How to play like Bela Fleck

Have you ever wished you could play like Bela Fleck? I know I have wished that in the middle of the night the banjo fairy would come and put some banjo skills under my pillow. That hasn’t happened yet, so I figured learning some of his songs would be the next best thing.

Bela is an incredible player (duh). His licks are as fast as they are complicated. He also is incredibly good at playing with other people. He is able to make the banjo work with marimbas, saxophones, tablas and the list goes on. So all of this makes transcribing Bela very difficult. You’ll notice that in the altbanjo archives there are only two Bela songs and 10+ Sufjan songs. In order to play some of his songs you’ve got to be an incredibly adept transcriber or you could buy his banjo books.

I, being a cheap (and lazy) college student, have gone and found third way to learn his songs: flecktonesrock. He is an incredibly talented musician and he takes the time to walk you through many Bela Fleck songs. He has some very helpful instructional videos, on songs like Big Country, See Rock City and more!

So if you have ever had any inclination to learn Bela Fleck on the cheap or just would like to listen to a great banjo picker, go check out flecktonesrock. You won’t be disappointed.

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