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Clawhammer Banjo Tune of the Week: “Coleman’s March”

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.

Legend has it that Joe Coleman, after whom this tune is named, was accused and convicted of stabbing his wife to death, though he claimed innocence till the end. En route to his execution, it was said the he played the tune we now know as “Coleman’s March” on his fiddle. According to legend, he then offered said fiddle to anyone who could play the tune as well as he (source: “The Fiddler’s Companion”).

For me, the melody of this tune alone is enough to get me all choked up. Throw in this anecdote and, well, you might as well stick a fork in me…

Anyhow, this is one gorgeous tune. And you don’t really need to do much more than stick to the melody to make it sound great. In fact, I find that the more I restrain myself from superfluous fanciness, the better it tends to sound.

You’ll note in the video that I play an “up the neck” variation on the A part, which I’ve also included in the tab below.

Coleman’s March

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3

Screen Shot 2015-01-30 at 8.25.03 PMScreen Shot 2015-01-30 at 8.25.11 PM

 

Up the Neck A Part Variation

Screen Shot 2015-01-30 at 8.25.22 PM

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

Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series: “Snowdrop”

Season 2: Solo Clawhammer Classics

Episode 1: “Snowdrop”

A New Chapter

Take notice fans of the Core Repertoire Series, we’re changing gears!

Up until this point in the Clawhammer Core Repertoire Series we’ve been focusing on jam classics, working on building up a stable of tunes to ensure that you’re prepped and ready for any old-time jam, wherever it may strike. And in the process, we’ve been pulling back the curtain to reveal just how these arrangements are constructed in the first place.

But you now have 16 jam classics in your stable, and that’s a lot of mouths to feed. Best we stop breeding more.

So, now it’s time to create an entirely new stable! And this time we’ll be filling it with solo clawhammer classics. Though some of these you may also encounter at your friendly neighborhood jam, all the tunes we’ll be covering in this series make for excellent stand alone clawhammer pieces.

In fact, some of them sound best as solo clawhammer pieces (which is why many of the ones we’ll cover have been featured in my “clawhammer tune of the week” series).

Which brings us to our first tune in the “Solo Clawhammer Classics” season of the Clawhammer Core Repertoire series: Snowdrop. First off, here’s how my final arrangement for this tune sounds:

As ambassadors for the banjo go, I don’t think you can do much better than Snowdrop. In a matter of 4-7 notes (depending on whose data you use), you can single-handedly wipe out virtually every preconceived notion and misconception someone may have about banjos and the people that play them.

There’s no ear splitting jangliness to be found here (though I happen to love ear splitting jangliness). Nope, just hyper-melodical-dulcet-toned sweetness.

Snowdrop is typically credited to Kirk McGee of the McGee brothers, who are the ones who first recorded it. Incidentally, Kirk actually played it fingerstyle, though these days you’re much more liable to hear it played by downpicking enthusiasts.

Step 1: Know thy Melody

First off, if you’re not familiar with this tune, take a listen to the above video enough times for you to extract and remember the melodic core of this tune. Don’t proceed onward until you can hum or whistle it. Once you think you’ve got it, it’s time to try and find it on the 5-string.

Step 2: Find the Melody Notes

Before you go note hunting, get your banjo tuned to “open C” tuning, which is gCGCE. For some of you, this may be the first time you’ve tuned your banjo here. All the strings are the same as “double C” (gCGCD) except for the first, which is tuned to an “E”. What you end up with is an open C major chord.

As with most alternate tunings, open C makes Snowdrop both easier to play and sound better. Win-win. Unless you break your 1st string tuning it up. Then it’s win-win-lose, which is still a respectable ratio.

So this is what I hear as the essence of Snowdrop:

https://corerepertoire.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/snowdropmelody.mp3

 

And here’s what that looks like in tab:

What you’ll notice here – which will be a recurring theme in the “Solo Clawhammer Classics” edition – is that the melodic essence of this tune isn’t that far off from how our final arrangement sounds. Generally speaking, fiddle tunes – which is what we’ve covered thus far – are going to have the most number of notes per measure (playing a bunch of notes is a trivial matter on the fiddle, so they just can’t help themselves).

Most non-fiddle tunes, however, won’t be as melodically complicated. With fewer notes packed into each measure, these tunes will breath a little more.

Step 3: Add Some Clawhammery Stuff

Using our basic melody as a guide, we can now turn this into a very nice clawhammer arrangement quite simply. By adding some ditty strums after most of our melody notes along with a couple of well placed pull-offs, we now have a very respectable arrangement (Brainjo level 2 in terms of level of difficulty)

Snowdrop

gCGCE tuning, Brainjo level 2


(note the few instances here where you’ll want to form a bar chord at the 5th fret)

And here’s how that sounds:

As you can see, this version is built entirely on straightforward clawhammer techniques. Yet as you can hear, without adding in any fancy fretwork or right hand pyrotechnics we already have a version of Snowdrop that, if played with good timing and rhythm, sounds absolutely wonderful.

Step 4: Embellish to Suit Your Tastes

That being said, we’re all humans. Which means we like to monkey with stuff, and we like to make tunes our own.

So feel free to add your own stylistic embellishments to this core arrangement. You can hear mine in the first video above – feel free to steal liberally. Here’s the tab for that version (Brainjo level 3):

Snowdrop

gCGCE tuning, Brainjo level 3

Go to the Core Repertoire Series Table of Contents

Clawhammer Banjo Tune of the Week: “Spotted Pony”

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.


Only one tune I know of starts with the first five notes ascending straight up the D scale…Spotted Pony. Which makes it one of those tunes that’s almost immediately recognizable after it’s kicked off. It also makes for a great first tune to learn in “double D” tuning.

And it’s one of my favorite kind of tunes – relatively simple to play, but sounds great. I imagine this is largely why it’s become such a favorite at old-time jams. I’ve classified it here as Brainjo level 3, but that’s only on account of the very occasional drop thumb.

Who knew the D scale could sound so good?

Spotted Pony

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3
Screen Shot 2015-01-24 at 5.13.32 PM

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

Clawhammer Banjo Tune of the Week: “Flowers of Edinburgh”

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’m not sure where exactly I first heard Flowers of Edinburgh. It’s one of those tunes from the old-world (of the Gaelic lineage as you might imagine) that has since worked its way into multiple fiddling traditions. So a variety of places one might encounter it.

It’s a beautiful tune, and one that grabbed me at first listen.

Being a fiddle tune, you’ll find that there are a lot of notes packed into each measure. But as it turns out, most of those notes are fairly easy to access out of standard G tuning, making Flowers of Edinburgh well suited to a melodic treatment. I find the up the neck descending runs in the B part particularly fun to play.

Flowers of Edinburgh

gDGBD tuning, Brainjo level 3

Screenshot 2015-01-16 12.07.03

Notes on the Tab

Alternate string hammer-ons: There are several alternate string hammer-ons in this arrangement, noted where you see a number underneath tab with a circle around it. The number represents the finger I typically use to execute the hammer-on.

For the up the neck positions in the B part, I recommend keeping the 1st string fretted at the 9th fret (with the middle finger) and the 2nd string fretted at the 8th fret (with the index) throughout the 11th measure, then barring the 1st and 2nd strings at the 2nd fret (with the index) throughout the 12th measure, then barring the 1st and 2nd strings at the 2nd fret (with the index) during the 13th measure.

 

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

Clawhammer Banjo Tune of the Week: “Alabama Jubilee”

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.

Good artists copy. Great artists steal.

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of spending a few days wandering the streets of New Orleans with my wife. Those of you who’ve been know that, for those who love music, New Orleans is a little slice of heaven. The music there is raucous and alive with energy.

The streets are filled with musicians at every turn. And, to my surprise, a lot of those musicians had banjos.

And a lot of those banjos were being played in unconventional styles – New Orleans is a place where many of  the folks aren’t too concerned about playing by the rules, and much of the music is free of stylistic constraints.

Walking the streets there, I was filled with all sorts of ideas, which made the fact that I was traveling without an instrument all the more torturous. I did take lots of videos, and I couldn’t wait to return home and try to adapt some of the sounds I was hearing to my own playing.

Several of the banjo players I heard on that trip relied heavily on a basic strumming style, either while singing or backing up other musicians. And it sounded fantastic.

In fact, it sounded so good I was kicking myself for never doing more of it. That changed once I finally returned home and reunited with my five string.

One of the tunes that fell out after that trip was this version of “Alabama Jubilee.” The banjo solo is still rendered in clawhammer style; however, you’ll note that the backup behind my voice is a departure from the bum ditty pattern that typifies clawhammer vocal backup. I think it fits the tune quite well, and it’s one of several techniques that made their way into my bag of tricks after that trip.

So here’s to musical inspiration. Wherever it may find you.

Alabama Jubilee

gDGBD tuning – Brainjo Level 3

Screen Shot 2015-01-09 at 9.40.39 PM

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

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