Blog – Page 41

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Sourwood Mountain”

One of the great things about old time music is that, while it exists within a cultural tradition, its rules are flexible.

Take the classic fiddle tune. Technically, a fiddle tune is an instrumental. It’s right there in the name, after all.

But when you’re locked into a really good fiddle tune, it feels great. And in those moments of high emotion, sometimes you just want to sing.

Yet, if you’re sitting first chair violin in the London Philharmonic performing Mahler’s 3rd symphony and decide to improvise a verse, you may soon find yourself jobless. In that tradition, there’s ONE way of doing things, and departures, well intentioned or not, are not tolerated.

But in old time, you’re free to let it rip. Such spontaneous emotional emissions aren’t only expected, they’re welcomed. In fact, getting yourself to a state in which you feel so inclined is kind of the point.

And so, even though most “fiddle tunes” don’t technically have words, that hasn’t stopped musicians from adding them.

Over time, different tunes have come to be associated with different sets of words. And you’ll find certain verses recur in multiple tunes, dubbed “floating verses” due to their tendency to “float” from one tune to the next. These are Swiss army knives of old time lyrics, providing easy access to something to sing when the mood strikes you.

Sometimes things go in reverse, as was the case with this week’s tune of the week, Sourwood Mountain. It began its life as a song, with words integrated at the moment of conception.

Somewhere along the way a fiddler liked it so much he or she decided it must be sawed. And from there it took on a second life as a “fiddle tune.”

Sourwood Mountain

aEAC#E tuning, Brainjo level 3

Sourwood Mountain clawhammer banjo tagb

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.

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.

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

Clawhammer Song of the Week: “Poor Orphan Child”

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

We kicked off this whole Song of the Week series with a number first recorded by the Carter Family.

This week brings another gem from the original stars of country music, whose body of work offers a voluminous supply of songs ideally suited for five string adaptation.

It’s also perhaps their most heartbreaking.

I must admit I have to deliberately ignore the lyrics when performing this one, else I turn into a floundering, blubbering mess of a musician (especially when singing it with Jules and her goose-bump-inducing harmony lines…).

Nonetheless, I love this song.

In this performance, I’m actually tuned to a#D#A#D#F tuning, which is simply “Double C” (gCGCD) brought up 3 frets. This puts the resulting song in the key of D#. Since Jules carries the lead vocal here, she got to choose our performance key. Feel free to adjust to suit your own voice.

(RELATED: More on how to choose a key and tuning to suit your voice inside the “Essential Guide to Music Theory” Module, part of the Breakthrough Banjo course.)

You’ll note that there are two vocal lines in the chorus, so it works well as a duet. However, when singing it solo, you can of course just choose one of the lines to sing.

Poor Orphan Child

a#D#A#D#F (“Double C” capo 3) tuning, Brainjo level 3

poor orphan child clawhammer banjo tab part 1

Notes on the Tab

For this song, I tend to play the same thing on the banjo both while backing up the vocal line and when “solo-ing”. As such, the above tab represents what I tend to play for both parts.

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

PRIOR SONG OF THE WEEK EPISODES

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 Breakthrough Banjo

Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series: “GumTree Canoe”

Season 3: Songs for Singing!

EPISODE 4: “Gum Tree Canoe”

Sign up here to get a downloadable PDF of Seasons 1 and 2 of the “Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series!”. You’ll also be notified whenever a new episode comes out, and when the next book is ready.

When it comes to places to mine for great songs to play on the banjo, there are several great sources to mine.

We pulled from one of those sources – the body of work by Stephen Foster – for our last episode.

Today, we’ll pull from another, one of the greatest singing banjoists of all time: John Hartford. He played “Gum Tree Canoe” in his own distinctive fingerstyle, but here we’ll be learning it in the downpicking manner.

And while Hartford crafted his share of originals, this song was first penned in 1847 during the minstrel era (speaking of great sources for banjo songs….). He revitalized it.

Beyond being our first encounter with Hartford, it’ll also be our first time playing and singing in 3:4, or waltz time. Instead of the “1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and” beat structure we’ve been playing so far, this time the beat is “1 2 3, 1 2 3…” But rather than talk about these numbers in the abstract, the easiest way to get the beat into your head is simply to listen.

Step 1: Know Thy Melody

Give the song enough listens so that you can sing or hum it to yourself, or out loud to surrounding life forms.

When you’ve reached that point, proceed onward to….

Step 2: Find The Chords

We’re playing this one out of standard G (gDGBD) tuning, so we’ll be looking for our chord progression in the key of G. Our usual suspects, the I, IV, and V chords will thus be G, C, and D.

See if you can pick them out for yourself by just strumming along with the song, changing chords when a change seems to be in order, and see what you come up with. Then check your answer below:

Step 3: Play A Basic Backup Pattern While Fingering The Chords

So here’s where you need remember that we’re in waltz time. In our previous time signature, we’ve played a repeating “bum ditty” while fingering the relevant chords as our starting point for backup.

In this case, to make everything come together rhythmically, we’ll instead play a “bum ditty ditty pattern in each measure”. Tabulationally, this is represented thusly:

And sounds like this:

Now we’ll just play this pattern while fingering the chord progression we’ve just discovered to create a basic backup for our voice. Here’s what that basic backup looks like in tab:

And it sounds like this:

Step 4: Dress It Up With “Connective Tissue“

One thing I prefer doing on this tune (and on waltzes more generally) is to play full fingered chords whilst playing backup. All those “ditty” strums that are required in waltz time can make things sound a bit muddy, so fingering the chords allows more control over how much sound you put out behind your voice.

The other thing I do here is play a bit of “connective tissue” between the chords (examples in measures….). These are sometimes referred to as “leading tones,” meaning the notes suggest to the listener what chord is coming next.

Using leading tones in this way requires that we play some of our chords “up the neck.” Here’s what my backup from the video looks like in tab:

And, voila, we’ve got ourselves another song to sing!

You can of course add in a banjo solo in between the verses as I’ve done in the video.

More Playing and Singing Material?

You’ll find an ever-expanding library of arrangements for songs and tunes, with lead and vocal backup arrangements, along with video demos for folks of all abilities inside of the Breakthrough Banjo course.

So, if you’re looking for more material for playing and singing, come and check it out! Click here to learn more.

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

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

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Shove that Pigs Foot a Little Further into the Fire”

Click Here To Get The Tab

So often there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to old-time music.

“Shove that pigs foot a little further into the fire?” Surely that’s a song about a thrifty pit master trying to ensure an extra crispy skin, you think.

You’d be wrong.

Or maybe you’ve heard the oft-cited explanation that this tune is actually about a blacksmithing tool (a “pig’s foot”) that’s used to thrust a bit of “pig iron” into a fire.

You’d be wrong again.

A bit of extra digging reveals that the title is based on an old slave folktale:

“This song derives from an old slave folktale which later became a chant and finally a tune. The story goes like this. A slave had just stolen from his master’s larder a shoat (in other variants just its haunch) and had hidden the meat beneath his bed sheets (again in other variants it was hidden under the bed itself). The slave was in his cabin telling his wife of his prize when the master, along with a friend, appeared in the door of the slave’s cabin, requesting that the slave demonstrate his fine skill on the fiddle. Aware that the pig’s foot was exposed and its discovery, which appeared imminent, would cost him a whipping or worse, the slave quickly took down his fiddle and began to play and sing:

Shove that pig’s foot further in the bed
Further in the bed
Further in the bed
Shove that pig’s foot further in the bed
Katie, Katie, Katie, can’t you hear me now

The master and his friend watched the performance with glee while his wife Katie heard the message (hidden in plain sight) and covertly slid the pig’s leg beneath the bedsheets. At the end of the song the master exclaimed, “well, there’s a song I’ve never heard before!” and he and his friend gave the fiddler a short round of applause before making their exit.”

How it then morphed from “further in the bed” to “further in the fire” is a matter of speculation (read some of that speculation here).

The first known recording of it is by fiddler Marcus Martin, who learned it from his father (under its current name).

If you want to confuse yourself even further, then remember that this tune was also recorded for the “Cold Mountain” soundtrack, but renamed to “Ruby with the Eyes that Sparkle.”

Exhausting, isn’t it? Fortunately, you needn’t know any of this esoterica to play this great tune!

Shove That Pigs Foot A Little Further Into The Fire

gDGBD tuning, Brainjo level 3

shove that pigs foot clawhammer banjo tab
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.

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.

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

The Immutable Laws of Brainjo: The Art and Science of Effective Practice (Episode 15)

The Laws of Brainjo

Episode 15: The Secret to Memorization

Imagine this scene:

You’re gathered in a small circle with a handful of other musicians at an old-time jam. Only one of them is a fiddler, but he’s a seasoned one. As the one responsible for carrying the melodic line on each tune, he’s leading the show.

Which means if he doesn’t know the tune that’s called for, then it’s not gonna be played.

This will be a short jam, you think to yourself. Once you exhaust his repertoire of tunes, you’ll have to call it a day. Maybe you’ll make it an hour tops.

But an hour passes, and you’re still playing music. Two hours. Then three…

Amazingly, this fiddler seems to have an endless supply of tunes he can call forth at will.

“How about ‘Molly in the Foxhole’?” suggests the guitarist.

“Ooooh, haven’t played that one in years. How’s that go?”

“It starts out dada da da dad…”

“Got it!” he interrupts, and off he goes.

How is this possible, you think. I’ve been at this banjo thing off and on for a couple years now, and only know about 10 tunes by heart. This guy knows hundreds, maybe thousands of tunes. Have I just happened upon a musical savant?

The above scenario plays itself out in old-time jams around the world with regularity.

For the uninitiated, seeing a veteran musician call forth a seemingly endless supply of tunes can be a mind blowing experience. And the natural conclusion is to assume you’ve just born witness to a superhuman feat of human cognition.

Yet, this sort of thing is not that unusual at all. In fact, most master musicians possess a vast library of tunes they can call up at a moment’s notice.

But how on earth is this possible? Most early players struggle mightily to remember just a few tunes. How could this memorization ability gap be so large? Does achieving mastery of an instrument also magically impart an exponential expansion in one’s memory?

Before we delve further into the realm of musical memory, let’s first consider, for the sake of comparison, another domain of artistic expression: painting.

The Expert Advantage

Imagine two different individuals, Pierre and Brad. Pierre is an expert painter. Brad is a complete novice.

Both are given an assignment to re-create a work by a master artist. Only they’re not allowed to look at the original painting when doing so. Rather, they must paint it from memory.

Pierre studies the painting for a few minutes, then begins work on his piece. In short order, he produces an impressive re-creation of the original.

Brad, on the other hand, is a bit overwhelmed by the task. I have no idea how to paint all this, he thinks.

Then, to his delight, he discovers that there exists a video of the original artist painting the picture he must recreate.

I don’t need to know how to paint at all, Brad reasons, if I can just copy all of his movements, mine will turn out like his!

So Brad begins studying the video, with the goal of committing to memory every stroke of the brush that was made to produce the work he must copy. But soon, with the full magnitude of his task finally sinking in, Brad abandons this approach. There’s no way he can commit all of this to memory, he realizes.

Brad takes a look at Pierre’s work and is astonished to find that, to his eye, it’s almost indistinguishable from the original. Mouth hanging wide open, Brad wonders how on earth Pierre achieved such a feat of memory.

Taking the Easy Road

Brad’s idea, in theory, wasn’t a bad one. The surest way to recreating the original work of art would be to make EXACTLY the same movements that the original artist made in painting it.

The problem, as I’m sure you recognize, is that pulling this off would require a feat of memorization beyond anyone’s capability. This just isn’t the type of memory the human brain excels at. It’s a logical, if entirely impractical, idea.

Yet, Pierre was able to recreate the painting from memory. His approach to doing so, however, was entirely different.

Through a lifetime spent mastering the art of painting, Pierre has acquired an expansive artistic vocabulary of concepts (house, tree, forest, etc.), along with the motor programs required to translate those concepts into images on the canvas.

If we diagram out Pierre’s pathway from recall to painting (the boxes representing function specific neural networks), it looks like this:

Remembering images, especially those that could exist in the real world, is something we’re all quite good at. Take the following painting, for example:

After only a short glance, you’ve already extracted (whether you tried to or not) the relevant details from it. You know there’s a cottage, a forest, a lighthouse, an ocean. You also know their relative locations, along with the time of day, the color of the sky, and so on.

You’re able to take the vast body of experiential knowledge you’ve acquired about the world you live in and use that as a powerful memory aid. You can remember the scene at the conceptual level, creating a scaffolding upon which to hang your memory of it.

Pierre can use this type of conceptual memory to his advantage when trying to recreate the original work. Brad cannot.

Our Musical Memories

Now let’s turn our attention to musical memory. To begin, here are two memory challenges for you.

First, below is a video presenting a string of letters. Play through the video once, and then try to recite back the entire sequence of letters.

If you found that ridiculously difficult, you’re not alone.

Second, below is an audio clip of a melody. Play through the video once, and then see if you can hum the melody back to yourself after listening.

A bit easier, I imagine?

Both of these videos are actually representations of the same tune. The sequence of letters in the first video are the notes of the tune. The second is the audio of those notes played on the banjo. Below is a video of the notes along with the audio.

Remembering the string of letters was difficult, to put it mildly. Remembering the melody? Far simpler.

Once again, the first type of information – a [seemingly] random string of letters – is hard for anyone to remember.

The second type of information – a melody that conforms to the rules of Western music – is something every human brain is much better at remembering. Yet, both are representations of the same thing.

And therein lies the secret to our fiddler’s seemingly superhuman powers of recall.

A Happy Accident

In Episode 11, we came up with a definition of musical fluency, the mark of a master musician:

Brainjo Law #13 : Musical fluency and improvisation is predicated on the ability to map musical ideas (and the neural networks that represent them) onto motor programs.

Like the master painter who, through years of [the right kind of] practice, has built up a library of neural mappings between visual concepts and motor programs for controlling a paintbrush, the master musician has done something analogous, mapping musical concepts onto motor programs for operating a musical instrument.

In both cases, the creation of these networks allows the fluent artist and musician to tap into a type of memory that we’re all quite good at: remembering a real-world image in the former case, a melody in the latter.

Yet, these routes to memorization are biologically inaccessible to the novice painter or player.

The development of fluency transforms memorization from something arduous (remembering the movements of a brush or the notes on a page) to something natural and effortless (remembering a scene or a melody).

Before fluency has developed, the only possible avenue you have to memorize a tune is to commit the tab or the movements to memory. And this feels hard BECAUSE IT IS HARD! For everyone.

It doesn’t get easier one day because your memory gets better. It gets easier when you begin to develop fluency (as defined above).

Here, as with the ability to play faster, the ability to memorize new tunes easily occurs not through any sort of dedicated memory practice, but rather as a byproduct of the creation of brain circuits that support musical fluency.

Which is why building those circuits is the key to mastery.

Back to the “Laws of Brainjo” Table of Contents

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