Blog – Page 54

Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week: “Old Mother Flanagan”

Click here to subscribe to the tune of the week (if you’re not already a subscriber) and get a new tune every Friday, plus tabs to all the ones to date.

Recipe for the ideal jam tune:

1. A strong, memorable melody line so that those unfamiliar can pick it up quickly.

2. Enough notes to keep things interesting, but not so many that half the participants are forced to surrender their instruments defeat.

3. A strongly suggested chord progression, so that the guitarists and bassists can readily create a suitable harmonic atmosphere.

4. Sounds best at a moderate tempo, so that participants of all abilities can keep with the pace.

5. Squared tune structure. No extra or odd measures, or other surreptitious crookedness.

Mix these ingredients together and you get a tune like today’s classic jam booster, “Old Mother Flanagan”.

Turns out it also makes for a great solo clawhammer tune, and one I suspect you’ll have under your fingers in short order.

Old Mother Flanagan

aEAC#E tuning, Brainjo level 3

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

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

The Metronome Playlist

Those who’ve made or who have made their way through the “8 Steps to Clawhammer Banjo” course and students of Breakthrough Banjo know that I’m a big advocate of playing along with a rhythm keeping device. The most time tested of these is the metronome.

In the earliest days of learning, playing alongside a metronome is a great way to ensure you’re focusing on good timing and rhythm from the get-go. It’s all to easy to overlook these aspects when playing in a vacuum, which can easily to the development of the dreaded “closet picker’s syndrome”.

But another benefit, which I think is of equal or even greater utility, is that the metronome is a perfect litmus test for automaticity – an exacting assessment for whether a new technique or tune has become “automatic.” You can read more about this concept in Episode 2 of the “Laws of Brainjo” series.

For those without access to a physical metronomic device, I’ve compiled a metronome playlist, which you’ll find above. You can choose the speed you wish by clicking the playlist icon in the upper left of the video and selecting from the menu (listed in ascending order from 40-140 BPM).

Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week: “Pink Kitchen Girl”

Click here to subscribe to the tune of the week (if you’re not already a subscriber) and get a new tune every Friday, plus tabs to all the ones to date.

Years ago, while my daughter – now 10 – was still a toddler, I was sitting in her room noodling around on a mandolin. It was just before her bedtime, and I was letting her play around in her toy kitchen for a bit before commencing with our bedtime routine.

Her pink kitchen, that is.

Naturally, her being a girl and all, we’d chosen toy appliances that were pink. Many an imaginary muffin, cupcake, and hot dog topped with sprinkles were brought to life in that kitchen, of which I would imaginarily devour with gusto.

That evening, with mandolin in my hand, I decided to compose some background music to her kitchen adventures.

With the tune completed, all that was left was to give it an appropriate name.

As you know, “Kitchen Girl” was already taken. So “Pink Kitchen Girl” was born.

So, for the first time in the Clawhammer Tune of the Week series, I have an original composition for you. May visions of the most delicious imaginary muffins, cupcakes, and hot dogs with sprinkles fill your mind as the notes spring from your banjo.

Pink Kitchen Girl

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

The notes in parentheses are “skip notes”, meaning they aren’t sounded by the picking finger (for a full tutorial on these, go here). And for more on reading tabs in general, check out my complete guide on reading banjo tabs.

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series: “Simple Gifts”

Though the majority of the classic clawhammer repertoire consists of tunes – i.e. melodies without words – there are certain songs that sound splendid when clawhammerated, and have slowly worked there way into the hands of frailers.

“Simple Gifts” is one of those songs. Originally a Shaker hymn that was subsequently popularized by composer Aaron Copeland, ultimately becoming one of those timeless melodies you know without knowing how you know it.

Step 1: Know thy Melody

One great thing about learning a song is that they have words! Words that tap into our innate linguistical capacities and thereby greatly enhance our memorizational abilities.

In the video above, I was fortunate enough to recruit my daughter Jules to sing those words for us. Once you’ve listened enough that you can sing along (which some of you may be able to do from the get-go), then you’re ready to find them pretty notes on your instrument.

Step 2: Find the Melody Notes

This tune seems tailor made for double D tuning (or double C if you’d prefer), so go ahead and bring your banjo to aDADE. Once you’re there, see if you can locate the melody notes on your fretboard.

Here’s what I hear as the essential melody:

And here’s that melody represented in tab:

Step 3: Add Some Clawhammery Stuff

To clawhammerize that core melody, let’s go ahead and play all the melody notes that occur on the downbeat (the “bum” stroke in the “bum-ditty”) and follow with a ditty strum while fingering the appropriate chord tones (relevant chords listed above the tab).

And here’s what it sound like:

Step 4: Embellish to Taste

Now it’s time to take things a bit further should you so desire. Perhaps first priority is to see if you can add in a few more melody notes from our core melody we worked out earlier. There’s a bit of melodic space in this song, which frees you up a bit to add any additional flourishes (triplets, Galax lick, etc.).

Don’t get too carried away here – it is called Simple Gifts, after all…

You can hear my dressed up version during the banjo solos in the video above. Here’s what it looks like in tab:

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week: “Kitchen Girl”

Click here to subscribe to the tune of the week (if you’re not already a subscriber) and get a new tune every Friday, plus tabs to all the ones to date.

Despite popular culture’s attempts to pigeonhole it, I think the banjo is one of the most versatile instruments around. With the number of playing styles, tunings, setup possibilities, etc. you’d be hard pressed to find an instrument capable of a fitting in so well with such a variety of styles and moods.

This week’s tune, played out of the “A modal” tuning (aEADE, or gDGCD (“G modal) with a capo at the 2nd fret)) provides us with another opportunity to showcase that versatility. Raise one string from standard A tuning – a tuning that’s very well suited for bringing out the bright and joyful qualities of the banjo – and you’re instantly transported into a completely different world. A world where the sounds are ancient, mysterious, and brooding.

According to my research, Kitchen Girl was first “collected” by folklorist Alan Jabbour from fiddler Henry Reed of Galax, Virginia. It was then recorded by Jabbour’s “Hollow Rock String Band”, and it seems the rest was history. Many others followed suit, and it made its way into jam circles in short order.

It’s also one of those tunes that sounds great a variety of tempos, and with enough melodic breathing room to allow all those modal banjo tones to waft into the sonic ether.

In other words, no real need to get too speedy or fancy! 🙂

(p.s. – thanks to all for the kind words about last week’s tune with my daughter Jules. As you can imagine, getting to perform with her is a unique thrill for me, and I can’t express enough how much your words of encouragement and appreciation to her means to me.)

Kitchen Girl

aEADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

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