Known by many simply as FMB, this tune more than any other is the song bluegrass banjo players are simply required to learn. And how fast you can play it, with good tone and timing, is as good a litmus test as any for how far you’ve come as a banjo player.
Our tracks for FMB go from 60BPM all the way to 170BPM, so you can work on building speed.
See what a practice bundle includes >
Hear a sample of the full band track:
This is Earl Scruggs’ most famous tune, and it is based on “Bluegrass Breakdown” which Earl always said he composed while part of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys (Earl never got credit for it). When Flatt & Scruggs left Big Mon’s band in 1948 to form their own band, Earl reworked Bluegrass Breakdown into FMB (the key difference being a slide to an Em instead of going to an F chord). It was first recorded and released in 1949.
Here’s Earl Scruggs playing FMB with some friends in 2001, a full 52 years after it was first released. What a legend!
