banjo lessons – Page 35

Clawhammer Song of the Week: “Been All Around This World”

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

I first heard this week’s song “Been All Around This World” (a.k.a. “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me”) off the Highwoods String Band album “Feed Your Babies Onions”.

If you’re not familiar with the legendary Highwoods, that needs to change. Everything they ever did is top notch, and Doug Dorschug’s vocal on this particular number is no exception.

It’s not entirely clear where this song originated. Sources (by that I mean Google) indicate the first recorded version was by Grandpa Jones in 1946, though it wasn’t an original composition.

The song also hit [semi] mainstream popularity once it became a staple of Grateful Dead performances.

It’s a terribly fun one to sing and perform. When else do you get the opportunity to sing while imagining your imminent demise from the gallows?

Been All Around This World

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3

been all around this world clawhammer banjo tab

Notes on the Tab

In the tab above, you’ll note I’ve tabbed out both a “lead break” (something to play in between verses) and the “vocal backup” (what I play while I’m singing).

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 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 Core Repertoire Series: “Oh Susanna”

Season 3: Songs for Singing!

Episode 3: “Oh Susanna”

For the singing banjoist looking to boost their repertoire, I don’t think you can find a better source than Stephen Foster.

Classic, memorable melodies beloved by fans of all ages. And there are even banjo references!

You may not be coming from Alabama, but you must assuredly do have a banjo on your knee. And what better first Foster tune to tackle than the one sung from the point of view of a banjoist?

As we’ve discussed previously, we’ll be using two primary tunings for our songs, standard G, and double C (keys besides “G” and “C” accessed via the capo). For this song, the key of C works better for the typical male vocalist (of which I am one), so this will be our first song in “Songs for Singin’” Edition of the Core Repertoire Series out of double C tuning.

Step 1: Know thy Melody

Being one of the most well known songs of all times, I imagine that this one is known well amongst most of you.

If not, give the video above a listen a few times until you can sing or hum it back, and then proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Find the Chords

As mentioned above, we’ll be playing this one out of “double C”, aka gCGCD tuning (I’m capo’d up to “double D” tuning the video, but for simplicity we’ll keep our version in the key of C – in the end, you can choose the key that best suits your voice). So make sure you’re there first, and then see if you can identify the chord changes.

As a refresher, here are the fingering positions for the I, IV, and V chords (C Major, F Major, and G Major, respectively) in double C tuning.

The easiest way to do this is just sing through the melody, strumming the chord as you go, and changing when things don’t sound right.

Here’s what we end up with:

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

Now let’s create a straightforward backup pattern by playing a bum ditty pattern, alternating between the 3rd and 4th string on the “bum” strike.

Here’s what that looks like in tab:

Here’s how that sounds with singing:

Step 4: Add some easily accessed melody notes

To add some interest to what we’re doing behind our voice, and to make everything sound super fancy, we can look for the melody notes that we can play on the “bum” strike that requires no additional movement of our fretting fingers (which are fingering the chord positions).

To help find those melody notes, let’s find all the melody notes for “Oh Susanna” on the banjo. Here’s what the melody for “Oh Susanna” sounds like on banjo:

And here’s where those notes are located (but practice finding them yourself first if this isn’t something you’re comfortable with). I’ve bolded the notes that occur on the downbeat:

Now, let’s revise our basic backup pattern to include those bolded melody notes. Note here that in order to play the melody notes in the 10th measure, we’ll need to change where we finger our F major chord in that measure.

Here’s what that looks like in tab:

And here’s how that all sounds behind some singing:

As you can hear, this simple pattern sounds great as a vocal accompaniment. In my version in the video, I’ve kept it simple as well, with perhaps the addition of a few hammer-ons.

If you want to add in a lead break, as I’ve done in the video, then the melody line tabbed out above is a perfect place to start.

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

Clawhammer Song of the Week: “Hop High Lulu”

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

I love the songs that straddle the line between two worlds. Songs that clearly sound like they originated in another era, but still sound perfectly at home in the modern one.

Songs like “Hop High Lulu.”

As is the case with so many tunes in the old-time canon, “Hop High Lulu” has at least one musical doppelganger, known as “Roustabout.” Here’s a link to Fred Cockerham playing the latter tune (with its own distinct set of words) – the Southern mountains influence here is obvious.

In the rendition of “Hop High” Jules and I have recorded for the Song of the Week, on the other hand, you can almost hear how its mountain roots could be smoothed over to create a straight-outta-Nashville country number.

Not that we’d want to do such a thing!

You’ll note that my daughter Jules (along with her own virtual doppelganger) handles all the vocals on this one, which means I’m playing this in a key that’s friendlier to the female voice (less so to the post-pubscent male).

So if you find yourself in possession of a Y chromosome, you may wish to try out a few spots with the capo to find a key a bit more suitable to your vocal range.

Hop High Lulu