How to Play Clinch Mountain Backstep

Learn Clinch Mountain Backstep on banjo with Ralph Stanley's style and creative variations.

This lesson path will walk you through playing the tune Clinch Mountain Backstep. The base arrangement is very much modeled after the playing of Ralph Stanley. Ralph had his own way of doing things, and is responsible for bringing a stronger blues and mountain sound to bluegrass. After learning the base arrangement, we'll go through several licks. This will hopefully give you some ideas on how you can create some variations within this classic tune.

1

Overview

What's in Store

In this lesson we'll learn Clinch Mountain Backstep in the style of Ralph Stanley. After dividing and conquering the tune in sections, we'll go into creating several variations with different licks.
2

The A Section

Pinch Me!

The A Section starts with a little bit of syncopation. That means the first note falls on a beat before or after the normal downbeat that comes at the start of a measure. In this case it is before....
3

The B Section

Watchout for the Backstep

The last two measures of the B section is exactly how we ended the A section. So the main measures to focus your practice on are the first two. Measure ten has a new roll pattern that combines forw...
4

Ready, and Pull!

A Great Lick

This lick isn't as tough as it sounds. With pull offs, you'll usually wait to pull off when the next 1/16th note starts. Here you pull just before it starts. You can get this one down. Just use tha...
5

A Different Kind of Backstep

This Lick is All About Timing

The playing aspect of this lick is easy. The timing is hard. Loop the measure. Listen repeatedly. Hum or speak it while it's looping. When you can do that, playing it will come much easier. Music i...
6

June Apple Lick

A First Position Melodic Lick

This lick is almost exactly the same as the first part of the melody for June Apple. It's melodic, but we never leave first position, which is uncommon for melodic licks. The open fifth string is t...
7

Haunted House Lick

A Spooky Sounding Melodic Lick

Modal is a term used when a song or scale has some undefined quality. In some modal songs, you can change from a major to a minor sound in the same solo. It's all about what notes are, or are not b...
8

The 4 & 5 in the 5/4

Juju on that Beat

5/4 measures are weird. They can be made less weird by hitting the last two beats of the measure with confidence and power. This is something that a lot of jammers do. This lick will sound great ei...
9

Where To Next

One Backstep Forward

Now that you've learned the Clinch Mountain Backstep here's a few suggestions on what to check out next. Since we just learned a Ralph Stanley tune, you might want to check out a tune by the Stanle...