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 Tune and Tab of the Week: “Kitchen Girl”

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.


Despite popular culture’s attempts to pigeonhole it, I think the banjo is one of the most versatile instruments around. With the number of playing styles, tunings, setup possibilities, etc. you’d be hard pressed to find an instrument capable of a fitting in so well with such a variety of styles and moods.

This week’s tune, played out of the “A modal” tuning (aEADE, or gDGCD (“G modal) with a capo at the 2nd fret)) provides us with another opportunity to showcase that versatility. Raise one string from standard A tuning – a tuning that’s very well suited for bringing out the bright and joyful qualities of the banjo – and you’re instantly transported into a completely different world. A world where the sounds are ancient, mysterious, and brooding.

According to my research, Kitchen Girl was first “collected” by folklorist Alan Jabbour from fiddler Henry Reed of Galax, Virginia. It was then recorded by Jabbour’s “Hollow Rock String Band”, and it seems the rest was history. Many others followed suit, and it made its way into jam circles in short order.

It’s also one of those tunes that sounds great a variety of tempos, and with enough melodic breathing room to allow all those modal banjo tones to waft into the sonic ether.

In other words, no real need to get too speedy or fancy! 🙂

(p.s. – thanks to all for the kind words about last week’s tune with my daughter Jules. As you can imagine, getting to perform with her is a unique thrill for me, and I can’t express enough how much your words of encouragement and appreciation to her means to me.)

Kitchen Girl

aEADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Kitchen Girl clawhammer banjo tab

The notes in parentheses are “skip notes”, meaning they aren’t sounded by the picking finger (for a full tutorial on these, go here). And for more on reading tabs in general, check out my complete guide on reading banjo tabs.

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

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Big Liza Jane”

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.


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

Big Liza tab

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

About the Author
Josh 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:

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

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:

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

 

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: “New Five Cent Piece”

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.
 


New Five Cent Piece.

I think there are a couple of plausible theories regarding the naming origin story for this week’s tune (and if anyone knows the actual answer, please share!).

One is that it refers to the introduction of the first nickel containing five cent piece in 1866. Up until this point, coins of this denomination were comprised of silver, so the ones with nickel were the “new” five cent pieces.

The other, which may be my own pet theory, is that it is intended to evoke the thought of a person who’s just come into a bit of money and feeling pretty good about themselves. The tune has a natural swing to it, and I always imagine someone walking down the street with an extra bounce in his or her step, presumably thanks to the newfound wealth tucked safely away in their pant pocket.

Regardless, it’s loads of fun to play, and guaranteed to put you in a cheerful mood.

New Five Cent Piece

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

New 5 cent 1

New 5 cent piece 2

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

Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Rockingham Cindy”

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.


As a banjo player, there are few things in life that can compare with sharing a tune with a fiddler.

Especially when it’s a tune you really, really like with a fiddler who’s really, really good.

Earlier this week, I headed about 60 miles east to visit my friend and fellow Georgian, Justin Manglitz. I’d coaxed Justin into lending his bowing services for a lesson on playing with a fiddler I’m working on for the Breakthrough Banjo course (okay, so maybe it was just a thinly veiled attempt to let me invade his home to share a few tunes).

Fortunately, we like a lot of the same tunes, including this week’s tune of the week installment: “Rockingham Cindy”. It has a disarmingly gorgeous melody, like so many others in the Round Peak tradition.

And yes, it’s a little bit crooked, too, which is probably why it’s often displaced in jams by its more well known cousin, “Cindy.”

But don’t let that stop you. It’s well worth wrapping your brain around the crookedness to get this one under your fingers.

Rockingham Cindy

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3

Rockingham Cindy tab

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

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • …
  • 40
  • Next Page »

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