Bill Cheatham Banjo Lesson by Will Miskall

Welcome to onlinelessonvideos.com. My name is Will. Today, we’re going to learn the tune Bill Cheatham. I'll teach you in the key of G; however, it's usually played in the key of A. So just put your capo on the second fret and it should work out just fine. Let's get started with Bill Cheatham.

All right, let's take a look at the first measure of the tune. This is my arrangement of Bill Cheatham. It starts of a little differently than you’d see in any of the tabs out there. The first four notes of the measure, the first measure are going to be an inside roll, four roll on the inside strings that will sound like this with the open strings—

[Demonstration]

So that’s the D string, the G string, and then the B string all open—

[Demonstration]

And then we’re going to fret at the seventh fret on the D string which is an A—

[Demonstration]

And then we do two notes simultaneous. It's on the top D in the B string, the first and second string—

[Demonstration]

So it will sound like this—

[Demonstration]

Let's do that a few times—

[Demonstration]

And then it's going to end with a sort of two eighth notes, an open G—

[Demonstration]

Back to that A note on the D string—

[Demonstration]

So, the first measure slowly—

[Demonstration]

I'll play that a few times slowly—

[Demonstration]

Let's do that a few more times—

[Demonstration]

And if you get the inclination, you want to swing the tune. You can play it with a swing feel to it—

[Demonstration]

All right, let's move on to measure two.