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Clawhammer Tune of the Week: “Nashville 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

I’ve talked before that the division between bluegrass and old time music is more an artifact of history than a clear categorical distinction.

You could say that bluegrass was really just an effort to package traditional southern folk music in a format that optimized the listening experience.

And today’s tune, “written” by Earl Scruggs, is a nice example of that sort of packaging, in this case for a traditional solo banjo tune.

Some of you may hear a resemblance between it and “Sugar Baby/Red Rocking Chair,” and my hunch is that’s not a coincidence. The melodic similarities and “alternate” banjo tuning sure feels like Earl is giving a nod to his banjo roots, with some harmonic and structural modifications to fit the evolving bluegrass sensibility (interesting as well to speculate on his decision to name it after the capital of commercial country music).

Speaking of the alternate tuning, don’t let that deter you. I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised at how nice it sounds, and how easily this tune slips under the fingers.

 


(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.


 “NASHVILLE BLUES”

aDFAD tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Nashville Blues clawhammer banjo tab part 1

Nashville Blues clawhammer banjo tab part 2

 

(NOTE: The Tab-Walkthrough Workshop for this tune will be held on June 18. Click here to learn more about and view a sample of the tab walk-through videos. Click here to learn more, and see the full schedule.)

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: “Wreck of the Number Nine”

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


With today’s installment of the Song of the Week, we have yet another example of a song with an upbeat tempo and major key set against lyrics that tell of a tragic tale.

This juxtaposition of a mood elevating setting put to heartbreaking words isn’t something you hear much in modern music.

And yet, it doesn’t seem to dull the emotional impact. If anything, it may even heighten it, as I find it a struggle to make it through a full rendition of “Wreck of the Number Nine,” a song about an engineer’s romance cut short by a train accident, without my voice cracking a bit.

 

On a completely unrelated note, while it seems to me a coincidence that the only two songs in this Song of the Week series with the number nine in their title have occurred on consecutive weeks, something tells me that’s probably not the case. Such is the nature of the subconscious.

(NOTE: I’ll be teaching a Playing & Singing Tutorial for this song for Breakthrough Banjo on June 25. Click here for the schedule of upcoming workshops.)

“WRECK OF THE NUMBER NINE”

gCGCD tuning, Brainjo level 3

Wreck of the number nine clawhammer banjo tab part 1

 

 

 

 

 

Wreck of the number nine clawhammer banjo tab part 2Notes 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”
  • Episode 59: “Little Birdie”
  • Episode 60: “Train on the Island”
  • Episode 61: “Handsome Molly”
  • Episode 62: “Willie Moore”
  • Episode 63: “Tom Cat Blues”
  • Episode 64: “Big Eyed Rabbit”
  • Episode 65: “Jimmy Sutton”
  • Episode 66: “What Does the Deep Sea Say?”
  • Episode 67: “Shortnin’ Bread”
  • Episode 68: “Worried Man Blues”
  • Episode 69: “Who Broke the Lock?”
  • Episode 70: “Mole in the Ground”
  • Episode 71: “Fireball Mail”
  • Episode 72: “Nine Pound Hammer”

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: “Briarpicker Brown”

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

“Most people down here just like to hear the bluegrass and stuff like that now, but I like the old-timey tunes because it seems like they got a lonesomer sound.”

– Buddy Thomas 

This week’s tune entered the old time canon by way of fiddler Buddy Thomas. According to his story, a man with a “chin that looked like a briar” came through town playing this tune on his fiddle. 

While the history of this tune is simple and straightforward, Thomas’s is anything but.

Born in Kentucky in abject poverty (“so poor that even the poor folks said we were poor”), sick for most of his childhood with limited medical care, and passing away far too soon at the age of 39, his story is equal parts heartbreak and inspiration.

Heartbreaking on account of hardships no one should have to endure.

Inspiring in that, in spite of those unforgiving conditions, he not only felt compelled to make music, but to master the fiddle as well (you can hear his virtuosity for yourself on his solo album, “Kitty Puss.”).

Rather than me telling you more of his story, I highly recommend reading this short autobiographical piece. You’ll get a much richer account with Buddy’s own words.

I think there’s something we can all learn from his story.

I know from personal experience there are times when I feel less like making music.

I also know that those are the times where I most need to make it.


(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.


 “BRIARPICKER BROWN”

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Briarpicker Brown clawhammer banjo tab

 

(NOTE: The Tab-Walkthrough Workshop for this tune will be held on June 18. Click here to learn more about and view a sample of the tab walk-through videos. Click here to learn more, and see the full schedule.)

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: “Nine Pound Hammer”

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

What’s the purpose of music?

Entertainment? That’s probably the word that comes to mind for most in these times. Music is big business.

But throughout the course of human history, music has been so much more than that. In fact, given the overwhelming evidence that we’re all wired to make music, it’s likely been critical to our success as a species.

We use it to connect with each other, share values, tell stories, spread news, coordinate behaviors – essential functions for the most social animals on planet earth.

We also use music to ease suffering.

For instance, put a group of humans together to perform monotonous, repetitive, exhausting work, and before long they’ll be chanting chants and singing songs. A little something to distract the mind, share the struggle, and soothe the soul.

In the post war South, prisoners, usually African Americans, were often placed in such conditions, in the forced labor gangs working in mines, railroad camps, brickyards, turpentine farms – basically, if the work was tedious and tiresome, it was just right for the chain gang.

From that sprang a rich well of work songs, some of which were thankfully captured for posterity, working their way into the folk song catalog (check out this amazing recording from the Alan Lomax archives of prisoners in the Mississippi Penitentiary singing the song “Rosie”)

Today’s song, “Nine Pound Hammer,” was originally titled “Take This Hammer,” and was part of a collection of “hammer songs.”

Scores of verses have likely been sung to its melody. Some have been preserved, probably more have evaporated into the ether.

But the gist usually endures – the song’s protagonist has announced his bold decision to defy his captain’s authority and quit the gang, a fantasy likely shared by all who used to sing it. References to the most world’s most famous hammer-wielding folk hero, John Henry, are often included.

(NOTE: I’ll be teaching a Playing & Singing Tutorial for this song for Breakthrough Banjo on June 11. Click here for the schedule of upcoming workshops.)

 

NINE POUND HAMMER

gDGBD tuning (dADF#A on the gourd banjo), Brainjo level 3

Nine Pound Hammer clawhammer banjo tab part 1

Nine Pound Hammer 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”
  • Episode 58 “Let Me Fall”
  • Episode 59: “Little Birdie”
  • Episode 60: “Train on the Island”
  • Episode 61: “Handsome Molly”
  • Episode 62: “Willie Moore”
  • Episode 63: “Tom Cat Blues”
  • Episode 64: “Big Eyed Rabbit”
  • Episode 65: “Jimmy Sutton”
  • Episode 66: “What Does the Deep Sea Say?”
  • Episode 67: “Shortnin’ Bread”
  • Episode 68: “Worried Man Blues”
  • Episode 69: “Who Broke the Lock?”
  • Episode 70: “Mole in the Ground”
  • Episode 71: “Fireball Mail”

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: “Indian Ate A Woodchuck”

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

“Groundhogs are not only edible, they’re tender and delicious if properly cleaned and prepared. They live on a completely vegetarian diet, and carry no life threatening diseases for humans. Groundhogs are similar to rabbit in taste, and most recipes for groundhog have you prepare them in the same manner.”

The above quote is taken from an article on “How To Clean And Skin A Groundhog” on the website Practical Self Reliance.

It’s regrettable that most modern day fans of old time music haven’t tasted the full array of small-to-medium sized members of the rodentia family that so many of our beloved tunes pay homage to.

And by the sound of the aforementioned description, it seems we’re missing out (in fact, we’ve already sung its praises in a prior Song of the Week).

Well, our protagonists in today’s Tune of the Week installment didn’t miss out. Why the event was deemed significant enough to be memorialized in song we may never know, as the story of the title’s origins appears to have died with its creator. 

Fortunately, the tune itself has endured! In fact, it has endured in more than one form.

(REMINDER: You can now listen to the Tune of the Week tunes on the go, on your smartphone, on the Clawhammer Banjo Jam podcast. Click here to learn how to subscribe – it’s free!)

There’s a two part version in the key of C, which traces its roots to Kentucky. 

And there’s a three part version in the key of D, which traces its origins to fiddler Ed Haley of West Virginia, and is the rendition you hear today.


(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 (there’s still a spot left in the batch shipping June 2019!)


 “Indian Ate A Woodchuck”

aDADE tuning, Brainjo level 3-4

Indian Ate A Woodchuck, clawhammer banjo tab part 1

 

 

 

Indian Ate A Woodchuck, clawhammer banjo tab part 2

 

 

 

 

(NOTE: The Tab-Walkthrough Workshop for this tune will be held on May 27. Click here to learn more about and view a sample of the tab walk-through videos. Click here to learn more, and see the full schedule.)

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

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