BANJO LESSONS
Don Borchelt
ERIC ZABLOWSKY
| Notes: Review overall right hand timing, and left hand fingering with Cripple Creek and Fireball Mail. Play along with the MIDI. Introduce up the neck left hand positions with Fireball Mail. Both of the Scruggs recordings are from the classic Foggy Mountain Banjo album, recorded on Columbia- now out of print, the CD now goes used for about $100. The F&S Fireball Mail MP3 is also provided at 1/2 speed, in case you want to try playing along with the recording. |
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| Notes: Soldier's Joy introduces playing in C tuning, and demonstrates the similarity of C tuning left hand positions with left hand up the neck patterns in G tuning. The Soldiers Joy MP3 is the classic clawhammer/bluegrass banjo duet recorded by Ear Scruggs and John McEuen on the groundbreaking Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. The second MP3 is a recording I made of an outdoor jam session I participated in at the Clifftop Appalachian Music Festival last summer. My banjo wasn't 100% in tune, and there is a lot of background noise, but it still puts across the tune pretty well. This week we will begin working on bringing more discipline to the right hand timing. The right hand exercise starts with the basic pinch, and the alternate thumb pattern. It follows the tune progression for Bile Them Cabbage Down, so you get practice making chord changes. Again, play along with the MIDI and practice going between lead and back-up. Slow the MIDI down to whatever tempo feels completely comfortable, 40 bpm is fine. Increase the tempo very gradually. | |
| Notes: Will the Circle Be Unbroken provides instruction in both lead and back-up. The lead is another exercise in using the forward roll to play song melody. The back up is built on the G closed chord formation at the 5th fret, which I've noticed you have down very comfortably. It is designed to introduce some of the basic right hand rhythm patterns typically used with closed chords. Listen to the MIDI carefully to get the timing right. The right hand exercise, still built on Bile Them Cabbage Down, gives you a chance to practice the forward roll without having to think much about the left hand. Remember to start slow with the MIDI playback, around 60bpm, and gradually increase your tempo as you feel comfortable. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band YouTube video of Will the Circle features Johnny Cash, Roy Acuff, Earl and Randy Scruggs, and Ricky Skaggs, among others; these group sing-alongs can be a bit much, but Earl and his son Randy split a fine break at 1:35. | |
| Notes: This week's lesson features the tune from Sandy's jam, Big Eyed Rabbit; the arrangement uses both the alternating thumb (TITM) and forward roll pattens you've been working on, including my "pseudo-clawhammer lick," which is just the alternating thumb pattern without the index finger. This version is based mostly on Kurt Sutphin's fiddle version from his CD Old Roots and New Branches, which sounds to me to be very close to what John and Kathy play at Sandy's. A classic performance of this tune comes from Round Peak pioneer pickers Fred Cockerham and Kyle Creed, from the groundbreaking County compilation record Clawhammer Banjo, first recorded in the early 70s, which also featured Wade Ward on some cuts. I've also included a nice clawhammer version posted on the banjo hangout by BHO member David Allen, and a version by the old time band The Wolfe Brothers, from their CD Old Virginia Hills. This last recording is the only one with singing. | |
| Notes: Banks of the Ohio is a classic old time murder ballad, with a break which gives another opportunity to learn the use of the forward roll to render melody. In the back up, the closed chord back up is explored further. The first example is a Youtube video of Doc Watson and Bill Monroe singing Banks of the Ohio in duet. The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover were a bluegrass act that performed for years at the old Hillbilly Ranch in Boston's Combat Zone; this version of Banks is from a reissue CD The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover: Bluegrass at the Roots, 1961. The third version is features Ear Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs, and Doc Watson (again), from their concert CD Three Pickers. | |
| Notes: This week, we will take a little digression and learn a melodic style break for Soldier's Joy, which has been addd as a second break to the basic C tuning tab. The chart shows the left hand fingering used in this new version. I have added a link to BHO member Jim Reed's MP3 recording of Soldier's Joy. Jim is a coal miner from Eastern Kentucky, and a very creative three finger picker. | |
| Notes: This lesson introduces the reverse roll, which has two basic forms, TIMTMITM and TITIMITM. Of course, both forms have variations. Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms prominently features the reverse roll; it is based upon Earl Scruggs classic break on the early Flatt & Scruggs recordings made for Mercury Records in the early fifties, which many believe are the finest bluegrass recordings ever made. These are now avaliable on CD and for download as The Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys, from Amazon MP3. The second version is a video posted on YouTube of the father of bluegrass music from 1988. The banjo player is most likely Blake Williams. The third version is a YouTube video of Lester Flatt, who continued with what was left of the Foggy Mountain Boys as the Nashville Grass after Earl left around 1972. The new banjo player is Haskell McCormick. The fourth version is a recording of the great Larry McNeely and friends from 1978, also posted on YouTube, jacking the speed even more, if that is possible, and adding a litle melodic as a tag, to spice things up. Note that all the bano pickers stay pretty close to the classic Scruggs break. | |
| Note: Old Joe Clark is another old-time fiddle tune that is also a bluegrass standard. This arrangement is in open G, but with the capo on the second fret, in order to be in the normal fiddle key of A. This uses the MIMT and ITIT patterns known as the Dillard Roll, becuase it was introduced and popularized among bluegrass pickers by banjo legend Doug Dillard. This also introdices some melodic phrasing in interspersed within the conventional Scruggs rolls, and at least in the low part these phrases are intended to be interchangable with the Scruggs licks. The first recorded version is from bluegrass banjo master Tom Adams, from his CD Right Hand Man, available for download from Amazon MP3. The second version is one of the old-timey three-finger/clawhammer duets between myself and Ed Britt. The third version is one posted by by HO member Jim Reed. Jim's playing is filled with little surprises. Note how instead of getting the first note of the third measure (measure 5 in the tab) on the open string, the way virtually everyone else does, he slides from 2 to 4 on the third string. Simple, but I didn't think of it. The last is a great clawhammer rendition from BHO member Arnie Naiman, from Ontario. It is from his CD Five Strings Attached Vol. 2, available from CD Baby. This album is the second recorded in collaboration with Chris Coole, another first rate Canadian clawhammer player. Volume 1 is one of the few CDs I've bought in the last 10 years. | |
| Notes: This week's lesson focuses on Foggy Mountain Breakdown, Scruggs' famous instrumental used as the theme of the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. The Tabledit tab is based on the Flatt & Scruggs 1968 Columbia recording, which has been reissued on their CD 16 Biggest Hits. Some folks prefer the original F&S 1951 Mercury recording, available on The Complete Mercury Sessions: Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs & The Foggy Mountain Boys, from Amazon MP3. I've included both for comparison. You can also see Earl and Steve Martin picking the tune on YouTube; the guitar picker is Earl's son Randy. I have also added an updated Tabledit file for Banks of the Ohio, in order to introduce a new one measure back up lick, based upon the closed position G chord form. |
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| Notes: The tune this week is Cherokee Shuffle, legendary country fiddler Tommy Jackson's reworking of the old fiddle standard Lost Indian. The tablature is from the version by melodic pioneer Bill Keith, taken from his album entitled Beating Around the Bush. I suspect that Keith is also playing pedal steel on this cut. The second recorded version is from BHO member Steve Cooley. The third is from Fiddle Hangout member Heather Twigg; the banjo picker in her outfit is Andy Reiser. The first YouTube video is a jam featuring Andy Falco, Tony Watt, and Noam Pikelny. Pikelny is one of the hot young pickers around today. The last version is a YouTube video of bluegrass fiddler Aubrey Hainey. The banjo picker is Barry Palmer. | |
| Notes: This is going to be the first lesson to concentrate on honing back up skills. There are two Tabledit exercises demonstrating two fill-in licks based upon the first closed G position. The tabs for Banks of the Ohio and Will the Circle be Unbroken have been revised to incorporate space for a vocal verse and chorus between banjo breaks. Both also incorporate the new back up licks, first learned in the exercises. | |
LESSON
12 |
Notes: Earl Scruggs' setting for John Henry is the first tune which will be using open D tuning. One of the cuts from the classic Foggy Mountain Banjo, this tune is a great exercise in developing an educated choke, or string bend. Pay close attention to the notes attached to the tab; the notes are found in the drop down menu accessed from the toolbar- in TefView; this is Score/Notes. The second example features Snuffy Jenkins, a pre-bluegrass three finger picker who heavily influenced Scruggs' own picking. This is from the classic Folkways album American Banjo- Three Finger and Scruggs Style, featuring field recordings made by Mike Seeger in 1958. The second version is from the Stanley Brothers, a live recording reissued on the CD An Evening Long Ago: Live 1956. Ralph later recorded this after Carter died, in Clawhammer style. The Fiddlin' John Carson recording dates is one of the earliest country music recordings, and probably the first audio recording ever made of the song. It comes from the Document reissue Fiddlin' John Carson Vol. 1 1923 - 1924. Another classic old-timey version comes from the picking of Round Peak pioneers Fred Cockerham and Wade Ward, from the pioneering County CD Clawhammer Banjo, first recorded in the early 70s. The Watson Family recording features Doc on banjo, and is from the Smithsonian CD Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, 1960-1962. There are two YouTube videos worth looking at; the first is a video of the great Mississippi Fred McDowell, playing bottleneck blues in an open E tuning. The other is from harmonica legend DeFord Bailey, who performed on the Grand Old Opry during the late 30's and 40s. This is an audio recording which is accompanied by a photo montage of Bailey, as a young performer, and later in life. |
| Notes: I have put up the tab for Foggy Mountain Top in order to introduce a new vocal for our back-up practice. This is Earl's break from the Flatt & Scruggs recording, found on their Columbia Record Songs Of The Famous Carter Family. The original Carter Family recording from around 1928 has been reissued by JSP Records, on The Carter Family 1927-1934, Disk B. The entire CD has also been posted has been posted for listening on Myspace. They yodel on this recording. Flatt & Scruggs reprise the recording on their TV show, which has been posted on Youtube. As on the record, Mother Maybelle Carter appears on the TV show, but isn't allowed to sing. Strange. Maybe she wanted to yodel. There is a nice video of Maybelle performing the number with her sister and neices, and they leave the yodel to the end. The last video is from the live tour of the Three Pickers (Ricky Scaggs, Doc Watson, and Earl Scruggs), and there ain't nobody yodeling on this one! | |
| Notes: This week we are going to focus one of the signature tunes of bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin, and the Sunny Mountain Boys. This can be found on a reissue called King of Bluegrass, a compilation of Martin's classic Decca recordings, put out by the Country Music Hall of Fame. This MP3 recording features the young J.D. Crowe on banjo. In addition to learning Crowe's signature break, we will also work on the roll-based back-up Crowe used behind the mandolin. Some years later, the Osborne Brothers included the tune in their repertoire; Sonny had spent some time in the Sunny Mountain Boys, and considerably spiced up J. D.'s classic break, keeping some of the basic phrasing, but adding a lot of his own ideas. This recording is from a live performance in 1989, found on a Pinecastle CD, Live in Germany. A tab of one of Osborne's breaks can be found on Jack Baker's Fretted Instruments School of Guitar and Banjo website. There are two good YouTube videos worth watching. The first is a live performance by Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top X-Press, at the Joe Val Festival last February. Sonny, now unable because of ill-health to play, has been replaced by bano picker Dana Cupp. The second video is a performance of the North Georgia bluegrass group Mountain Heart. The banjo player is Barry Abernathy, who manages a very accomplished sound despite having no fingers on his left hand! | |
| LESSON 15 |
Notes: This week we are going to work with a traditional tuning used a lot by clawhammer pickers for modal tunes in G and A. It's called Sawmill tuning, or Mountain Minor, and it it basically open G tuning with the 2nd string tunes up to C (gDGCD). The tune is Greasy Coat, generally fiddled in the key of A, so the banjo is capoed on the 2nd fret. The first MP3 is from a Smithsonian/Folkwasy CD by the trio of Andy Cahan, Laura Fishleder, and Lisa Ornstein first recorded in 1978, called Ship in the Clouds. The second MP3 version features fiddler Bruce Molsky, from his 2000 Rounder Records CD Poor Man's Troubles. BHO member Jane Rothfield is playing the fiddle in the third MP3 with her band Red Hen. The banjo picker is Dave Kiphuth, who appears to be playing in clawhammer style here, but he is also known as a very accomplished three-finger picker. This has the best singing! BHO member Steve Arkin was a well established bluegrass picker who left it all behind to play old-time music clawhammer style. His MP3 features his band Troublesome Creek. BHO member Eric Schoeder has his own website with a huge number of clawhammer MP3s of most of the common old-time fiddle tunes. This MP3 features Eric playing both regular and cello five-string banjos. BHO member Ed Bennett, who is only 14 years old, has a very nice solo clawhammer version. The recording by Stacey Phillips playing the tune on dobro, from his album From the Inside, features a back-up band that includes bluegrass legend Tony Trishka. the last is my MP3, with my pal Ed Britt playing clawhammer. I am using a slightly different tuning, with the 2nd string lowered to A (gDGAD). The YouTube video is of a Portland, Oregon band called the Water Tower String Band. The banjo picker is Cory Goldman, who is playing three-finger style in this recording. |
LESSON
16 (12/29/09) Cumberland Gap TEF Cumberland Gap MP3 (Scruggs) Cumberland Gap MP3 (Jenkins) Cumberland Gap MP3 (Smith) Cumberland Gap MP3 (Ward) Cumberland Gap MP3 (Boggs) Cumberland Gap MP3 (NLCR) Cumberland Gap MP3 (Adams) Cumberland Gap in D MP3 (Burhans) Cumberland Gap in D MP3 (Arnold) Cumberland Gap in D TEF |
Notes: It's back to Earl Scruggs, with a look at his classic recording of Cumberland Gap, from the Foggy Mountain Banjo album. Scruggs does something odd here; the first time through he plays the parts in a strange aaabbaaa order. The fiddle break transitions by playing aaabbaa, and thereafter they play aabbaa. When playing in a jam, you will have to pay close attention to what everyone else is doing. Like a lot of the other old fiddle tunes that Scruggs plays, he seems to be heavily influenced by the playing of other western North Carolina three finger pickers, notably Snuffy Jenkins, whose cut is from the classic Folkways album American Banjo- Three Finger and Scruggs Style. There are many old-time versions of Cumberland Gap, most are similar in the A or "course" part, but vary greatly in the B, or "fine" part. Jenkins and other musicians of his day were greatly influenced by the fiddling of Arthur Smith, who is probably the source for the version that both Jenkins and Scruggs are playing. This performance is by the trio of Arthur Smith and the McGee Brothers, Sam and Kirk, who went by the name of the Dixie Dewdrops. They were early Grand Ol' Opry stars who often served as Uncle Dave Macon's back-up band. Smith was a very influential fiddler in his day. This recording is from a Folkways album entitled The McGee Brothers and Arthur Smith: Old Timers of the Grand Old Opry. The next three MP3s are classic old time recordings. The first is from Wade Ward, the pioneer Round Peak fiddler and banjo picker, from a Folkways album The Music of Roscoe Holcomb & Wade Ward, first recorded in 1962 at the beginning of the folk revival. The second is the legendary Dock Boggs, an old time three finger picker whose singing influenced Ralph Stanley and other early bluegrass pioneers, from a Smithsonian Folkways CD, Dock Boggs, Vol. 3. The third is from the New Lost City Ramblers, the trio of Mike Seeger, Tracey Scwartz, and Tom Paley, who single handedly started the old-time music revival in the 60s. This is from a Smithsonian Folkways CD, There Ain't No Way Out. The next MP3 is a fine modern bluegrass rendition based on Scruggs, by Tom Adams, from a Rounder CD called Right Hand Man. Over the last few years, I have heard a neat old time version of Cumberland Gap in the key of D at a lot of old time jams, inluding Sandy's. This is a three-part version, though the B part is only played once, and serves more like a bridge. The last two MP3s are from BHO members Hilarie Burhans and Chip Arnold. Chip is playing in his fine two-finger up picking style that he learned from banjo legend Will Keys. I have posted a link to my arrangement in Open D tuning. |
| Notes: The lesson this week will be our introduction to the picking of bluegrass legend Don Reno. Dixie Breakdown is one of Reno's signature instrumentals, and highlights his use of closed chord positions in his lead playing. The recording is from a live radio broadcast from the late '50s, reissued on a Copper Creek CD. The CD is also available for MP3 dowload from Amazon.com. The recording of Little Roy Lewis and The Lewis Family Band is from their 1996 album Handmade Harmony. The Mark O'Connor cut is from his 1998 Rounder Records CD Retrospective, and features O'Connor on guitar, with guests Tony Rice and Dan Crary. You can view a YouTube lesson from Don Wayne Reno's Homespun Video, Bluegrass Banjo Don Reno Style. As he says on the video, his father never played anything the same way twice. The second YouTube video is a solo performance by Italian guitar impresario Beppe Gambetta, doing some awesome flatpicking. | |
| Notes: I have added another closed-position lick to your back up vocabulary. This is the standard guitar "G run" translated to banjo, using Reno "single string" technique, where the alternate use of the thumb and index finger imitates the up and down motion of a guitar flat pick. The tab for Will the Circle be Unbroken has been revised to incorporate the new back up lick. | |
| LESSON
19 |
Notes: This week's lesson continues with the technique of banjo pioneer Don Reno, and explores more of his close chord lead playing. This is in open G tuning, but in the key of C, and it is going to take a lot of work! The Reno and Smiley recording was on the flip side of their 1957 King Records hit single, I Know Your Married But I Love You Still, and was re-released on an album in 1958 called Instrumentals and Ballads. The Roy Clark version is from a banjo duet album he recorded in 1994 with Buck Trent, called Banjo Bandits. Trent introduced the electric five string banjo while playing with country star Porter Wagoner, who gave Dolly parton her first gig. Just for comparison, I've also linked to a YouTube video of Chico Mark playing the tune, in a clip from A Night in Casablanca. Also, the Grateful Dead snippet comes form a live concert in Lincoln Nebraska in 1973. Jerry Garcia was a big Don Reno fan. |
| LESSON
20 (4/5/10) Back Up Exercise 11a Back Up Exercise 11b Back Up Exercise 11c Back Up Exercise 11d Banks of the Ohio |
Notes: This is another "back-up" lesson, which like the lick learned in Lesson 15 jumps from the closed G chord anchored at the 5th fret to the G closed chord position at the 9th fret. This also uses the Reno "single string" TITI right hand technique. The actual notes you are playing are very close to the notes in the lick learned in Back Up Exercise 7, but obtained in a different chord form. Exercise 11a demonstrates the basic lick, with the G chord only. Exercise 11b stays with the G chord, but adds a simple descending run built off of the chord. Exercise 11c puts the two variations together, still with just the G chord. Exercise 11d adds goes through the combined patterns through the entire G,C &D chord progression. Banks of the Ohio is used to show how the pattern works within a tune back up. |
LESSON
21 ***** Old Yeller Dog TEF |
Notes: This week we are going to learn two of the tunes that were played at Sandy's last week, both out of open G tuning. Many of the southern appalacian fiddle tunes were originally songs, and so they can often be played in a straight Scruggs style, with very little melodic style phrasing. This is true of the two here, Sourwood Mountain, and Old Yeller Dog Comes Trottin' Through the Meeting House. It seems counterintuitive, but when playing old-time music in three finger style, I think the more rolls the better. Rhythm is as important as melody in an old time jam. I kept both arrangements relatively simple, so that you can reach the tempo they play them at Sandy's with relative ease. The version of Sourwood Mountain that is played at Sandy's almost every week is melodically structured a little different from the usual version, and comes from the Round Peak repertoire. I've included an MP3 from two Round Peak legends- Tommy Jarrell on fiddle, from his County CD, The Legacy Of Tommy Jarrell, Volume 4: Pickin' On Tommy's Porch, and Wade Ward on clawhammer banjo, from the Folkways CD, The Music of Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward. The Old Yeller Dog is obviously a fiddle tune version of The Old Gray Mare (She Ain't What She Used To Be). A lot of people learned the tune from Tennessee fiddler Charlie Acuff. The Acuff MP3 comes from the website of the Old Town School of Folk Music, in Chicago. The banjo player backing him up is the late John Hartford. YouTube video of Acuff is with banjo player and storyteller David Holt. The version by fiddler Rayna Gellert is a little unusual in that she is playing it in the key of F, with the fiddle cross tuned FCFC. This is from her CD Ways of the World, on the Yodel-Ay-Hee label. I've also included a version from Banjo and Fiddle Hangout member Jeff Long, from Jackson, Tennessee, who has been doing a number of long range collaborations with BHO members, including Ed and I. |
| LESSON
22 (6/1/10) Back Up Exercise 12a Back Up Exercise 12b Will the Circle Be Unbroken |
Notes: This is another "back-up" lesson, using the closed position fingering that Scruggs uses at the 12th fret for lead playing. This requires jumping from the left hand index finger anchoring on the first string, for the closed chord positions, back to having the middle finger act temporarily as the anchor. Like much close position back-up, this works better for slow and medium tempo songs. |
LESSON
23 |
Notes: This week we are going to add another song to the repertoire in order to practice moving between lead and back-up. Lester and Ear's rendition of the Vernon Dalhart classic train wreck song actually comes from a clip take from an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies, that can be found on YouTube. It's still a classic Earl break! Dalhart's original version from a 1924 Victor recording has also been posted on YouTube. The Johnny Cash version is from a 1957 Sun record, with Luther Perkins on lead guitar. Wrapping it up is bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman, also posted on YouTube. I have also added the TEF file of the "normal" Sourwood Mountain. |
LESSON
24 |
Notes: The lesson this week features bluegrass banjo legend Sonny Osborne, and Rocky Top, the song most associated with the Osborne Brothers, the band he led for many years with his brother Bobby. This provides a good opportunity to learn and practice a song, both lead and back-up, which goes beyond the usual three chords. The MP3 file is the original recording from 1967. It has been reissued many times, and can be found reissued on a lot of compilation albums, including on which is just the Osborne Brothers, called Country Bluegrass. The YouTube video is a more recent performance, probably from the late 80s or early 90s. I have also included a link to Sonny teaching the break himself, in a clip from his Homespun instructional DVD, called The Bluegrass Banjo of Sonny Osborne. This song is so closely associated with the Osbornes that it hasn't been covered by very many bands. There was an interesting performance on YouTube from finger-style country guitar legend Chet Atkins, with Paul Yandell, who was a protege of Atkins, and another great Nashville guitar finger picker, Jerry Reed. |
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Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 by Donald J. Borchelt
All rights reserved.