Learn Clawhammer Banjo

Banjo Lessons for the Adult Beginner

  • About
    • Getting Started With Clawhammer Banjo – What You Need To Know
    • What is the Brainjo Method?
    • How To Play Clawhammer Banjo in 8 Essential Steps (free course)
  • Tabs
    • THE VAULT: The Ultimate Clawhammer TAB LIBRARY
      • The Vault Login
    • Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week
    • This Week’s SONG and TAB
    • The Clawhammer TOP 10 tunes
    • This Week’s TUNE and TAB
    • 9 Ways to Practice Smarter (FREE book)
  • Banjos!
    • The “BANJO PLAYER’S BANJO”
    • Brainjo SHIRTS!
  • Breakthrough Banjo
    • Login to Course
    • Breakthrough Banjo Course Tour
    • About the Course
    • SIGN UP
    • Course Home

Clawhammer Song of the Week: “Reuben’s Train”

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

This week’s installment of the song of the week, Reuben’s Train, is a bonafide “banjo song.” A song tailor made just for our beloved 5-string.

It’s also part of the canon of “train songs,” with a simple and repetitive melodic unit evoking the sound of a steaming locomotive.

That simple structure makes it both easy to remember and get under your fingers. The natural inclination then might be to learn a basic version and call it a day.

But I’d encourage you to sit with it a while. To noodle and experiment. Because these melodically simple songs provide a great canvas for experimenting with rhythmic embellishments.

As a general rule, the more intricate the melody, the less room for rhythmic experimentation. On the other hand, the simpler the melody, the greater room for rhythmic experimentation.

And in this case, for trying to produce your best train imitation on the banjo as well.

I’ve included a few variations you hear in the video in the tab. This includes the frequent use of syncopated skips here – master these and you can mix and match rhythms till the cow’s come home (click here to view the video lesson on syncopated skips).

You’ll often hear Reuben played in “alternate tunings” – Earl Scruggs iconic version is played out of f#DF#AD, for example. But here I’ve stuck with the familiar standard G (gDGBD), tuned down a bit to bring out the deeper tones of the gourd banjo.

Though speculation abounds, the identity of Reuben and his train remains an unsolved mystery.

Reuben’s Train

gDGBD tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

 

Notes on the Tab

In this arrangement, I’ve tabbed out the part I play in the banjo “solo,” as well as the vocal backup I play on the banjo while singing.

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes – to learn more about skips and syncopated skips, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

PRIOR SONG OF THE WEEK EPISODES

  • Episode 1: “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow”
  • Episode 2: “Gumtree Canoe”
  • Episode 3: “Crawdad Hole”
  • Episode 4: “Oh Susanna”
  • Episode 5: “Freight Train”
  • Episode 6: “Grandfather’s Clock”
  • Episode 7: “Hop High Lulu”
  • Episode 8: “Been All Around This World”
  • Episode 9: “I’ll Fly Away”
  • Episode 10: “Leaving Home”
  • Episode 11: “Poor Orphan Child”
  • Episode 12: “Mr. Tambourine Man”
  • Episode 13: “Swanee River”
  • Episode 14: “Big Sciota”
  • Episode 15: “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”
  • Episode 16: “Darling Corey”
  • Episode 17: “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
  • Episode 18: “America the Beautiful”
  • Episode 19: “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
  • Episode 20: “Way Out There”
  • Episode 21: “New Slang”
  • Episode 22: “I Saw the Light”
  • Episode 23: “Amazing Grace”
  • Episode 24: “Blowin’ in the Wind”
  • Episode 25: “Yankee Doodle”
  • Episode 26: “Budapest”
  • Episode 27: “Wildwood Flower”
  • Episode 28: “Paradise”
  • Episode 29: “Mountain Dew”
  • Episode 30: “Blue Tail Fly”
  • Episode 31: “Otto Wood”
  • Episode 32: “Down on the Corner”
  • Episode 33: “City of New Orleans”
  • Episode 34: “Big Rock Candy Mountains”
  • Episode 35: “Come to the Bower”
  • Episode 36: “Old Kentucky Home”
  • Episode 37: “Long Journey Home”
  • Episode 38: “Dixie”
  • Episode 39: “Hard Times”
  • Episode 40: “Corrina Corrina”
  • Episode 41: “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”
  • Episode 42: “Johnson Boys”
  • Episode 43: “Bad Moon Rising”

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

About the Author
Josh Turknett is founder and lead brain hacker at Brainjo Productions
 

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

brainjo larger musical mind

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “The Wearing of the Green”

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

Sweet melodies played sweetly.

That’s what comes to mind when I think of 2-finger index lead legend Will Keys.

In a previous Laws of Brainjo episode, I gave one definition of mastery as the ability to accurately express who you are through your instrument. While I never had the pleasure of meeting Will personally, his music betrays a man who is humble, gentle, friendly, and playful. There’s joy in every note.

Today’s selection, the traditional Irish folk ballad “The Wearing of the Green,” is one I learned from his repertoire of tunes, and has always been a favorite.

Incidentally, because of the stylistic similarities between Keys’s 2-finger index lead style and clawhammer banjo (the down-pick of the frailing finger essentially replaces the up-pick of the index), you can almost map them one to one.

In fact, when listening to a recording of 2-finger index lead (the “lead” here referring to which finger is in charge of the melody notes), it can sometimes be difficult to tell the two styles apart.

The “banjo player’s banjo” is back!

Some of you may recognize that I’m playing a Brainjo banjo in this video. The Brainjo banjo is a partnership between myself and Tim Gardner of Cedar Mountain banjos. Our goal was to create the ultimate “banjo player’s banjo” – a banjo that’s all about tone and playability.

We just released our 3rd batch of them to some happy owners, and there’s still room left to claim one in the next batch. It’ll likely fill up quickly again, so if you love the tone of it as much as I do (this is the “Tommy” setup), then you might want to go ahead and nab one!

[RELATED: Click here to learn more about the Brainjo, hear more sound files, and read what other Brainjo owners have to say about theirs.]

 

The Wearing of the Green

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

wearing of the green clawhammer banjo tab part 2

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

[RELATED: Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

 

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

About the Author
Josh Turknett is founder and lead brain hacker at Brainjo Productions
 

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

 

To Become An Expert, Stay A Beginner (Laws of Brainjo, Episode 26)

Episode 26: To Become An Expert, Stay A Beginner

Recently, after having received several requests for it as a “Tune and Tab of the Week” installment, I set out to learn Steve Martin’s “clawhammer medley.” The medley consists of four classic old time tunes Martin used to play in series during his comedy performances.

(RELATED: Click here to sign up for the free tune and tab of the week.)

The tunes are played out of an open D tuning, aDAF#D, which is not a tuning I’ve spent much time in.

In fact, while I’ve played the occasional fingerstyle tune in it, I’d never played anything in it in clawhammer.

The easier route would have simply been to adapt them to a tuning I’m more familiar with, such as “double D,” the de facto favorite for D tunes amongst clawhammerists.

But I wanted to stay faithful to the original, so I resisted the easy road.

Not surprisingly, it took a bit longer than usual to get the whole thing under my fingers.

Fighting the Urge

If you’ve been following along with the Laws of Brainjo series, you know that our ultimate objective in learning music is to take new skills that have yet to be learned, and practice them to the point where they become automatic. Automaticity is a sign that a new skill has been transferred from the conscious to the subconscious parts of the brain, and can now be executed without conscious effort.

Any skill that hasn’t been transferred to the subconscious circuitry, then, will feel effortful.

I’ve spent many years playing tunes out of double D, and those hard won neural grooves I’d built kept trying to guide my fingers towards those familiar and effortless patterns.

But those familiar patterns of double D tuning were of no use. Initially, it was impossible to resist those impulses. The pull of those hard won habits were too strong.

So learning this particular time was more challenging than what I was used to. And it’s natural to get frustrated in this situation.

And then I reminded myself about the importance of the Beginner’s Mind (and as the video below will attest, it worked!)

 

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities,
but in the expert’s there are few.”

– Shunryu Suzuki

The Mind of the Beginner

In the early stages of learning a new subject or skill, everything feels awkward and unfamiliar. That of course includes the early stages of learning the banjo.

When everything is new, everything is HARD. When something feels hard, it’s a signal that the brain has a good bit of rewiring to do in order to achieve what’s being asked of it.

In the beginning of our banjo journey, we’ve yet to construct any neural circuitry for banjo playing, and so nothing is easy. As we improve, and as we build the fundamental neural networks required for banjo playing, things start getting easier. And more enjoyable.

But what happens when you’ve reached that point of hard-won ease, and suddenly you’re once again confronted with those beginner feelings of awkwardness again?

The natural tendency is to avoid whatever it is, to go back to the familiar stuff you can do well. After all, you’re not a beginner anymore, so why should you do something that makes you feel like one?

Yet, growth only occurs at the edge of our ability, when we’re engaging in those very things that feel hard. How then to resist the urge to go back to the familiar? To not press on, but revert back to what’s familiar and easy?

By maintaining beginner’s mind.

The concept of beginner’s mind comes from the Zen Buddhist tradition, and serves as a reminder to always retain the openness and curiosity we all have in the early stages of any journey.

A reminder to appreciate that there’s always more to learn than what’s been learned, and that there is no end to the master’s journey. That the scope of what we don’t know will always be larger than the scope of what we do know.

That to keep walking down the road to mastery, we must never stop thinking like a beginner.

To learn more about the Breakthrough Banjo courses for clawhammer and fingerstyle banjo, click the relevant link below:

— Breakthrough Banjo for CLAWHAMMER Banjo —

— Breakthrough Banjo for FINGERSTYLE Banjo —


— The Laws of Brainjo Table of Contents —

About the Author
Josh Turknett is founder and lead brain hacker at Brainjo Productions
 

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

brainjo 1

 

Clawhammer Song of the Week: “Bad Moon Rising”

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab

“There’s a bathroom on the right.”

– misconstrued song lyric

If your ears hear the above phrase in the Creedence Clearwater’s “Bad Moon Rising,” you’re not alone. It occupies the 5 spot in at least one unofficial list of the  top 10 all-time misconstrued song lyrics.

And for those keeping score, this is our second foray into the CCR catalog.

As I mentioned back in our first trip with “Down on the Corner,” their classic chord structures and driving rhythms make for great clawhammer material for those looking to venture into the land of the less traditional.

Whether you choose to reference Earths ominous orbiting orb or the lavatory location when you sing it can be your own stylistic decision. Just know that what is actually heard is in the ear of the beholder.

Bad Moon Rising

gCGCD tuning, Brainjo level 3

 

Notes on the Tab

In this arrangement, I’ve tabbed out the part I play in the banjo “solo,” as well as the vocal backup I play on the banjo while singing.

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes – to learn more about skips and syncopated skips, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

PRIOR SONG OF THE WEEK EPISODES

  • Episode 1: “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow”
  • Episode 2: “Gumtree Canoe”
  • Episode 3: “Crawdad Hole”
  • Episode 4: “Oh Susanna”
  • Episode 5: “Freight Train”
  • Episode 6: “Grandfather’s Clock”
  • Episode 7: “Hop High Lulu”
  • Episode 8: “Been All Around This World”
  • Episode 9: “I’ll Fly Away”
  • Episode 10: “Leaving Home”
  • Episode 11: “Poor Orphan Child”
  • Episode 12: “Mr. Tambourine Man”
  • Episode 13: “Swanee River”
  • Episode 14: “Big Sciota”
  • Episode 15: “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”
  • Episode 16: “Darling Corey”
  • Episode 17: “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
  • Episode 18: “America the Beautiful”
  • Episode 19: “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
  • Episode 20: “Way Out There”
  • Episode 21: “New Slang”
  • Episode 22: “I Saw the Light”
  • Episode 23: “Amazing Grace”
  • Episode 24: “Blowin’ in the Wind”
  • Episode 25: “Yankee Doodle”
  • Episode 26: “Budapest”
  • Episode 27: “Wildwood Flower”
  • Episode 28: “Paradise”
  • Episode 29: “Mountain Dew”
  • Episode 30: “Blue Tail Fly”
  • Episode 31: “Otto Wood”
  • Episode 32: “Down on the Corner”
  • Episode 33: “City of New Orleans”
  • Episode 34: “Big Rock Candy Mountains”
  • Episode 35: “Come to the Bower”
  • Episode 36: “Old Kentucky Home”
  • Episode 37: “Long Journey Home”
  • Episode 38: “Dixie”
  • Episode 39: “Hard Times”
  • Episode 40: “Corrina Corrina”
  • Episode 41: “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”
  • Episode 42: “Johnson Boys”

Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

About the Author
Josh Turknett is founder and lead brain hacker at Brainjo Productions
 

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

brainjo larger musical mind

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: Steve Martin’s “Clawhammer Medley”

Click on the button below to get the PDF download for this tab delivered to you, and get 2 new tunes and tabs sent to you every week!

Click Here To Get The Tab


Ok you wild and crazy guys and gals, it’s a 4-tunes-for-1 Special Edition of the Tune of the Week!

Some of you may be familiar with the youtube video of Steve Martin’s “clawhammer medley.” The video comes from his stand up days, where he’d often include a banjo interlude as part of his act.

The video has received a few hundred thousand well deserved views. Some of those may be on account of Martin’s celebrity status (and the delight of finding out what a great banjoist he is), but probably more come from the fact that it’s just great music.

The tunes he plays are 4 traditional classics, with a few melodic liberties thrown in. The tunes, in order, are: Loch Lomond, Sally Ann, Johnson Boys, Simple Gifts, and then, in true seasoned performer fashion, there’s a final “call back” to Sally Ann (the transition to each of these is noted in the tab below).

It’s been requested by multiple folks for inclusion in the Tune of the Week series, and at long last is finally here!

There’s much fun to be had for the typical down-picking enthusiast in learning these arrangements as he plays them.

For starters, you’ll more than likely get the chance to spend some time in a relatively unfamiliar tuning. Whereas double D would be the contemporary favorite tuning to play them in, Martin uses an open D tuning, aDAF#D.

It’s a tuning I use for a few old time fingerpicking numbers, but not one I’ve ever used for clawhammer. If that’s the case for you as well, you’ll find yourself early on having to resist the urge to revert to your habituated D tune fingering patterns.

[RELATED: If you’re interested in learning the old time and 3 finger styles of fingerpicking, then click here to check out the new Breakthrough Banjo course for fingerstyle banjo.]

 

But I think the payoff is well worth. Beyond the brain stretching benefits of venturing to unfamiliar territory, playing these chestnuts in a new tuning gives them a fresh and unique sound.

My Best Steve Martin “Impression”

The arrangement I’ve presented here stays pretty close to his, and I’ve also tried to emulate some of the elements of Martin’s clawhammer style in my playing of it. His playing offers a refreshing contrast to the tones and techniques that tend to dominate the world of clawhammer banjo at this moment in time, and offer yet another excellent illustration of just how many equally wonderful sounding ways there are to coax pleasing sounds out of the banjo.

If you’d like to develop your own Steve Martin banjo impression, here are some thoughts on how to do so.

Elements of Steve Martin’s Clawhammer Style, circa late 1970s:

Play close to the bridge. These days, the sonic aesthetic du jour is to play around where the neck meets the pot, where the banjo produces a sweeter, more open sound. Martin, however, clearly likes his banjo a bit more sour, playing closer to the bridge to emphasize its nasal twang.

Incorporate full fingered brush strokes. Martin likes to punctuate sections of his tunes with twangy, full fingered brush strokes. Play these right next to the bridge if you want extra bite.

Use triplets liberally. Plenty of triplet embellishments are sprinkled throughout his arrangement, achieved via hammer ons and pull offs of the fretting hand.

Hit the head! Whether an accidental byproduct of playing close to the bridge or a deliberate effort to enhance the rhythmic pulse, Martin’s thumb consistently strikes up against the banjo head following the downstroke of his right hand. I enjoy this effect myself.

Let it breathe. One of my favorite things about his playing here is the use of “space”, achieved through the abundant use of “skip” strokes, as indicated in the tab (click here for a video lesson on this technique).

Be dynamic. Like the use of skip notes to create space, Martin also varies the volume of his playing throughout the medley, deliberately leaning into and backing off specific phrases, which makes the whole listening experience that much more interesting and engaging.

FREE LIVE WORKSHOP

“How To Arrange Songs for Clawhammer Banjo“

On July 12, 2017, I’ll be hosting an online workshop on “How To Arrange Songs for Clawhammer Banjo,” taking you through a step by step process for taking a song and creating your own clawhammer arrangement of it.

Click here to learn more and to register.

Steve Martin’s “Clawhammer Medley”

Tunes: Loch Lomond, Sally Ann, Johnson Boys, Simple Gifts

aDF#AD tuning, Brainjo level 3

steve martin's clawhammer medley banjo tab part 1

steve martin's clawhammer medley banjo tab part 2

steve martin's clawhammer medley banjo tab part 3

steve martin's clawhammer medley banjo tab part 4

 

Notes on the Tab

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes. To learn more about these, check out my video lesson on the subject.

For more on reading tabs in general, check out this complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

[RELATED: Level 2 arrangements and video demos for the Tune (and Song!) of the Week tunes are now available as part of the Breakthrough Banjo course. Learn more about it here.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

 

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

About the Author
Josh Turknett is founder and lead brain hacker at Brainjo Productions
 

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

 

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • …
  • 71
  • Next Page »

Copyright 2024 - Brainjo LLC, Owner of clawhammerbanjo.net   Privacy Policy - Terms of Purchase - Terms & Conditions