Qui Vive - My Personal Mount Everest

Qui Vive is a classical showpiece from the 1890s. I first heard it on a piano roll when I was a kid. Have you ever seen one of those? There’s a roll of paper with tiny holes punched in it, each hole corresponds to a note on the piano. You work the pedals to pump air through it and it plays music all by itself!

Qui Vive was by far my favourite piano roll when I was a kid. I used to play it on the piano at school, especially with my teacher Christine. I loved that tune!

I’m so pleased to say we successfully captured a video of us nailing this amazing showpiece on September 15th in a sold-out Priston village hall.

Around eight years ago I was looking for a challenge on the banjo and decided to try and adapt this old Victorian parlour piece to play on the banjo.

There were a lot of difficulties to overcome. I couldn’t decide what key to play it in to start with. There are lots of different sections, some sounded good in G, some in D or F. It took six months before I settled on G as the best key. This means I have to play the very topmost note on the banjo several times – a top c right up on the 22nd fret on the first string.

I had it all worked out after a few years. There’s nothing that repeats in it, no rolls, nothing that you can get a handle on. It’s just a stream of thousands of notes, every one different, and requiring many different techniques.

There are single string sections; arpeggios; and a lot of really strange fingerings, especially crossovers in the right hand.

Playing Scruggs style you avoid crossing over the fingers on the picking hand altogether. That makes it so much easier! The Middle finger picks the 1st string; the Index picks the 2nd and 3rd; and the Thumb dances around over all the strings, but mainly playing the 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th. This is a very natural, intuitive way to play. You can learn more about this in the Banjo Academy.

For Qui Vive, there are many sections where you play a note with the Index on the 2nd string, then the Thumb has to cross over onto the 1st. It’s tricky to do it cleanly, at speed.

I spent years trying to play this too fast. I was going for around 110-112 BPM (Beats Per Minute), thinking I could speed up from there once I’d got the notes right.

I never did!

I struggled for years to play this piece accurately all the way through. Even at 108BPM. To put that into perspective, one of our Members was able to play Cripple Creek at 108BPM after only playing the banjo for a month! That’s because the fingerings are much more natural.

A few years ago I had almost given up trying, this piece just seemed too difficult.

Then Mike and Dave came along and decided to learn all the chords, counter-melodies and rhythm parts.

That gave me a huge boost. I was inspired to keep going.

I decided to slow it down a touch more, to 104BPM, and try again.

Finally I nailed it!

We have now performed this piece in front of many enthusiastic audiences.

At Priston, we got a huge round of applause. And a nice video recording too!

I had an accident 7 days before this performance and burnt my left hand. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play at all.

So I was really delighted with how the concert went.