banjo lessons – Page 43

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Big Liza Jane”

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Kyle Creed’s sound is one of the most uniquely identifiable amongst all the legends of old-time banjo. His tone alone is unmistakeable, so sought after he’s almost solely responsible for the proliferation of scooped banjo necks.

But his style, and the choices he makes on the banjo, are equally compelling. Sweet and lyrical. Economical and seemingly straightforward, but with hidden complexities that only reveal themselves upon closer inspection.

A few days ago I was listening to his Liberty album when the song “Big Liza” grabbed my ears. It’s not first time that’s happened, yet somehow it had escaped my repertoire until now.

Clearly that needed to change.

As it happens, my daughter Jules and I are in the midst of preparing a set for an upcoming performance, and I thought this song would make a perfect addition. So the two of us set to work on it, the results of which can be heard in the video.

Though I play a few variations along the way in my rendition, I’ve kept the tab pretty true to how Kyle plays it. There are a couple of ways to get that signature roll across the strings that appears in the 10th and 14th measure, and I’ve tabbed out both. The first, as in measure 10, is to use the “Galax lick” by executing a slow strum across the strings and then following it with a thumb on the 5th.

The other is to drag the picking finger (indicated with the letter “M” for middle) across strings 1 through 3, a move that was popular in the minstrel style. To my ear, this sounds like what Kyle does. Either way sounds good.

Also, in the video I’m tune to the key of D#, or up a half step from “double D”.

Big Liza Jane

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

For info on how to interpret the tabs, check out my “How to Read Banjo Tabs” post.

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

Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series: “Needlecase”

Boy are we lucky to be alive in these times. With so much great music now literally at our fingertips, the hardest part about creating these Core Repertoire installments is choosing what tune to do.So you know if a tune makes the cut, it has to be pretty special.

This month’s installment, “Needlecase”, was popularized by the great fingerpicking banjoist Sam McGee. It is thought that he likely wrote the tune as well. And given his penchant for crafting infectious melodies, I can believe it.

And while this tune may have first been plucked into the sonic ether at the hands of an up-picking practitioner, it has since become quite popular amongst the downpicking set. So whether you choose to flick your finger towards the ceiling or the floor, you can enjoy McGee’s masterpiece.

Step 1: Know thy Melody

Take a listen to the tune (from the video above) as many times as it takes to etch its melodic essence into your noodle . This is one catchy little tune, so I imagine it won’t take too long to do so.

Once you’ve got it, and can hum or whistle along, you’re ready to proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Find the Melody Notes

Next up, it’s time to search our fretboard for our melodic suspects.

Needlecase is in the key of D, so get thy banjo into the downpicker’s D tuning of choice, aDADE. Once, see if you can find the core notes of this tune on your banjo.

Here’s what I hear as the essential melody:

And here’s that tabulationally displayed:

Step 3: Add Some Clawhammery Stuff

Now let’s insert that melody into the bum-dittificator and see what we get. We’ll keep all the notes from our core melody that occur on the downbeat, and then add on a ditty strum after each one (notes in bold are the melody notes we’ve left in):

And it sounds like this:

Step 4: Embellish to Taste

Depending on your stylistic preference, you can take this arrangement further into “melodic clawhammer” territory by including more of the melody notes. The version I play in the initial video would be best characterized as a “melodic” version, as I’ve included every melody note possible (doing so, however, means that I can no longer maintain a particular rhythmic pattern (i.e. “bum ditty”, etc.) throughout the arrangement.

Here’s what that melodic version looks like in tab:

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Miss McLeod’s Reel”

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Miss McLeod’s Reel

Did you ever see the devil, Uncle Joe?

Hop high Ladies.

Regardless of what name you choose to refer to it by, this week’s tune is a time honored chestnut if there ever was one.

First appearing in 18th Century Ireland, it has been beloved by fiddlers ever since, likely undergoing countless transformations at the hands of the folk process, replete with the addition of various and asundry turns of phrases and alterations of time signatures.

Most folks outside of the old time tradition know it as “Hop High Ladies”, which references the lyrics now typically sung along with the B part (Hop high ladies, three in a row…).

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to North Carolina to work on a new project for Brainjo Productions. It’s one that I’m really excited about, and in fact is what inspired this tune (and tuning) today. More on this soon.

For now, enjoy this wonderful tune.

Miss McLeod’s Reel

fDGCD tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Notes on the tab: The tuning here, fDGCD, places the resultant tune in the key of F. To play it in the key of G (which is where you’ll usually find it in jams), just tune or capo up two half steps to gEADE.

The notes in parentheses are “skip notes”, meaning they aren’t sounded by the picking finger (for a full tutorial on these, go here).

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

Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series: “Shady Grove”

We all know that nothing showcases the unique sounds of the banjo quite like a modal tune. We also know that modal tunes might be best described as a “banjo player’s banjo tune” – beloved by devout fans of the instrument, but perhaps not as well appreciated by the uninitiated, for whom its archaic scale tones may be a bit too inaccessible to the unfamiliar ear.

Not Shady Grove.

For whatever reason, this old nugget of a lovesong has become a crossover classic, with its popularity extending well outside the bounds of traditional old-time banjo. In that way, it’s a great way to initiate the uninitiated, to introduce them to the idea that there are great sounds yet to be discovered outside of the monochromatic world of top-40 radio.

Or at least we can pretend this is so.

Anyhow, perhaps the best reason to learn Shady Grove is that it’s simple melody that, in modal tuning, is darn easy to play! And play it we shall.

Step 1: Know thy Melody

This step should be an easy one, as the melody for this song is dead simple.

In the video above, I’m tuned down to the key of D to better suit the gourd’s temperament and my post-pubescent vocal chords, but we’ll be playing it out of “G modal” tuning in this lesson, which means we’ll be playing it in the key of G.

To help hear the melody in this new key, I’m going to attempt to sing a verse in G for you:

Take a listen to these examples enough time to etch this melody into the banks of your memory.

Step 2: Find the Melody Notes

Speaking of G modal tuning, make sure your banjo is properly tuned to gDGCD before going note hunting. Once you’re there, see if you can find the basic melody notes of this tune on your banjo.

Here’s my version of the basic melody in audiophonic format:

And here it is represented in tabulational style:

Step 3 – Add Some Clawhammery Stuff

With that out of the way, let’s make it sound like a banjo tune. Go ahead and first follow each of the notes that occur on the downbeat (placed in bold in the tab above) and follow them with a “ditty” strum.

Add in a few choice drop thumbs and hammer-ons to syncopate the melody (by shifting it to the offbeat) to add some interest, and here’s what you get:

And here’s how it sounds:

Step 4: Embellish to Taste

The simplicity of and space within this melody affords you ample opportunity to play around with it, so don’t be afraid to stamp it with your personal style.

That’s what I did in my final arrangement you heard in the first video. Here’s what that looks like in tab:

A Word (and a video) About Syncopated Skips

Notes in the shaded box in the tab above are “skip notes.” In these instances, the picking hand continues as if it’s going to strike the string, but doesn’t actually come into contact with it (you “skip” the note). It’s a great technique for adding syncopation, and one I receive a lot of questions about, so here’s an in depth video lesson on the subject (part of the “Breakthrough Banjo” course):

And just to help you get a sense of what that sounds like in our current key of G modal, here is is played in that tuning:

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week: Little Billie Wilson

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“Art lives from constraints and dies from freedom.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” – Orson Welles

So much of the music we love, or any great art for that matter, is born out of constraints. This truism is certainly on full display in the history of traditional Appalachian folk music, where glorious sounds sprang forth time and again from the most modest of circumstances and materials.

I also think it’s on full display with clawhammer style itself.

The continuous pulsation of the picking hand is what gives clawhammer the driving, hyponotic sound we all love; but the necessity of maintaining that persistent up and down movement of the hand also imposes its own constraints and limitations, as does the fact that we’re only allowed a single finger and a thumb for the striking of notes.

Yet, I think this is the very the thing that makes it so compelling. It’s in our solution to these challenges that we’ve created a sound that cannot be replicated in any other way, a sound that would never have made it’s way into the sonic ether had we not been brave (foolish?) enough to try to make music in the face of these obstacles.

Fiddle tunes, where it’s common for melody notes to be crammed into all the available spaces, certainly force us to confront these limitations head on. Sure, for the fiddler, getting all those notes is relatively trivial, given the mechanics of a playing a bowed instrument.

But for us banjoists attempting to present fiddle tunes in the clawhammer style, we have to get a bit creative if we want to include all those melodical embellishments, especially those that fall on the offbeats.

So decisions must be made. Decisions about what notes to leave, and what notes to throw out so as to not sacrifice rhythm at the altar of melody.

With some tunes, like “Little Billie Wilson”, the gods of downpicking smile upon us. Pretty much all the notes in this melody sit quite nicely in standard A tuning, making it impossible to resist the temptation to get em all in.

It’s a peppy, sweet little tune that doubles as both a great solo clawhammer piece and a workout for your fretting fingers. Enjoy!

Little Billie Wilson

aEAC#E tuning, Brainjo level 3

For more information on how to read the tablature, check out the complete guide to reading banjo tabs.

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