Learn Clawhammer Banjo

Banjo Lessons for the Adult Beginner

  • About
    • Getting Started With Clawhammer Banjo – What You Need To Know
    • What is the Brainjo Method?
    • How To Play Clawhammer Banjo in 8 Essential Steps (free course)
  • Tabs
    • THE VAULT: The Ultimate Clawhammer TAB LIBRARY
      • The Vault Login
    • Clawhammer Tune and Tab of the Week
    • This Week’s SONG and TAB
    • The Clawhammer TOP 10 tunes
    • This Week’s TUNE and TAB
    • 9 Ways to Practice Smarter (FREE book)
  • Banjos!
    • The “BANJO PLAYER’S BANJO”
    • Brainjo SHIRTS!
  • Breakthrough Banjo
    • Login to Course
    • Breakthrough Banjo Course Tour
    • About the Course
    • SIGN UP
    • Course Home

Clawhammer Song and Tab of the Week: “Little Birdie”

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


Given the enthusiastic response to last week’s installment of “Last Chance,” (click here if you missed it…last chance! 🙂 ), I’d thought that this week we’d take another excursion into the wonderfully weird world of alternate tunings.

Once again we have another iconic banjo tune, “Little Birdie,” in eCGAD tuning (I’m actually tuned down a half step in the video to d#BF#G#C# to better suit my voice.)

I have not been able to trace the original roots of this tune, so if anyone does know its original source or composer, please share in the comments.

Many in the “first wave” generation of recorded banjo players played it – Tom Ashley, Roscoe Holcomb, Pete Steele, and Frank Proffit to name a few. So it seems it had become a standard banjo player showpiece by that era.

In the video I begin with a plaintive rendition, inspired by Chance McCoy’s take on it from the Chance McCoy & the Appalachian String Band album (recommended!), which several folks have requested. And his version was reportedly inspired by Morgan Sexton’s. And around and around we go!

The song is most often played at a rapid clip with a galloping rhythm and sparse fingering. And towards the later part of the video, I present this alternate approach as well (note the emphasis in this part on the up beat, or the “DIT” in the bum-ditty rhythm).

As usual, the different tempos create entirely different feels. Both ways have been tabbed out.

(RELATED: “Little Birdie” is one of 10 tunes presented in the recently released “Magic of Old Time Banjo” module in the Breakthrough Banjo course. Sign up for the course and you’ll also be sent “The Magic of Old Time Banjo” book as a bonus, which contains 20 tab arrangements of 10 of the most iconic banjo tunes in 10 different tunings. Click here to learn more about the book.)


(NOTE: For those considering acquiring a Brainjo banjo, the banjo played in this video is a “Hobart” model. Click here if you’d like to learn more, or claim one in the next batch.)


 Little Birdie (slow tempo version)

eCGAD tuning, Brainjo level 3

little birdie clawhammer banjo tab

 

Little Birdie (up tempo version)

eCGAD tuning, Brainjo level 2

little birdie clawhammer banjo tab

Notes on the Tab

In this arrangement, I’ve tabbed out the part I play in the banjo “solo,” as well as the vocal backup I play on the banjo while singing.

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes – to learn more about skips and syncopated skips, check out my video lesson on the subject.

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

PRIOR SONG OF THE WEEK EPISODES

  • Episode 1: “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow”
  • Episode 2: “Gumtree Canoe”
  • Episode 3: “Crawdad Hole”
  • Episode 4: “Oh Susanna”
  • Episode 5: “Freight Train”
  • Episode 6: “Grandfather’s Clock”
  • Episode 7: “Hop High Lulu”
  • Episode 8: “Been All Around This World”
  • Episode 9: “I’ll Fly Away”
  • Episode 10: “Leaving Home”
  • Episode 11: “Poor Orphan Child”
  • Episode 12: “Mr. Tambourine Man”
  • Episode 13: “Swanee River”
  • Episode 14: “Big Sciota”
  • Episode 15: “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”
  • Episode 16: “Darling Corey”
  • Episode 17: “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
  • Episode 18: “America the Beautiful”
  • Episode 19: “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
  • Episode 20: “Way Out There”
  • Episode 21: “New Slang”
  • Episode 22: “I Saw the Light”
  • Episode 23: “Amazing Grace”
  • Episode 24: “Blowin’ in the Wind”
  • Episode 25: “Yankee Doodle”
  • Episode 26: “Budapest”
  • Episode 27: “Wildwood Flower”
  • Episode 28: “Paradise”
  • Episode 29: “Mountain Dew”
  • Episode 30: “Blue Tail Fly”
  • Episode 31: “Otto Wood”
  • Episode 32: “Down on the Corner”
  • Episode 33: “City of New Orleans”
  • Episode 34: “Big Rock Candy Mountains”
  • Episode 35: “Come to the Bower”
  • Episode 36: “Old Kentucky Home”
  • Episode 37: “Long Journey Home”
  • Episode 38: “Dixie”
  • Episode 39: “Hard Times”
  • Episode 40: “Corrina Corrina”
  • Episode 41: “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”
  • Episode 42: “Johnson Boys”
  • Episode 43: “Bad Moon Rising”
  • Episode 44: “Reuben’s Train”
  • Episode 45: “Let the Mermaid’s Flirt With Me”
  • Episode 46: “Rocky Top”
  • Episode 47: “Groundhog”
  • Episode 48: “Lazy John”
  • Episode 49: “The Gambler”
  • Episode 50: “8 More Miles To Louisville”
  • Episode 51: “Who’ll Stop the Rain”
  • Episode 52: “Pretty Polly”
  • Episode 53: “You Are My Sunshine”
  • Episode 54: “Old Molly Hare”
  • Episode 55: “The Miller’s Will”
  • Episode 56: “Walking Cane”
  • Episode 57: “Feast Here Tonight”
  • Episode 58 “Let Me Fall”

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.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

brainjo larger musical mind

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Last Chance”

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


Recently I posted about the wonders of alternate tunings, and presented what I consider to be 5 compelling reasons why banjoists should explore alternate tunings, hopefully putting to rest some commonly held misconceptions about them

(RELATED: click here to read “5 Reasons Why Banjo Players Should Use Alternate Tunings“).

Yet, there’s probably nothing more persuasive than just hearing – or better yet – playing in these tunings for yourself.

And, in my opinion, there’s perhaps no better song for demonstrating what makes these tunings so special than this week’s tune, “Last Chance.”

It is played out of fDFCD tuning, which is so indelibly associated with this tune that it’s often referred to as “Last Chance tuning” (again, if you feel any resistance towards playing in a new tuning like this, then click here to read the article to be dissuaded of such notions!).

It’s a tune most commonly associated with the incredible Hobart Smith, one of my personal musical heroes, and namesake for the “Hobart” model of the Brainjo banjo line (click to listen to Hobart’s recording).

As I mention in the article, many of these iconic tunes in alternate tunings have a high awesomeness to technical difficulty quotient – meaning, they’re relatively easy to play, yet generate incredible sounds from your banjo.

(RELATED: IMO, we should pay a lot more attention to tunes in this category, ones that give you the most bang for your playing buck, and I think they should form a significant chunk of early banjo instruction. Along those lines, click here to check out “The Magic of Old Time Banjo” book of tabs, a collection of 10 iconic tunes that fit this bill).

Additionally, below you’ll also find tabs and video tutorials for two arrangements of this tune, one for the version played in the video, and one for a Brainjo level 2 arrangement. These are excerpts from the new “Magic of Old Time Banjo” supplemental module in the Breakthrough Banjo course.


(NOTE: For those considering acquiring a Brainjo banjo, the banjo played in this video is – naturally – a “Hobart” model. Click here if you’d like to learn more, or claim one in the next batch.)


 Last Chance

fDFCD tuning, Brainjo level 3

Last Chance clawhammer banjo tab

Video Tutorial

(from the “Magic of Old Time Banjo” module)

 

Last Chance

fDFCD tuning, Brainjo level 2

Last Chance clawhammer banjo tab

Video Tutorial 

(from the “Magic of Old Time Banjo” module)

 

More tunes that showcase the Magic of Old Time Banjo

 

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.

[RELATED: 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.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

 

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

 

Clawhammer Song and Tab of the Week: “Let Me Fall”

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

Sometimes a song’s lyrics are open to interpretation.

Like great poetry, a carefully crafted turn of phrase can spark moments of reflective insight, often revealing more about the listener than it does its author.

Then there are songs like this one, which is about getting drunk and falling down.

And also the need for assistance in shoe tying when ones manual dexterity has been compromised by the neuro-inhibitory influence of ethanol.

 Let Me Fall

aEAC#E tuning, Brainjo level 3

Let me fall clawhammer banjo tab part 1

 

Let me fall clawhammer banjo tab part 2

Notes on the Tab

In this arrangement, I’ve tabbed out the part I play in the banjo “solo,” as well as the vocal backup I play on the banjo while singing.

Notes in parentheses are “skip” notes – to learn more about skips and syncopated skips, check out my video lesson on the subject.

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

PRIOR SONG OF THE WEEK EPISODES

  • Episode 1: “Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow”
  • Episode 2: “Gumtree Canoe”
  • Episode 3: “Crawdad Hole”
  • Episode 4: “Oh Susanna”
  • Episode 5: “Freight Train”
  • Episode 6: “Grandfather’s Clock”
  • Episode 7: “Hop High Lulu”
  • Episode 8: “Been All Around This World”
  • Episode 9: “I’ll Fly Away”
  • Episode 10: “Leaving Home”
  • Episode 11: “Poor Orphan Child”
  • Episode 12: “Mr. Tambourine Man”
  • Episode 13: “Swanee River”
  • Episode 14: “Big Sciota”
  • Episode 15: “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms”
  • Episode 16: “Darling Corey”
  • Episode 17: “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
  • Episode 18: “America the Beautiful”
  • Episode 19: “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”
  • Episode 20: “Way Out There”
  • Episode 21: “New Slang”
  • Episode 22: “I Saw the Light”
  • Episode 23: “Amazing Grace”
  • Episode 24: “Blowin’ in the Wind”
  • Episode 25: “Yankee Doodle”
  • Episode 26: “Budapest”
  • Episode 27: “Wildwood Flower”
  • Episode 28: “Paradise”
  • Episode 29: “Mountain Dew”
  • Episode 30: “Blue Tail Fly”
  • Episode 31: “Otto Wood”
  • Episode 32: “Down on the Corner”
  • Episode 33: “City of New Orleans”
  • Episode 34: “Big Rock Candy Mountains”
  • Episode 35: “Come to the Bower”
  • Episode 36: “Old Kentucky Home”
  • Episode 37: “Long Journey Home”
  • Episode 38: “Dixie”
  • Episode 39: “Hard Times”
  • Episode 40: “Corrina Corrina”
  • Episode 41: “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”
  • Episode 42: “Johnson Boys”
  • Episode 43: “Bad Moon Rising”
  • Episode 44: “Reuben’s Train”
  • Episode 45: “Let the Mermaid’s Flirt With Me”
  • Episode 46: “Rocky Top”
  • Episode 47: “Groundhog”
  • Episode 48: “Lazy John”
  • Episode 49: “The Gambler”
  • Episode 50: “8 More Miles To Louisville”
  • Episode 51: “Who’ll Stop the Rain”
  • Episode 52: “Pretty Polly”
  • Episode 53: “You Are My Sunshine”
  • Episode 54: “Old Molly Hare”
  • Episode 55: “The Miller’s Will”
  • Episode 56: “Walking Cane”
  • Episode 57: “Feast Here Tonight”

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.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

brainjo larger musical mind

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Five Miles from Town”

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


Last week, my Georgia Jays band mate (and award-winning whiskey maker) Justin Manglitz and I traveled to the shores of the Atlantic to wrap up the recording of our 2nd album, which will be out in early Fall (click here to check out our first release, including the “Banjo Player’s Edition”).

To celebrate, we played Clyde Davenport’s classic tune “5 Miles from Town,” a preview from our now underway 3rd release, and the latest installment in the Tune of the Week series.

This has always been a favorite tune of mine, one that seems to beg to be played for long stretches.

Since it’s a bit more difficult to pick out the individual notes of the banjo in this banjo-fiddle duet, below you’ll also find a solo banjo tutorial video for those of you trying to learn it.

(Note: these tutorial videos, which present the tune being played alongside the tab at moderate and slow speeds, are a new resource I’m adding inside the Vault – click here for a list of tunes currently inside the Vault).

 

 


(NOTE: For those considering acquiring a Brainjo banjo, the banjo played in this video is a “Hobart” model. Click here if you’d like to learn more, or claim one in the next batch.)


 Five Miles from Town

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3

5 Miles from Town clawhammer banjo tab part 1

5 Miles from Town clawhammer banjo tab part 2

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.

[RELATED: 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.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

 

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

 

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “East Tennessee Blues”

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

 

This week’s tune was introduced to me by my friend and former Sedentary Rambler bandmate, Jim Sims (thanks Jim!). I’d initially worked it out as a fingerpicked arrangement, which was how I used to play it when we performed.

Why was that? Because, as you may be able to hear, rhythmically it’s a departure from what you might consider to be the prototypical clawhammer sound.

But recently I decided to try working out a down picked version (the one you hear in the video), and quite liked it.

Yet, if you listen, or especially if you play it, you’ll note that it doesn’t sound or play quite like your typical clawhammer banjo tune.

Specifically, you may note an extra little pause after some of the downbeat strikes – one that makes it “swing” a little, and not a maneuver commonly employed by clawhammerists these days.

You may also note there’s a relative lack of fifth string droning. But the fifth string is used to play some of the melody notes, providing an efficient fingering solution in those instances.

Incidentally, both of these maneuvers would’ve been familiar to downpicking banjoists in the 19th century, as they were routine elements of minstrel banjo.

So what style is it? Well, it isn’t Round Peak. Is it “melodic” banjo? Is it a “minstrel” banjo tune?

Who knows? Who cares!

It doesn’t fit neatly into any rigid stylistic classification system, which is precisely the point (though it would serve as a good entry tune for those wanting to dig into the world of minstrel banjo – it’s even in “minstrel” tuning!).

Turns out the same is true of the fingerstyle version as well, which you can hear below:

 

Neither the down or up-picked versions here fit neatly into a single “style” description.

And that’s because both of these arrangements were created by starting with the sound, or the end result I wanted to achieve, and then working backwards to figure out how to use the techniques of either clawhammer or fingerstyle banjo to get that sound.

In either case, had I constrained myself to a particular “style” of picking from the start, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the result I wanted. In fact, I might’ve never tried to play this tune in the first place.

This is another example of how these boundaries that exist in our imagination (i.e. banjo “styles”) can impose unnecessary limits if they make their way into the learning process, and another great illustration of why it’s so important not to conflate the two, not to confuse technique – the motor and cognitive skills needed for banjo playing – with the style in which a particular tune is played (a reflection of a consistent way in which the techniques are assembled to achieve a particular aesthetic).

Start with the sound, the end in mind, then work out the details. And let others worry about how to label it!

(RELATED: If you want to learn more about the hazards of confusing style and technique, click here to read “Banjo Essentials: How To Pick the Banjo in any Style“ at fingerstylebanjo.com)

 


(NOTE: For those considering acquiring a Brainjo banjo, the banjo played in this video is a “Hobart” model. Click here if you’d like to learn more, or claim one in the next batch.)


 East Tennesse Blues

gCGBD tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

east tennessee blues clawhammer banjo tab part 1

east tennessee blues clawhammer banjo tab part 2

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.

[RELATED: 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.

Click here for a current list of all the clawhammer songs and tunes currently available inside of The Vault

 

Learn More About Breakthrough Banjo

 

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

View the Brainjo Course Catalog

 

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • …
  • 40
  • Next Page »

Copyright 2024 - Brainjo LLC, Owner of clawhammerbanjo.net   Privacy Policy - Terms of Purchase - Terms & Conditions