Description

At a Jam, You’re Playing Backup 80% of the Time. This Book Teaches You How.

Here’s something nobody tells beginning banjo players: when you show up to a jam, you don’t get to solo on every song. Most of the time you’re playing rhythm and backup behind the singer or the fiddle player or the guitar picker who’s taking the lead. If you don’t know how to do that, you either sit there doing nothing or you step on everyone else’s playing. Neither one is fun.

The Intro to Banjo Rhythm & Backup solves that problem. This is the book that teaches you how to actually participate in a jam — not just when it’s your turn to solo, but for every other measure of every other song. And once you learn these concepts, you can back up songs you’ve never rehearsed before, because you’re playing chord shapes and patterns, not memorized arrangements.

What You’ll Learn

Geoff Hohwald covers the core concepts of banjo backup from the ground up:

• Major chord shapes and how to move them up the neck
• Minor chord shapes and when to use them
• Right-hand backup patterns that sound full without being busy
• Left-hand technique for clean chord transitions
• How to listen to what other musicians are playing and respond
• How to back up songs you’ve never played before using chord shapes

That last point is the real payoff. Once you understand moveable chord shapes and backup patterns, you can walk into any jam, hear someone call a song in G, and play along — even if you’ve never heard the song before. That’s the difference between a banjo player who can only play memorized solos and a banjo player who can actually play music with other people.

How the Course Works

Every concept comes with detailed video instruction and audio rhythm tracks:

• 1. Watch Geoff demonstrate. 2.5 hours of video with close-up views of both hands so you can see exactly what’s happening.
• 2. Read the tab. Full tablature for every example and exercise in the book.
• 3. Play along with the rhythm tracks. Audio tracks let you practice backup with a band — which is the only way to really learn it, since backup by definition means playing with other musicians.

Who This Book Is For

This book bridges the gap between beginner and intermediate. If you’ve worked through the Banjo Primer and the Easy Banjo Songbook, you’re ready for this. You know your basic rolls, you can read tab, and you can play some songs. Now it’s time to learn the other half of being a banjo player — the half that makes you someone other musicians actually want to play with.

This is also the first book in Geoff’s three-part Rhythm & Backup series. If you want to go deeper after this, the next steps are Banjo Backup Licks & Rolls and Classic Banjo Backup.

Who Geoff Is, and Why That Matters

Geoff Hohwald has been playing banjo since 1964 — back when Columbus, Ohio was a genuine bluegrass hot spot — and studied under John Hickman. He’s performed with two of Bill Monroe’s guitar players, shared stages with Red Allen, Frank Wakefield, and Hylo Brown, played with the Atlanta Pops Orchestra, and co-founded the Greater Atlanta Bluegrass Band. Decades of playing in real bands means Geoff knows backup inside and out — not from theory, but from thousands of hours of actually doing it on stage and at jams.

Geoff also runs Banjo Warehouse, our sister shop in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia, where he’s been buying, selling, and setting up banjos since 1980.

Buy Direct. Skip the Warehouse.

When you order from GeoffHohwald.com, you’re buying directly from us — a small family business in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Your book is packed and shipped by people who actually play banjo, and if you have a question about a lesson, Geoff is the one who answers the email.

• ✔ Signed by Geoff on request — add a note at checkout
• ✔ Direct access to the author if you get stuck on a lesson
• ✔ Your purchase supports a small family business, not a warehouse
• ✔ Ships from Yellow Springs, Ohio, usually within one business day

Product Details

• Format: Paperback, 47 pages
• Includes: Free online video and audio access (2.5 hours of video, plus rhythm tracks)
• Focus: Major and minor chord shapes, backup patterns, rhythm technique
• Level: Beginner to Intermediate
• Style: 5-string Scruggs-style bluegrass banjo
• ISBN: 978-1980478034
• Ships from: Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA

Where This Fits in Geoff’s Series

This book sits at the crossroads of the beginner series and the Rhythm & Backup series:

• Beginner path (before this book):
• Beginning Banjo Warm-Up Series → Banjo Primer → Easy Banjo Songbook
• → You are here: Intro to Banjo Rhythm & Backup
• Rhythm & Backup path (after this book):
• Banjo Backup Licks & Rolls — expand your backup vocabulary with licks and roll patterns.
• Classic Banjo Backup — advanced backup techniques for performance-level playing.