For the last installment of the week, things got a bit rough and rowdy with everyone’s favorite rags to riches ode to the mountain man: “The Ballad of Jed.”
So, to help restore order and balance to the universe, we’ll be taking it nice and easy this week with the tune “Waterbound” (also known as “Stay All Night”).
Not that you can’t get rowdy with this tune – it’s often played uptempo at a pace for dancer driving, but, as I hope you’ll find, it also sounds quite good slowed down a bit. Which makes it a little easier for adding your voice to the mix, too.
My favorite version of this Round Peak classic comes from one of my favorite albums of all time, the Paul Brown and Mike Seeger collaboration “Way Down in North Carolina.”
For this version, I’ve taken it down from it’s usual key of A setting to the more vocal-friendly key of G (so just capo 2 if it comes up in a jam, as your fiddlin’ friends will be playing it in A).
In the arrangement below, I’ve tried to include several of the variations I play in the video in both the A and B parts.
Waterbound
gDGBD tuning, Brainjo level 3
Notes on the tab: I tried to include the variations I play on the A and B part in the tab above.
Notes in the shaded box are to be played as “skip notes”. Check out this video for a detailed explanation (with exercises) on skip notes and “syncopated skips.”