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A little bit of cyber-digging will make clear that there are some things about the origins of this week’s tune that we still don’t know, and may never know.

That said, here are some of the things I think we can be reasonably certain of:

1) Quince Dillon was a confederate soldier and fifer.

2) Fiddler Henry Reed got the tune from Quince. Whether Mr. Dillon also composed it appears to be unknown.

3) It’s a very cool tune.

4) Playing this tune – in particular that “high D” note  in the A part which, let’s face it, you HAVE to nail – is much less stressful on a fretted instrument (fiddlers may jokingly refer to this as “Quince Dillon’s High E, or High C,” etc. – an allusion to the difficulty in nailing that big jump up the fingerboard on a fretless instrument..).

Furthermore, with both that big two octave stretch in the A part and the use of the C chord, this tune seems intent on reminding you that it’s not your ordinary fiddle tune.

Which, of course, is a big part of its charm!

Speaking of that C chord, which you may have never had an occasion to play out of “double D” tuning, here’s what that shape looks like:

I tend to keep my hand in this shape in the 19th and 20th measures for ease of pickery.

 

Quince Dillon’s High D

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Notes on the tab

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

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

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.

I must confess that, for most of my life, I knew virtually nothing about the minstrel era in American music.

Essentially, the term conjured up images of people dressed in outlandish garb that’d be widely considered offensive in this day and age, making some crude jokes, with maybe a dash of slapstick. And there were banjos were involved, presumably to enhance the overall comedic effect.

Basically, distasteful clowns with banjos as a comedic prop.

When I started getting into clawhammer style banjo, my impression was refined at least a bit. Turns out that the performers were actually using the same fundamental downstroking technique I was, and were even partly responsible for popularizing it.

Yet, when I first heard musician, banjo historian and expert-on-all-things-minstrel Greg Adams play a few minstrel era tunes in concert a few years ago, I was still entirely ill-prepared for what came out of his banjo.

In swift order, that caricature of the minstrel performers being little more than 19th century banjo-wielding prop comics was summarily annihilated.

The tune he played that really did it for me, that made it impossible to hold onto my old vision of minstrelsy, was “The Japanese Grand March,” our tune of the week.

It was originally published in “Buckley’s New Banjo Book” in 1860, and reportedly composed to honor Japan’s first ever diplomatic mission to the U.S., which occurred in that year (the background image in the video is of the USS Powhatan, the ship that carried the Japanese delegation across the Pacific).

As you can hear for yourself, this is not “banjo as an afterthought” kind of music. From both a technical and compositional standpoint, there’s a high level of musicianship here (Brainjo level 4, for Pete’s sake!). The minstrel performers clearly took their music – and their banjos – quite seriously.

Translation: these guys were good.

These were not clowns using banjos as a punchline.

Greg’s performance of this week’s tune (and his infectious enthusiasm for this music) led me to begin my own exploration of the music, to replace the broadly stroked image of minstrelsy I’d had in mind with one far more nuanced and detailed. As I discovered, there’s much more to this story than meets the eye. Though that’s almost always the case, isn’t it?

Of course, any type of exploration of minstrelsy requires one to confront all that goes with it, including the unabashed racism that was endemic in that period of American history. There’s much of this part of our history that we’d like to forget.

But forgetting would require throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And there’s a very large baby here, which is the music.

Spirited, sublime music. A substantial body of work whose contribution to the story of the banjo and the evolution of American music is far too large to be ignored. In other words, there are parts of the minstrel legacy that are definitely worth remembering.

And for the clawhammer banjo player, there’s also much to be learned. There are the tunes themselves. And then there are also all the inventive ways the minstrel performers employed the downstroking technique – ways that produced all sorts of cool sounds and rhythms.

The tunes provide a great technical workout, as well as an opportunity to add to your downstroking bag of tricks. Plus, you can’t help but come away with an expanded appreciation of what’s possible with clawhammer style.

Just this one particular tune, even, provides all of that.

(The banjo I’m playing is one I just acquired (part of why I chose this tune for this week!), a “Boucher” style replica by Jim Hartel, who’s renowned for his work making the banjos of this era. It’s an outstanding instrument. )

The Japanese Grand March

bEAD#F# tuning (“gCGBD” equivalent), Brainjo Level 4

Notes on the tab:

I’m playing this piece in a lower tuning to suit the longer scale of the minstrel banjo. To play this on a modern, steel-strung banjo, simply tune to gCGBD.

Probably the most challenging parts of this tune are those descending run down the strings, first appearing in the 5th measure. How I play these depends on the particular banjo I’m playing. If it’s a banjo that’s very responsive (louder, modern, steel strung banjo), then I’ll usually use alternate string hammer-ons to generate the fretted notes that are played on a string lower in pitch than the one that’s been previously struck. For a less responsive banjo (where those hammer ons may not be audible enough), I’ll use a drop thumb instead.

For more on how to read banjo tabs, check out my complete guide on reading banjo tabs.

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.

When we think of the tunes we like, we tend to think of our perception of their merit exclusively in the acoustic realm. In other words, we tend to think of the tunes we like as those we think sound the best. Nothing much more to it.

But recently, I’ve realized that there’s another important dimension, at least for me (and I suspect for others as well) that I hadn’t previously considered. Not consciously, at least.

Yet, having given it a bit more thought, I’ve realized that this other dimension does factor in to my overall affinity for a tune. Quite a bit, really.

And that is how the tune actually feels when I play it. You might refer to this as the “kinesthetic signature” of a tune – the actual sensation of movements experienced during the playing of it. And, just like the melody, something that lives on in memory.

After reflecting in my mind through multiple tunes, I realize that each tune I play has its own kinesthetic signature, a certain way it feels to play it that’s part of every tune memory I have. And it’s a dimension that’s dissociated from the sound, but yet still intimately connected to my relationship with any given tune (and I think a major factor in which tunes I instinctively gravitate towards when I just grab my banjo and start to play).

I do think there’s a special magic that happens when both the sound and the kinesthetics are working in tandem. These are those tunes that just seem to play themselves.

Recently I posted a tune I wrote entitled “Pink Kitchen Girl.” One of the responses I received was that it was a fun tune to play – as in the actual movement of the fingers was fun. In other words, its kinesthetic signature enhanced the overall enjoyment of it. It was this response that prompted me to think more deeply about this aspect of playing music.

And that’s when it occurred to me that this is something I’ve always cared a good bit about, and something I take into consideration when arranging or composing a tune. Yes, the sound I’m after is top priority, but I also enjoy it when the tune is just physically fun to play.

This week’s tune, “Bill Cheatham,” has a kinesthetic signature I enjoy. In particular, it’s the delightful run up the neck that opens the B part, especially when executed with a series of drop thumbs. Irrespective of the final sound, that’s just a fun thing to do.

Incidentally, I do think this is reflected in the final product. The more fun we’re having, the more natural and effortless things feel under our fingers, the better the end result will be. It’s inevitable.

Anyhow, I’d be curious to know if any of you have an awareness of this aspect of tunes (not whether it’s hard or easy, but whether it feels good once you’ve learned it). Let me know in the comments section if so. And let me know if there are any particular tunes whose “kinesthetic signature” you particularly enjoy.

Bill Cheatham

aEAC#E tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Notes on the tab:

The first run through the A part I’ve tabbed straight ahead, as I play it the very first time in the video. The second time through is a more syncopated sound, which I stick to for the remainder of the tune because..you know…I can’t help myself!

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

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