For the latest installment of my album of original fiddle tunes (more on that here), I've chosen to record Track 9, which was originally unnamed, but which now has been crowned "In a Jiffy" (explanation of the name in a bit). Here you go:
"In a Jiffy" - an original fiddle tune by Jeff Norman (me). Played twice through by me on my Buckeye tuned to aDADE; guitar accompaniment the second time through using a 12-fret Epiphone Masterbilt in standard guitar tuning sans capo. Tune and recording Copyright 2017 - Jeff Norman
About the Tune:
"In a Jiffy" has a standard AABB structure, and is played in double D tuning (aDADE). The A part starts in Mixolydian (reference post on modes here) meaning that I hit C naturals pretty hard in the melody. If you listen through to the second repeat, you'll hear some C major chords on the guitar as well. Here are the A part chords for reference: A part (x2) D D G G C C A A D D G G C C A D D A quick aside about my guitar playing in the A part: While A major chords are indicated above, yoll actualyl hear A sus 2 chords rather than A majors...this is less an artistic choice and more a "I really need to practice guitar more often" choice. To explain: A major chords are fretted as 002220 in open position on guitar in standard tuning...apparently covering all three 2nd frets is just too much for my dumb banjo fingers to handle this morning. Furthermore, my attempts to "cheat" with an index finger barre were also disastrous. Using an A sus 2 chord, which is fretted as 002200 was the only way for me to get a relatively clean guitar sound. Listening carefully, I think it actually clashes a bit and takes away the old time vibe. I'm just now realizing that I could have tried an A7 chord (002020) which may have sounded a bit more "old timey" and also requires only 2 fingers to fret....live and learn. As you can see by the chords (and hear in the recording) the A part is also crooked in that its got a couple "extra" (but not superfluous!) beats. I'll admit, I just wanted a chance to plunk my open D 4th string...I play the A part of "Snake Chapman's tune" like this and its kinda my favorite part of the tune. The B part was actually the first part of the tune I wrote and it mostly came out of a brain teaser for myself. (Not sure why this idea popped into my head, but) I wanted to try writing a tune where I used every note in first position on my 3rd string (i.e. the open string, and frets 1-5); importantly, I wanted the melody to sound "coherent" as well. This exercise made it so that I had to put a B-flat major chord in the B part....certainly another hurtle for my old time guitar skills : ). Here are the B part chords for good measure (the lower case b indicates a flat...not sure how to get the actual flat symbol on here): A part (x2) C C A A D D Bm Bm Bb Bb Bb Bb D D D D On the 2nd D in the last line, I wrap my thumb around the guitar's neck to fret the 2nd fret on the 6th string...bit of a gimmicky bluegrass trick perhaps, but I think it sounds pretty nice : ). The only other thing worth noting about the recording is that I changed to medium gauge strings for the Buckeye. I normally use a custom set of 9.5, 11, 15, 22w, 10 that is about the bare minimum in tension for the 25" scale length to be playable but I thought I'd beef it up to a martin medium set (10, 12, 16, 23w, 10) on a whim this weekend - I love the sound but my delicate left hand fingers (and right hand fingernail) may not be able to take them for long : ). You can hear my struggles to fret them properly in the 2nd B part the first time through - I definitely flub a note just before the guitar comes in...but these recordings have been "warts and all" rough drafts at this point so I just kept it. About the tune name "In a Jiffy" is kind of a roundabout pun. I wanted a name that included "mix" to hint at the mixolydian-ness of the tune (yeah...lame, I know). Being that the tune was written since I've moved to Michigan, I thought it'd be funny (read "even lamer") to substitute "Jiffy" in for "mix" as Jiffy-brand mixes are a Michigan product. I've actually seen the factory from afar on a random trip to Chelsea Michigan. "In a Jiffy" sounded like a good enough name for a fiddle tune, so there you go. See you next week for another installment!
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For this week's installment of my album (more on that here), I present "Shine," a tune named after a horse my wife used to ride at a local barn. For the record, my wife leased Shine; we do not make "own and board a horse" money...but wait till this album blows up the charts! : ) Since its heavy on the 4th string, I decided that this tune might benefit from a mellowed-out banjo sound; therefore, in preparation for this recording, I removed the second tone ring I added to the buckeye a couple months back (more on that here). As with the other tunes I've recorded thus far (here and here) I played it twice through: once with solo banjo, once with boom-chick guitar:
"Shine" - an original fiddle tune by Jeff Norman (me). Played twice through by me on my Buckeye tuned to aDADE; guitar accompaniment the second time through using a 12-fret Epiphone Masterbilt in standard guitar tuning capped at the 2nd fret. Tune and recording Copyright 2017 - Jeff Norman.
More about the tune:
"Shine" is played in double D tuning (aDADE) and has roughly an AABB structure. However, the second A part lingers on an A chord for a few extra beats until I play a funny little drop thumb riff that takes you into the B part. The chords for the A part, which is in B minor, form a 4 chord progression that I remember hearing in a lot of punk rock tunes. Though I didn't realize it when I wrote it, the chords for the B part, which is in D major, are quite similar to what one would play for "Canon in D" (a.k.a. Pachabel's canon) with a slightly different ending; as a former cellist, I have spent a lot of time sawing out the bass notes for these chords...it's therefore completely unsurprising to me that they would make their way into one of my tunes subconsciously. The transition back to the A part is a bit abrupt - I use the same riff that took us into the B part, but I string it right into the opening phrase of the A part for a bit of crookedness. I actually use this trick on another tune called "How's your Courage?," which I'll be recording eventually as well; try to act surprised when you hear it a second time : ). The tune ends with this trick as well and I drop out the guitar for added effect. I regret that I accidentally trimmed down the recording a bit too much after that ending (wish I'd left that note ringing a little longer...). On Metronomes: The past two recordings were made without using Garage band's built in metronome feature....and in my opinion, it shows. While I feel like I've got pretty solid rhythm in my solo playing, a couple listen-throughs to those recordings makes me realize that I actually don't. When I was trying this tune sans metronome, the B part was really lagging. Eventually, I put on my fancy dj headphones (they're like nuclear blue and huge) and tried it with the metronome on and the speed set to 109 BPM (this is where I clocked my playing when I wasn't overthinking it). The tune could likely go a bit faster, but I kind of like it a bit chilled out as it is here. I do think that my "big brushes" (here) in the B part are a little much: they kind of clash with the boom chicks from the guitar. If I record this one again, I may try taking them out. I've actually amassed a bit of interest in this project on banjo hangout - hope you guys liked "Shine!" See you next week for another tune!
Since I started my "album" (more on that here) last week by posting what was supposed to be the the last track (here), I figured that I might as well continue in that vein and record whichever tune I wanted next. So this week, I bring you track 4, "This way:"
"This Way" - an original fiddle tune by Jeff Norman (me). Played twice through by me on my Buckeye tuned to aEADE; guitar accompaniment the second time through using a 12-fret Epiphone Masterbilt in standard guitar tuning sans capo. Tune and recording Copyright 2017 - Jeff Norman.
About the tune
This tune was written about 2 people having a conversation about which way to go. Think of the conversation as follows: "This way" "No, this way" "No, this way" (etc...hence the title) As such, I wrote the tune as if one person were arguing for it to be in A major, while the other was arguing as if it should be in A minor. Its an otherwise standard non-crooked AABB tune...just a lot of subtle key swapping in keeping with the aforementioned theme (at least thats what I was going for). What follows is a blow by blow: The A part starts with a decidedly A minor feel (and is backed by an A minor chord on guitar). About halfway through the A part however, you'll hear a couple G#'s from the banjo, which were intended to foreshadow the switch to A major (Standard A aeolian/A minor includes a G natural at the 7th scale degree, while the A ionian/A major scale has a G# as its 7th note....of course, A harmonic minor plays with the 7th degree a bit as well, but I digress). These G#s are backed appropriately with an E major (rather than E minor) chord. The A part ends on an bold A major chord (at least it would sound bold if I were a better guitarist), but the turnaround into the second A part goes minor again and we repeat the "A minor...no, A major" conversation once more. The second time through the A part, the major switch holds through the turnaround and we start the B part on a happy note. Again however, we get a hint that things are destined to change about halfway through the B part: the banjo throws some C naturals (rather than C#'s) in as a clue. For more symmetry, the turnaround between B parts is in A major, while the transition back to the A part (on which the tune also ends) goes minor. For fun, here are the chords to help you follow the above story (plain letters indicate major chords, "m's" indicate minor chords):
I'll say right here that my guitar playing on this one left something to be desired...like a good guitarist! I had a lot of trouble switching between chords and I just hate playing A majors of the 002220 variety - the thing sounds overly choppy to me...I'd love to hear it "smoothed out" one day.
As you can see, the only thing necessary to change the feel of the transitions is an added or subtracted F major chord at the end of the phrase (which indicates "A minor feel"). I suppose I could have been a bit more heavy handed and put a true E minor there as well, but I kind of like the harmonic minor vibe I had going...adds more to the tune's ambiguity/indecisiveness. Some E7's could surely spice this one up as well but I wanted to stick to plain vanilla chords as much as possible. Thats all I've got in me for this week - hope you enjoyed it!
If you read last weeks post (here), you'll remember that I'm planning on spending the next 10 weeks or so recording an "album" one track at a time. This pursuit included some big plans that have already succumbed to reality : ).
First off, I planned on recording the tracks in the order that I wrote them, starting with "Cheese and Krackers"...however, I couldn't find my guitar capo so I decided to start with the only tune for which I wouldnt use one: "Stripey Cat," in G major (in contrast to my capo-free banjo playing I normally play D and A tunes, but not G tunes, with a capo on guitar). Secondly, I'd planned on 3 repeats per tune...but recording was taking a bit so I capped it after 2 repeats (one with solo banjo followed by one with guitar accompaniment). However, "done" is better than "perfect" and, other than a bit of lagginess in the second B part, I'm pretty happy with the results; without further ado, I give you "Stripey Cat:"
"Stripey Cat" - an original fiddle tune by Jeff Norman (me). Played twice through by me on my Buckeye tuned to gEADE; guitar accompaniment the second time through using a 12-fret Epiphone Masterbilt in standard guitar tuning sans capo. Tune and recording Copyright 2017 - Jeff Norman.
About the tune
I wrote this tune in honor of a friend's rambunctious little cat "Heathcliff" who stayed in my apartment for about a week while they were out of town. Correction: Heathcliff was supposed to stay with me for a week, but he was a little ball of energy and I was just too exhausted to keep up with his antics after about 3 days (also my cat Peekay was not thrilled with an intruder and started "marking her territory" in response...sigh). Thankfully, another friend volunteered to watch Heathcliff for the duration of the week and (with some dogged cleaning) Peekay's efforts fell short of depriving me of my security deposit when I moved out. This is the only tune I've ever written in what Adam Hurt calls "Sandy River Belle tuning" (gEADE); though it looks a lot like A modal, its meant to be treated as a non-open tuning for the key of G major. To use Sandy River Belle tuning, one plays melodies around chord shapes; this approach is akin to what Chet Atkins did on guitar. Speaking of guitar, this tuning should feel quite comfortable to guitarists since the 3 lowest pitched strings are tuned the same (though 1 octave higher) as those of a guitar in standard tuning. One interesting feature of "Stripey Cat" is that 1 beat of the A part (ignoring the lead in notes) starts on a phrase best backed by the IV chord (C major) of the key rather than the 1 chord (G major). I suppose you could therefore think of the A part as being in C Lydian rather than G Ionian (click here for my post on modes if you don't know what I'm talking about)...? This is certainly not unique, however - for instance, the B part of "Nail that Catfish..." starts on the IV chord. The B part of "Stripey Cat" starts on the relative minor chord (E minor) and, like many of my tunes, employs some "big brushes" (post on this technique here). There is a 3 note sequence repeated twice between each big brush that you can sing the title to if you're feeling goofy ("stripe-y cat, stripe-y cat") in the B part as well. I think of the tune as going AAB (with a B part thats quite long); I suppose you could play it AABB as well, but that means that most of your time is spent on the B part - I do think it would be neat to double up on the B part the last time through (but I didn't do that on the above recording). This isn't the most interesting fiddle tune I've written, but I do think its pretty catchy! I've never played this one with a fiddler, but I'd love to hear what a fiddle could do with it one day! Copyright stuff You'll notice that I have a copyright statement below the tune. I asked the good folks over at Banjohangout what was necessary for copyrighting a tune (you can find that discussion here) and they pointed out that simply putting a creative work into "tangible form" was enough to claim copyright on it. Someone else mentioned that I should write that copyright statement in association with each tune as well...so I did. Apparently I can register a copyright for ~$35 but I don't see these tunes as a road to riches so I guess the "tangible form" argument is good enough for me. I'd encourage anyone reading this to take these tunes to jams and festivals if you like them; if you'd like to record one of these tunes for commercial purposes I'm likely all for that too but please contact me before doing so. Ever since I picked up a guitar at age 15 or so, I've wanted to record an album. However, this has been a bit of an elusive goal in my life so far. I've got a collection of lo-fi recordings of live performances (and 3 or 4 garage-bandy tracks from my high school pop-punk band) but I've just never found a chunk of time or money with which to make my way into a studio.
Since picking up the banjo/finding my way to old time, I just can't help but write fiddle tunes, some of which I actually think are pretty good. As I've pointed out before (here) I think theres plenty of room for original fiddle tunes in the world of Old time music, so I've come up with a plan for getting some of mine out there: over the next 10 weeks, I'm going to use this blog to make myself record and share 1 fiddle tune each week; by the end of that time, I'll have something I could potentially burn onto a CD and hand people who are interested (yes, CDs are a bit of a dated goal, but I still listen to them in the car and while I do the dishes : ). The recording quality won't be stellar but its a start. Here's the list of tunes: (yes, this list is a bit meaningless since its just a pile of titles, but it will help organize things on my end): 1) Cheese and Krackers (aDADE) 2) Sisyphus' Hill (aEADE) 3) South Kensington Shuffle (aDADE) 4) This way (aEADE) 5) How's Your Courage? (aDADE) 6) Catawba (aEAC#E) 7) Shine (aDADE) 8) Hobart's Breakdown* (aDAC#E) 9) (un-named D mixolydian tune)** (aDADE) 10) Stripey Cat (gEADE) * I did not write this one but I feel that I've done a lot to it and I want to share. Its the Hobart Smith tune "Banging breakdown" but with the "banging" removed, the key shifted from C to D, and with some really great chords added. ** This tune will be named by the time I get to it - its just that nothing's come to me yet : ) I'm planning on recording each tune with the same format (3 repeats total...kind of like a Haiku or something): Repeat 1 - banjo only, basic melody, no guitar Repeat 2 - banjo basic melody, guitar added Repeat 3 - anything goes I got the Idea for this from hearing Chris Coole's recording of his original tune "Skating on the Harbourfront" which I think actually goes two repeats without accompaniment up front. Still, by introducing accompaniment and variation slowly, the structure of that recording makes it really easy to pick the tune out (in addition to adding some dramatic tension!). This format is also pretty easy on me from a recording standpoint. I think theres enough variation in the tunes themselves that this wouldn't be too boring to listen to as a package. As for the "anything goes" portion, I'll likely use that repeat to introduce some melodic and/or harmonic variants on each tune. The blog post accompanying each tune can be thought of as "liner notes" for the emerging album - I'll talk about techniques used in playing the tune, why I made the decisions I did in writing it, and where the name came from. As you can see, my list is a bit Double-D-heavy because thats where my banjo spends most of its time (and where I prefer to noodle...). I therefore altered these with other tunings on the list above - otherwise its in roughly chronological order for when the tune was written (with "Cheese and Krackers" being the first thing I wrote that I thought was any good). Over the next week, I'm going to look into what it takes to copyright these things, but in the end I may not bother: fiddle tunes are not exactly a pathway to riches and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from playing/sharing them. However I come down on this, the Punch Brothers are welcome to these tunes for free (though if they wanted to pay me, I wouldn't object : ). As usual - I hope this exercise will be interesting for someone other than myself : ) See you next week for "Cheese and Krackers."
Last week's foray into fretless (here) got me thinking a bit more about "blue notes," the notes which, as the name implies, can be used to impart a bit of bluesy flavor into a piece of music. This week I thought I'd start by identifying blue notes on the fingerboard. Then I'll give a few examples of a fun way to throw them into fiddle tunes.
What is a blue note? Simply put, I treat flattened 3rds, 5ths, and 7ths as "blue notes" when stuck into an otherwise major/ionian tune. Wikipedia includes flattened 6ths in this mix as well and I likely would too but I don't have much occasion to use them and I'll therefore leave flattened 6ths out of today's discussion for simplicity. Once again, I probably wouldn't use the term "blue note" for notes that are consistent with the modality of a tune (more on modes here). For example, I don't think of the G naturals in "Red Haired Boy" as blue notes, even though they are flattened 7ths of the A major scale; after all, "Red Haired Boy" is a mixolydian tune and G naturals/flattened 7ths are, by definition, part of the A mixolydian scale. Similarly, I don't think most people would think minor (flattened) thirds in minor melodies as blue notes either. The flattened 3rds in Minor Pentatonic tunes like "Cluck Old Hen" (post on Minor Pentatonic tunes here) could be called blue notes if major chords are played in the background (discussed in another post here) since theres definitely some harmonic tension between the major third in the root chord and the minor (flattened) third in the minor pentatonic scale. These tunes definitely sound quite bluesy with the right set of chords. However, I mainly use the term "blue note" for throwing these notes in when they don't "belong" (i.e. in standard major/ionian tunes). When you manage to sneak flattened 3rds or 7ths into "Cripple Creek" or "Fly around...," (which I'll be doing a bit further down the page) these are properly described as blue notes. Its possible that other people use this term differently (...its also possible that I'm boring you to death with all this hair-splitting...). Where can you find the blue notes on the fingerboard? Below is a fretboard map showing the location of blue notes alongside ionian/major scale notes in 3 of my most commonly used banjo tunings:
Figure 1 - Maps of the banjo fretboard in Open A (left), Double D (middle), and Old G (right) tunings. Only notes on strings 1-4 are shown. Notes of the tuning's relevant major scale (i.e. A major for Open A tuning, D major for Double D tuning, and G major for Old G tuning; post on Old G here) are shown outlined in green, while blue notes are outlined in pink with different shapes representing different types of blue notes. Notes located on the nut are notes of open strings.
With the information above you should be able to pick out a major scale relevant to each tuning and find blue notes for a bit of color! One thing to note: in all of these tunings, you can find a lot of blue notes on the 3rd and 6th frets.
So lets mess with a few tunes by adding in some blue notes: How do you add blue notes into tunes? I often go for subtlety in my playing...but today, I'm going to abandon this preference and embed blue notes in to some familiar tunes with a sledgehammer : ) I'm basing this approach on something I often hear fiddlers do: heavily accent the note on the beat just before the beginning of a musical phrase. In the tunes we'll look at today, we'll imitate this move with an extended hammer on that starts on a blue note for contrast. Let's jump in by putting a flattened 3rd into the A part of "Fly around my pretty little miss:"
Figure 2 - The A part of "Fly around..." with blue notes added in. Tab is meant to be played in double D tuning. Blue notes are highlighted in pink.
...I'm just now realizing that I should have highlighted blue notes in blue....sigh.
To play the tab above, and those below, we've got to break right hand stride (posts on stride here and here). The lead-in note to Figure 2, which consists of a flattened third and a couple open strings, is played with a heavy brush so that it rings long enough for the delayed hammer-on (actually I often do this one with an index finger slide instead) to retain some oomph. Note: I've put a rest between the two notes to indicate time passage - this does not indicate that the note should be muted in the middle. During the first beat of the first measure (post lead-in note) your right hand just takes a break and waits for the next beat to come along. If you miss the first blue note, you get another chance halfway through the A part : ) So lets hear this thing:
Example 1 - the A part from "Fly around..." with blue notes (Figure 2) played on the Buckeye.
Once again, not subtle, but pretty satisfying!
Blue notes can also be a fun way to spice up a tune you've played a million times. Here's everybody's first tune "Cripple Creek" with both a flattened 7th and a flattened 3rd thrown in.
Figure 3 - The A part of "Cripple Creek" with blue notes thrown in. Tab is meant to be played in Open A tuning. Blue notes, once again, highlighted in pink.
Note that though while we're using a "long hammer-on" riff similar to the one we used in Figure 2 to add a flattened 7th blue note into "Cripple Creek," there is one important difference: we're using our hammer on to travel the full step between the flattened 7th (G) and the next note up the scale (A) rather than sliding up the half step to the standard ionian 7th (G#).
Might as well take the time to hear this one too:
Example 2 - The A part of "Cripple Creek" with blue notes (Figure 3).
I picked the B part of "John Brown's Dream" as an example of a flattened 5th blue note; one more use of the heavy-handed "slow hammer-on lead-in" trope that I've been leaning on for this whole post.
Figure 4 - The B part of "John Brown's Dream" with some blue notes thrown in (again, in pink).
Notice that I randomly threw a flattened 3rd into the 4th measure for some variety : ) A final bit of audio:
Example 3 - The B part of "John Brown's Dream" with blue notes (Figure 4).
Hope you're inspired to throw some blue notes in to your own playing. Until next week!
In this week's post I thought I'd give a few thoughts on fretless playing. It should be noted up front that while I love listening to fretless banjos, especially those of the deeply-plunky variety (e.g. Light and Hitch & the Flat Iron Stringband....), I consider myself merely a fretless hobbiest, and would likely never be comfortable going to a festival with only a fretless in tow. However, everyone's got room for more than one banjo in their world and I do have a couch-plunking fretless that I spend a lot of time with. Still, what follows is best characterized as an outsider's perspective on a couple of considerations about fretless playing:
1) Where do your fingers go? Yes, I specifically mean the fingers of your left hand. The best way to figure this i out is by trial and error - therefore I wouldn't grab a fretless until you've sharpened your ear with frets for a few years; if your banjo rarely sounds out of tune and you rarely have to tweak the tuning between songs.....well, you've either got a magic banjo the likes of which I've never seen, or (more likely) your ear may not be quite "there" yet. However, if you consider yourself a tuning-tweaking fanatic, you're ready to dig the notes out of the void that is a de-fretted fingerboard. Option two is to "fake it till you make it" by getting a flush-fret banjo (one that has faux fret marks for guidance); absolutely no shame in this approach. What I really wanted to point out here is the following, however: finger placement on a fretless necessarily differs from finger placement on a fretted banjo. This is for a very simple reason: on a fretted banjo, you place your fingers behind the frets (i.e. toward the headstock), while on a fretless banjo, you place your fingers where the frets would be; therefore you end up playing just a bit up the neck from where you would play. This is illustrated in Figure 1:
Figure 1 - Left hand finger positioning on a fretted (left) and fretless (right) banjo fingerboard on banjos with the same scale length.
I = index finger; M = middle finger; R = ring finger; P = pinky finger.
To me, the new role of "being" the frets, can affect scale-length considerations when buying a fretless, especially if you dutifully adhere to hand positions as I do (here). If you look at Figure 1, you'll notice that I've placed "fingers" right behind frets on the fretted neck. While this is the ideal position for buzz-free playing (as long as you don't push down too hard, which can make your notes go a bit sharp) you do have a bit of leeway here. For instance, using the same hand position, you could place your index finger right behind the 2nd fret, and your pinky finger right in front of the 4th fret as follows:
Figure 2 - How frets allow you to "shorten your reach." Using the finger positions on the left (with your index finger just behind the 2nd fret and your pinky just in front of the 4th fret), you can reach frets 2-5 with a shorter distance between each finger than normally necessary (optimal finger position is shown on the right).
While the fingering shown in Figure 2 may be a bit sloppy, that probably wouldn't matter in faster playing, and you've effectively shortened the reach your left hand has to cover between the 2nd and 5th frets. As you can imagine, this approach is not applicable on a fretless if you're interested in playing in tune; you always have to stretch that pinky out to get the right notes. Tiny changes in scale length can therefore make a huge difference in just how much stretching you have to do in fretless playing; I prefer slightly shorter scale lengths in a fretless banjo (24-25") than I do for a a fretted banjo. If you'd like to guess a scale length for a fretless, you can try playing by placing your fingers on top of the frets of your fretted banjo; you may find that your current scale length feels like a bit of a stretch. If so, try capo-ing until its comfortable; whatever scale length you end up feeling comfortable with is close to optimal for your hands in fretless playing.
2) Nylon/nylgut or steel strings? You may have noticed that many people, even those who play steel strings on fretted banjo, prefer nylon/nylgut strings for fretless playing. There are a couple stated reasons for this. First off, some will point out that steel strings damage a wooden fingerboard over time, which may be true. This may explain some of the reasoning behind brass fingerboard overlays on fretless banjos (though they're also fun for sliding around the fingerboard). However, the biggest reason for my nylon/nlygut string preference on fretless is this: its just really hard to push plain steel strings down hard enough to make good contact with the fingerboard. More on this below: When you're pressing down strings on a fretted banjo, you only have to press hard enough to get the string to touch the fret; for the most part, this isn't a big deal (in fact banjo players typically have a lot easier time of this than guitarists or mandolin players). The solid contact between the string and the fret provides a solid node to create the standing wave of string vibration (Physics!!) that is necessary for a crisp note (i.e. a non-warbly, non-muted note like one created on a fretted banjo). On a fretless banjo, a crisp note can only be created by pressing the strings all the way to the fingerboard, providing a hard surface against which to make a node in the absence of frets. This is typically not an issue for wound steel strings, which are nice and fat, making them pretty easy to press against the fingerboard. Thinner, unwound strings (particularly the 1st and 2nd strings) tend to get lost in the pad of my finger rather than laying flush against the fingerboard. Here's a bit of an illustration:
Figure 3 - Pressing strings to the fingerboard on a fretless banjo. Left - illustration showing a finger pressing a thick (either wound-steel or nylon/nylgut) all the way to the fretboard; though the string digs into the pad of the finger a bit, it still makes contact with the fingerboard. Right - similar illustration with a thinner string; notice that the string is not quite making contact with the fingerboard though the pad of the finger is touching the fingerboard.
Due to the mechanisms cartoonishly outlined above, I really can't get crisp notes out of 1st or 2nd steel strings of a fretless banjo without applying crazy amounts of pressure. My "fretted" notes on these strings therefore end up sounding muted in comparison to open strings or notes on the wound strings. In my experience, brass fingerboard overlays do not solve this problem. Lowering the nut (and therefore string action near the nut) can help a bit, but this solution ends up feeling a bit strange to me and I still have to apply more-than-normal pressure to get crisp notes (basically, the extra effort is to get the string out of my finger pad). Some people manage to play steel strung fretless without issue. Presumably they either: 1) don't mind the muted notes, 2) push really really hard with their left hand, 3) have bonier fingers than I do, 4) press with the fingertips rather than pads, or 5) grow out the nails on their left hand to provide a hard surface for the strings to push against. I've read about option #5 on banjo hangout; with all the fussing I do about my single right hand banjo nail, I find this last solution especially unappealing....
As hinted at above, I solve my muted note problem by using nylon/nylgut strings on fretless banjos. Since the strings are both fatter and stretchier than plain steel strings they don't get lost in the pad of my finger like steel strings do. I've noticed that many other people employ this option as well, and many of the fretless banjos that show up at Elderly arrive with nylon/nylgut strings in place. Out of the two options (nylon or nylgut), I guess I prefer the latter, though I haven't experimented that much to be honest; as an aside I've never tried real gut strings though I'm sure that there are some purists out there who swear by them. I do like that many nylgut sets come with unwound 4th strings - theres just something kind of fun about sliding around on a big fat string and its nice to have a 4th string that isn't tonally distinct from the rest of the set. My only caution (especially if you try out the "red" nylguts) is to bring strings up to tension very slowly (like over a matter of days); stretching them too quickly inevitably results in breakage. 3) When/how to slide? Slides are what make playing fretless fun! So, when/how do you do them? Well, I've instinctually fallen into the following pattern: I only into quarter notes, and I pretty much always start my slides from a 1/2 step below the note. The slide effectively turns the quarter note into two 8th notes, the first of which is occupied by the slide. To demonstrate what I'm talking about, lets take the opening phrase of Spotted pony, which I've previously dissected ad nauseam (here).
Figure 4 - The A part Walkup to "Spotted Pony" with ghost notes as filler. Tab is meant to be played in double D tuning (aDADE).
Note that the hand position for the above tab is that shown in Figures 1 and 2. On a fretless banjo, we can spice up the A part walkup to "Spotted Pony" shown in Figure 4 by "sliding in" to the 2nd note of the phrase like this:
Figure 5 - The A part Walkup to "Spotted Pony" with an added slide.
When playing this phrase, reach back with your index to get the note on the 1st fret, then slide up to the second fret; no need to rush...it should take approximately 1/2 a beat to slide up to the 2nd fret. By playing this way, you end up "sliding in" to the correct hand position, which is handy : ) By sticking in 1/2 step slides, you also often end up hitting notes outside of the key a tune is in (like the D# in Figure 5). This definitely adds some flavor to a tune. While Figure 5 shows the addition of a flattened 2nd, its really fun to add flattened 3rds and 7ths in to a standard major/ionian tune for a bluesy feel (click here for my post on modes if you don't know what I'm talking about...).
In my opinion, this is a tasteful way to put slides into tunes without too much effort. However, this is obviously not the only way to slide around on a fretless - for example: you could slide down into notes; furthermore, slides could span a whole step or more, and last for a full beat or longer. Once you've started sliding around on a fretless, you may even be tempted to slide about on your fretted banjo as well : ) ------------- Hope that was interesting to someone other than myself : ) If you don't already have a fretless, you may consider adding one to your arsenal! I thought I'd end this post with a tune; here's me playing the 3 part G tune "Josio" on my nylgut strung fretless:
"Josio" played on a fretless banjo tuned in gDGDE (or maybe a relative tuning a few steps down).
Thanks for reading - see you next week!
For this week's blog I thought I'd talk about a right hand rhythmic technique that I've been doing for a while: its something I'm calling "The Big Brush" (...for lack of a better name). I don't remember consciously learning or applying this technique, it just kind of showed up in my playing more and more over the years.
What is the Big Brush The Big Brush is likely easiest to define by comparison to the bum ditty rhythm:
Figure 1 - 4 measures of standard bum ditty on open strings (I've assumed that you're in double D tuning so that the 4th string is your "root note").
In regards to the pasta sauce that spilled on beat 1: I thought about rewriting the tab before scanning...but I just found it funnier to leave it on there : )
Many players (myself included) initially learned to play clawhammer by fitting simple melodies around the bum ditty rhythm; I'm guessing Figure 1 did not blow your mind : ). For good measure let's hear it:
Example 1 - Me playing the bum ditty rhythm (Figure 1) in double D tuning on my Buckeye.
Ignoring the 5th string pulls, the bum ditty essentially mimics the "boom chick" of a guitarist, with a root note played on the 1st and 3rd beats of a measure, and brushes played on the 2nd and 4th beats. The "Big Brush" that I've been referring to essentially slows down this pattern without slowing down your right hand. Check out Figure 2:
Figure 2 - "The Big Brush;" once again, this tab is meant to be played in double D tuning.
Here's audio of the above example:
Example 2 - Me playing "the Big Brush" (Figure 2) on my Buckeye.
As you can see/hear above, the Big Brush involves playing root notes on the 1st beat of each measure and doing brushes on the 3rd beat of each measure; beats 2 and 4 are left empty through the magic of "ghost notes" (more on ghost notes about halfway down the page here). I call this move "the Big Brush" because I usually put a lot of emphasis on the brushes here (much more emphasis than I put on brushes during standard "bum ditty" playing).
Once again, the object here is to cut the rhythmic feel of a tune in half while keeping your right hand moving as if you were playing standard "bum ditty banjo." The pattern of the thumb string pulls serves to maintain a connection to the tune's normal speed. How/when do you use Big Brushes? I find Big Brushes especially useful for slow tunes and as a back up to singing; I'll spare you my singing (you're welcome) and give you an example of how Big Brushes work in my go-to slow tune, "Coleman's March." Figure 3 is a simplified melody for the A part of "Coleman's March" without any filler (bum-ditty, Big Brush, or otherwise):
Figure 3 - The A part of "Coleman's March" without any filler.
Here's some audio:
Example 3 - A filler-free version of the A part of "Coleman's March" (Figure 3)
Looking at Figure 3, measures 1, 2, 4, and 8, are mostly empty (I thought about putting a bunch of rests in as filler....but I didn't). As clawhammer players, we'd like to keep our right hands moving and fill in these blanks with rhythm. Just for fun, here's an "extreme double thumbing" example of how to fill in these blanks (reminiscent of my "Yew Piney Mountain" post here):
Figure 4 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with constant ghost note/double thumbing as rhythmic filler. Melody part (from Figure 3) highlighted.
...and audio:
Example 4 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with constant ghost note/double thumbing as rhythmic filler (Figure 4) played on the Buckeye.
That was a bit of an aside; if I were going to do this again, I'd probably put thumb pulls in every possible hole in the melody to give the illusion of constant double thumbing. Anyways, I was supposed to be talking about the bum-ditty/Big Brush distinction, so let's get back on track by checking out Coleman's March with standard "bum ditty" filler:
Figure 5 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with "bum ditties" as rhythmic filler. Melody part (from Figure 3) is again highlighted.
Again, audio:
Example 5 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with "bum ditties" as rhythmic filler (Figure 5) played on the Buckeye.
Example 5 sounds okay, but I feel like "bum ditties" stick out a bit against the melody; they just feel a bit formulaic, and perhaps excessively cluttery. Big Brushes to the rescue:
Figure 6 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with Big Brushes as filler.
...audio:
Example 6 - The A part of "Coleman's March" with Big Brushes as filler (Figure 6) played on the Buckeye.
As I said, Big Brushes kind of naturally sneaked into my playing over the years, but I really do like the sound they provide on tunes like "Coleman's March." As usual, I can't claim to have invented this technique; its entirely possible I picked it up subconsciously from someone else's playing...still, I've definitely incorporated it into my playing style and it would take a lot of work to get it out now.
A final word on where to use Big Brushes: as shown in Figure 3, you need about a full empty measure per Big Brush, which can limit the applicability of this technique. However, I often find room for Big Brushes at the end of phrases (this is true in "Angeline the Baker" for example). Maybe you can find space for Big Brushes in your playing as well : )
I've had a couple weeks to noodle since adding a 6th (bass) string to El Hefe, my Pisgah-esque banjo build (posts on that here), and I thought I'd share what I've found so far in a click-baity "5 things you can do" format (....after all, this is the internet...). Without further ado, here are 5 things you can do with a 6th string banjo:
1) Play more fiddle tunes in their "standard" octave. Before going further, I have to define what I mean by the "standard" octave. As an example: if you ask a fiddler to play "Cripple Creek" in the standard octave, their melody will start on the imaginary "5th fret" of the high E string of the fiddle. Similarly, a banjo player will start this tune on the 5th fret of the high E string of the banjo, but, due to tuning differences between the two instruments, the note on the banjo will sound 1 octave lower than that of the fiddle; as the banjo melody continues, it will continue to be one octave below the fiddle throughout. To me, this is the natural relationship between the two instruments: when banjos play 1 octave below a fiddle's standard melody, they are therefore playing in what I'm calling the "standard" octave; this is where I would find my default melody for a given fiddle tune, with low and high octave variations coming later. The exact range of the standard octave will, of course, vary by key so I'm going to avoid defining it further : ) However, the range of the 5 string banjo doesn't allow every tune to be played in the standard octave without running out of bass notes. I used the Clyde Davenport tune "5 miles from town" as an example of this a couple weeks back (here) but another example is "Dubuque," a fairly common D tune in these parts. To play the full melody in double D tuning, most 5 string players start on the open 3rd string and quickly run way up the neck, never touching the 4th string for the whole tune; I blame this tune for keeping my 10th fret dust free : ) However, with the addition of an extra bass string, my new 6 string allows me to play "Dubuque" right where it belongs:
"Dubuque" played in the banjo's standard octave on a 6 string banjo. I tried to go for that bouncy Dwight Diller feel....not sure I quite nailed it : )
You don't have to play every tune in the standard octave as I'm choosing to define it, but its certainly nice to have the option.
2) Join the fiddle in the low octave: As mentioned in my low octave posts (here and here), I just love it when the fiddle "goes low" in the middle of a jam. In this situation, the banjo can either stay in the standard octave and sound in unison with the fiddle or try and go low as well. If you choose the latter option however, you're likely to find yourself running out of notes in the low octave for most tunes, though there are some filler options (again, here). But, the 6 string lets me play the low octave for most tunes in its entirety. As an example, here's a bit of "Angeline the Baker" in the low octave:
"Angeline the Baker" in the low octave on a 6 string banjo.
Still getting used to the low string...
The sound is obviously a lot like a cello banjo with one notable difference: cello banjos have "low octave" 5th strings as well. However, El Hefe's 5th string (really 6th string) remains in the standard octave. To me, this provides an interesting bit of contrast that you can't get out of a cello banjo.
3) "Complete the melody" on many standard octave tunes (Kind of related to point 1 but) there are plenty of melodies that banjo players do play in the standard octave without being able to get every note. For many of these tunes, we've all settled on similar "filler" techniques for the phrases that go out of the range of the 5 string banjo. One example of what I'm talking about comes at the beginning of the the 3 part version of "Cumberland Gap" normally played in D. The fiddle starts the A part with a couple pickup notes that a 5 string banjo can't get in the standard octave....though a 6 string banjo has no problem:
2 versions of the A part of "Cumberland Gap."
Left: what 5 string players typically play in the standard octave; note that the banjo just sits on the open 4th string for the first couple beats since the lead in melody notes normally played by a fiddler are out of range. Right: a version of "Cumberland Gap" that uses the low 5th string of a 6 string banjo to play the melody notes that are missing from the version on the left.
Hear the difference?
4) Treat the 5th string like a 5th string : ) The long 5th string on a 6 string banjo, is typically tuned two octaves below the drone string (5th string on a 5 string, 6th string on a 6th string). The long 5th string is therefore interchangeable with the drone string at a moment's notice for a different sound. Here's a drone-string-heavy version of "Old Joe Clark" that drones on the long 5th string for kind of a cool feel:
The A part of "Old Joe Clark" played on the 6 string banjo, droning on the long 5th string (which is tuned 2 octaves below the 5th string of a 5 string banjo).
I don't normally do a lot of "double thumbing" so this short clip took me embarrassingly-long to get right....and I'm still not thrilled with how it came out (*sigh*). Moving on.
5) Put some random low "filler" notes into a tune. Many tunes have a lot of melodic space to fill, which gives banjo players room to make some creative choices. There are a lot of space-filling techniques available to banjo players (bum-ditty's, double-thumbs, random hammer-ons/pull-offs) - below I pepper some on-beat bass notes into "Coleman's March" using El Hefe's added bass string:
Two versions of the A part of "Coleman's March" with low notes added in as filler. On the left is a standard octave version; on the right is an admittedly "schmaltzy" high octave version, in which the low notes provide even more contrast.
As you can tell, I'm having fun exploring 6 string territory....anyone else ready to buy one of their own yet? : )
If you've been reading this blog in recent weeks, you'll realize I'm on a bit of a "tinkering" kick; About a month ago, I wrote a post about adding a second tone ring to my Buckeye (here) and since then I've been slowly adding a 6th string to my other banjo, "El Hefe" (posts in order: here, here, and here). This week I thought I'd share one of my earliest success stories of instrument tinkering: converting an old classical guitar to a "Cello-banjitar."
What in the world is a Cello banjo? Several years back Gold Tone introduced the CEB-5 model banjo, which was the first Cello banjo I'd ever heard of. As a recovering cellist, the "Cello Banjo" moniker caught my eye. However I soon realized that the Gold Tone CEB-5 has little to do with an actual cello; its simply a 5-string model tuned an octave below standard tunings (note: Gold Tone does make a 4 string model, the CEB-4, which is tuned like a cello and typically played with a pick). Since I spend a lot of time in the "low end" of my own banjos (here), a banjo that's all low end seemed right up my alley! To be clear, though Gold Tone has re-popularized the cello banjo in recent years, there are historical roots to this instrument as well. In the late 1800's/early 1900's, banjos came in a variety of intended musical ranges including piccolo banjos (tuned an octave above standard banjos), banjeaurine's (tuned like a standard banjo capoed on the 5th fret), and cello banjos (once again, tuned an octave below standard). Just as today's orchestras contain string instruments of a variety of ranges (i.e. violins, violas, cellos and basses) the aforementioned banjo variants were meant to populate "banjo orchestras," which were actually quite popular in those years. When the popularity of banjo orchestras waned, cello banjos faded into obscurity as well.
How does one make a cello banjitar?
Essentially, one takes 5/6th of a standard set of classical guitar strings and places them in the "wrong" slots on a classical guitar. To explain: standard tuning for a guitar (from low to high with the numbers indicating octaves in relation to middle C, which is "C4") is "[E2][A2][D3][G3][B3][E4]" while a 5-string cello banjo in modal tuning would be tuned "[A3][E2][A2][D3][E3]." These tunings actually have 3 strings in common (those in bold above). In the end, I was able to get every note I need by using the strings that were already on my guitar. However....what about the 5th string? I certainly didn't want to drill a hole/install a tuner on the side of the guitar's neck. I landed on a pretty simple solution: use the current 2nd string as the new 5th string...and have it go all the way to the nut! Finally, we need 5 strings not 6 - one of the string slots would simply remain empty. Therefore, you can turn a classical guitar into a cello banjitar (in A modal tuning) by swapping strings as follows: 1) put the 2nd string from a classical guitar set in the 5th string slot. Tune this string to A3, which is a full step below where it is normally tuned (B3) 2) put the 6th string from a classical guitar set in the 4th string slot. Tune this string to E2, which is the same note it is tuned to in standard guitar tuning. 3) put the 5th string from a classical guitar set in the 3th string slot. Tune this string to A2, which is the same note it is tuned to in standard guitar tuning. 4) put the 4th string from a classical guitar set in the 2rd string slot. Tune this string to D3, which is the same note it is tuned to in standard guitar tuning. 5) put the 3rd string from a classical guitar set in the 1st string slot. Tune this string to E3, which is 1.5 steps below where it is normally tuned (G3). 6) Leave the 6th string slot empty (you can also throw out the 1st string from your classical guitar set). Doing this will give you a cello banjitar in low octave A modal tuning, with a 5th string that goes all the way to the nut (and, once again, an empty 6th string slot). I chose A modal tuning for this example because it shares the most notes in common with standard guitar tuning (making the above list simpler). Other standard cello banjo tunings (e.g. aDADE) will work equally well. As I play capo-less and use Old G for G tunes (here), I've never tuned the cello banjitar down to Open G (gDGBD), but you may consider starting with a "high tension" classical guitar set if you're going to spend a lot of time there. So how does it sound? In short - surprisingly good! The wood-topped guitar body gives a lot more sustain to the notes than a banjo body would, but this is actually quite pleasant with low notes played on nylon strings. I find that I naturally play a bit slower on the cello banjitar to combat notes bleeding into one another too much. Another tip (which I've also heard for cello banjos) is to play a bit closer to the bridge than you would on standard banjos for a bit more note definition. I've never tried the cello banjo with a fiddler but I bet it would work pretty well. My guess is that it lacks the cut/volume to carry in a larger group or jam however. All right, let's hear it:
The Hobart Smith tune "Last Chance" played on the cello banjitar.
I actually made this recording several years back and its interesting to go back and hear it once more. I probably got a bit overzealous with the "slappy" drop thumb (...I'm not playing bass in a funk band....) but hopefully it will give you an idea of how the thing sounds regardless : ) If you've got a classical guitar lying around I encourage you to make one of these up as well - it'd be pretty neat if there were two of these out there!
I've spent the last week or so getting to know the 6 string banjo: next week I plan on sharing some of my thoughts about what I've learned so far! Until then.... |
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