• Bill Evans' Licks-Ercises for Bluegrass Banjo, DVD 1 and 2

    Bill Evans' Licks-Excises for Bluegrass Banjo, DVD 1
    Woodstock, N.Y. — Homespun has announced the release of Licks-Ercises for Bluegrass Banjo, DVD 1 and 2 by Bill Evans.

    Master musician Bill Evans has put together an almost encyclopedic array of licks, roll patterns, fretting hand embellishments (slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and chokes) and other techniques that make up the essential building blocks of traditional and progressive bluegrass banjo styles.

    Even better, each element you'll learn doubles as a powerful skill-building exercise — without the usual struggle that the term "practicing" implies.

    About his new Homespun 2-DVD Series Bill told us, "One of the biggest challenges facing players at all levels, but especially for that broad category of intermediate players, is taking the licks and techniques from the tunes that they’ve memorized and turning this into their own music.

    "Working up your own solos and improvising are big challenges and I wanted to create a project that gave players a head start in this life-long musical pursuit.

    "By the time we finished recording, Homespun felt that we had recorded enough content for two separate DVD projects. Licks-ercises 1 explores Scruggs-style exercises, creating licks around roll patterns and chord positions.
    Bill Evans' Licks-Excises for Bluegrass Banjo, DVD 2
    "Licks-ercises 2 is maybe the most comprehensive overview of melodic and single-string style ever presented on DVD.

    "I start with scales in each style in a variety of keys and generate licks from there, venturing into the territory originally explored by such pioneers as Don Reno and Bill Keith but lending a contemporary angle and my own thoughts as to how these styles are used today.

    "As with any project I produce, my own students that I encounter in thousands of one-on-one lessons and in group workshops and camps show me the way. I see which approaches work best with them and they tell me what they want to learn. I couldn't come up with these thigns without their help!"

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