index finger is always playing the 3rd string, and your middle finger is always playing the high string. Now let's introduce some bar movement so we have a melody line to go with the roll. The bar will move to a new fret at the beginning of each 8-note pattern, while your thumb is playing the 4th string.
Roll Pattern #4: Moving the Bar
Moving the Bar in the Middle of a Roll Pattern
Here's a trickier way to incorporate bar/melody movement into your rolls. It uses the same pattern for your picking hand, but this time the bar will move every time your thumb plays the 4
th string.
Homework: Experiment with rolls using different bar moves.
Congratulations! You've just completed Phase 1 of learning to incorporate rolls with changing melody notes. When you've mastered the bar moves in the above tabs, try out different frets. See if you can find all of the G major scale notes on the 4th (D) string up to the 12th fret in order, and work those notes into a roll pattern. Next, try playing G major scale notes on the 4th string at random to try out different intervals. Or, forget your scales for a minute, and just try moving the bar to any fret at all while maintaining the roll pattern-the 1st fret, 9th fret, 3rd fret-just to hear what it sounds like. Experimenting freely with these exercises will help your ability to improvise and improve your hand-eye coordination, and you just might find a little melody or phrase that makes the core of a great new tune! Also try to find rolls that incorporate different combinations of strings.
Next month we'll learn a few more rolls and put them to work in the context of a song.
Until next month, keep sliding!
Ivan Rosenberg
About the Author
Ivan Rosenberg
Now based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, Ivan Rosenberg has released 4 acclaimed CDs of mostly-original instrumentals plusan instructional DVD. He has toured with Chris Stuart & Backcountry, Hit & Run, The Breakmen, and Mighty Squirrel and has recorded with Chad Manning, Jake Schepps, Julie Elkins & David Thompson, Ben Winship, and Mike Grigoni among others. His original music has appeared in several film and television scores including Kangaroo Jack, Deadwood, The Daily Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Bluegrass Unlimited described Ivan as "one of the more prolific masters of the resonator guitar," and in his Banjo Newsletter review, Donald Nitchie wrote that Ivan's Clawhammer and Dobro® CD was one of the best instrumental recordings of the year. A new CD from Ivan and resonator guitar whiz Billy Cardine (with members of Billy's band, The Biscuit Burners) will be released in the summer of 2007.
Known for his systematic and enjoyable approach to teaching, Ivan has instructed at the British Columbia Bluegrass Workshop (BCBW) in Canada, the California Bluegrass Association Music Camp in Grass Valley, and the Sore Fingers Week bluegrass workshop in the UK. 2007 workshops include the BCBW-for which Ivan is also the new program director-and The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop. Ivan teaches resonator guitar and clawhammer banjo in both private and group lessons in the Bay Area.
To learn more about Ivan Rosenberg and his music please visit his official website: www.ivanrosenberg.com and www.myspace.com/ivanrosenberg.
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