Rockin' the Country w/ Rascal Flatts' Joe Don Rooney - Jan 14 - How to Play "Banjo"

These videos are bonus content related to the January 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now, or in our online store: store.guitarworld.com/products...
This month, I'd like to talk about how the banjo has informed my guitar style and inspired the music of Rascal Flatts.
As a guitarist who grew up exploring a wide variety of musical styles, I have always been inspired by the sounds of other stringed instruments, such as the pedal steel, fiddle, mandolin and banjo, and the ways such instruments foster, due to their different tunings, distinctly non-guitar-like ways of playing melodies or chords.
I'm especially intrigued by the five-string banjo because of its bright tone and percussive quality and the way it naturally lends itself to playing rolling, syncopated arpeggio patterns, like those prominently featured in bluegrass music. Great banjo players, like the innovative and technically brilliant Béla Fleck, have shown the world what's possible with the instrument and how, in the right hands, it can be used to play a lot more than just traditional folk- and bluegrass-style licks, as his highly eclectic, progressive style showcases.

[@Nervusponzio]

i'm in love with his tone!

[@colbybryan7761]

Nervus same here!!

[@skeetv123]

Love this guy.

[@demytje]

Love his tone

[@travelbyrocket]

It would be great to have a segment where Joe Don goes over his gear in all of these videos and signal chain. I think he is rocking his Bogner Ecstasy 101B ?

[@manuel3677]

The last album they have done is really their best

[@yichengwang7734]

Thats the real rockin roll !

[@Casey_J96]

wow his tone is amazing! and the way he can copy other instruments like banjo and pedal steel on guitar is awesome!

[@matand12345]

Best playing I have heard in a while!

[@CallSignJammer]

Which Les Paul do you suppose this is? It has to be one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen.

[@evancoles]

I usually don't like country music or the banjo; however, this guy is slowly warming me up to them: good video.

[@jacobhazelett2267]

Joe Don is badass when it comes to the guitar

[@Garrettsmom14]

Awesome! Great sound!

[@Garrettsmom14]

Amazing artist !

[@jamesdeininger3759]

These are really great interviews. I was never really a Rascal Flatts fan, but this guy is awesome. Does Guitar World have these with any other artists?

[@Charlizarate]

Fantastic

[@danielderonchi9156]

you rock at guitar i am goodish

[@andrewarriola6127]

Nifty dude!

[@craigb47]

Les paul so beautiful

[@manuel3677]

Really fed up with fuckin useless shredders what this guy is playing is the most interesting thing on the guitar i have ever heard since the eighties and nineties.the guitar is for music not competition

[@QuickSlashHD]

1:25 what song is he playin?

[@QuickSlashHD]

Could someone who knows how to write songs help me?

[@anthonyclarke2076]

Looks like a Reissue with a tea burst

[@dekacster]

4:38

[@liamerick7262]

take me down to the paradise city...

[@AnakRantau-qx5gc]

sipp brother

[@PurpleEmpire123]

You can actually think clearly with this.

[@samson915067]

Dude his legs are long!

[@manuel3677]

Really fed up with fuckin useless shredders what this guy is playing is the most interesting thing on the guitar i have ever heard since the eighties and nineties.the guitar is for music not competition