I've always thought that there are two important steps to mastering a creative pursuit (like playing an instrument): first you figure out the "rules" of your subject, then you figure out when to break them. In learning the rules of a given subject, you place yourself in the arena with all of those who have come before you and you develop a critical eye for judging your own work. However, its in step two that innovation occurs. While many newcomers to a given field set out to "break the rules" from day one, I find that innovation contextualized by tradition (i.e. innovation done by someone who "knows the rules") is much more thoughtful than innovation that isn't; this is especially true in music.
I realize that last sentence sounded a bit curmudgeonly so I'll give an example: Despite my penchant for Old Time music, I'm obsessed with Chris Thile, who comprised 1/3 of Nickel Creek and formed the Punch Brothers, a band I've seen at least 10 times live (and who, in a career move I could never have predicted, recently took the reins of "A Prairie Home Companion"). He is undoubtedly the most innovative mandolinist (and really, musician) I've ever heard; its pretty easy for me to call him a genius and the MacArthur foundation agrees with me (Thile got a $500,000 "genius" grant in 2012 and spent a good chunk of it on a new mandolin....which is exactly what I would have done in his shoes!). That being said, Chris Thile didn't reinvent the mandolin by just picking up the instrument on day 1 and "doing his own thing." Rather, he spent a lot of time learning the rules (i.e., getting to know the Bluegrass style and repertoire). If he jumped into a jam tomorrow, I'm willing to bet he'd know the tunes that were called and he'd be able to do a convincing imitation of Bill Monroe when it was his turn to take a break. As a result of this immersion, you can hear Bluegrass in Thile's approach to this day no matter how "out there" the Punch Brothers go (....and they go out there...). For instance: Bluegrass mandolins traditionally "chuck" (a percussive move not unlike a banjo "cluck" in sound) on the back beats in a jam. By emphasizing the backbeats, the mandolin player drives the band forward in the same way a snare drum drives a rock band forward. Thile takes the percussive role of the mandolin to new heights in Punch Brothers, chuck-ing out complex syncopation behind his band-mates as they somehow faithfully create Radiohead's Kid A on acoustic instruments. Ideas like this don't spring fully formed from a void: there's something in the type of innovation occurring here that is respectful of tradition. However, this approach is undoubtedly Chris Thile's own style nonetheless. For all of my bloviation (above), this post concerns something fairly mechanical in nature: the right hand motion of a clawhammer banjo player. I'll break down the "rules" that govern the right hand motion of a clawhammer banjo player (...as I understand them) and then give examples of when I choose to break these rules, which will hopefully give you ideas about how to make similar decisions in your own playing. Step 1: Learning the "rules" of the right hand What really attracts people to clawhammer banjo is the driving rhythm. If you watch the right hands of highly-rhythmic players like Ralph Stanley and Grandpa Jones, you see that they move like unstoppable freight trains. Melody notes seem to pop out of this right hand motion as a matter of course; the right hand doesn't stop to find them. This constant motion can be called "right hand stride." While its easy to identify right hand stride in the players I just mentioned, clawhammer banjo players using a variety of approaches keep right hand stride going by default as well. So what are the rules governing right hand stride? Rule 1 for maintaining right hand stride: The index finger of the right hand moves towards the strings on every beat; the thumb never plays notes on the beat. Before elaborating I'll give a bit of theory - this may be a little simplistic but I feel that its useful to build on so please bear with me - let's define the word "beat" : ) For our purposes, we can think of the beat as an imaginary constant pulse that permeates a given piece of music. While it doesn't need to be played out loud during a tune, every player should have this pulse going in their head while playing; musicians play together without a metronome by having the same perception of the beat of a tune; they mentally lay this beat down behind the notes, regardless of whats going on melodically. Most of the tabs I write are in 4/4 time; this means that there are 4 beats in every measure and that if a measure were filled with only 4 quarter notes, these notes would co-occur with the beats. I always indicate the beat above the staff in my tabs; the spaces with numbers (i.e. 1, 2, 3, and 4) are beats, the spaces with "+" are subdivisions of the beat (half-beats), useful for counting. Here's an example:
Figure 1 - A no-frills A part walk up to "Spotted Pony" stolen from my previous post (here). All notes should be played with the index finger of the right hand to maintain "right hand stride."
You can count the beat (and half beats) for the two measures above the staff as follows: "One and two and three and 4 and, one and two and three and four and." In the example shown in Figure 1, notes occur on the beat and nowhere else. Rule 1 (above) says that your index finger should be moving towards the strings on every beat; it therefore makes sense to use your index finger to play every note above. If some of these notes were exchanged for brushes you'd still use your index finger to play them because they are on the beat.
Importantly, Rule 1 should not be interpreted to mean that you have to play something on every beat. What if we took out the notes on beats 2 and 4 in the above tab? Would your hand just stop moving in between notes? Not if you want to maintain right hand stride! Rule 1 says that you've still got to move your index finger towards the strings on these "empty" beats, but you're free to move your hand past the strings and insert "ghost" notes in these spaces (intro to "ghost" notes here, about halfway down). In fact, the whole reason for the existence of ghost notes is to keep right hand stride going while decluttering your playing. So, how do we play notes on the "and's" between beats? Rule 2 for maintaining right hand stride: The index finger is never used to play notes between beats; these notes should be played with the thumb of the right hand, with a left hand pluck, or by hammer-ons/pull-offs from notes played on preceding beats. In Figure 1 we played every note with the index finger of the right hand because these notes were on beat. How do we use Rule 2 to deal with notes on "and" beats? Check out Figure 2:
Figure 2 - constant double thumbing in the A part walkup from "Spotted Pony."
Most clawhammer players intuitively know to play the 5th string with the thumb in the example above. In fact, the 5th string is often actually referred to as the "thumb string." But, lets spend a second putting ourselves in the mindset of a true novice looking at Figure 2: in theory, you could play 5th string notes with your index finger (I know that Frank Lee of the "Freight Hoppers" does this occasionally) and a novice may be tempted to play every note above with the index finger. However, playing this way would mean that their hand would have to move twice as fast to play Figure 2 as it did to play Figure 1; this would be a clear break of "right hand stride" and I think it would be difficult to accomplish when playing up to speed. Rule 2 tells us that we should find another way to play these notes. Since they are on lower strings than the notes preceding them, the thumb is the go-to option in this case. In fact, we can codify how to play notes on the half-beats by expanding rule 2 as follows:
Rule 2a) if the note on an "and" beat is on a lower string than the preceding note (or if the preceding beat contains a brush, cluck, or ghost note) this note should be played with the thumb of the right hand, or by plucking the string with the left hand. Rule 2b) if the note on an "and" beat is at a higher fret of the same string of the preceding note, this note should be played with a hammer on. Rule 2c) if the note on an "and" beat is at a lower fret of the same string of the preceding note, this note should be played with a pull off. Rule 2d) if the note on an "and" beat is on a higher string than the preceding note, this note should be played by plucking the string with the left hand. With these 2 simple rules (..okay, rule 2 is kinda long as expanded above...), we can play simple bum-ditty banjo, dial back our brushes by inserting ghost notes, play constant double thumbing, and even play highly melodic banjo lines. While these approaches sound quite different, they're all fairly easily accomplished without breaking right hand stride: the index finger of your right hand is always "counting the beat" by moving towards the strings (whether they hit them or not), the thumb of your right hand is sometimes noting "and" beats (either with 5th string pulls or drop thumb), and you're filling in remaining melodic blanks with hammer-on's, pull-offs, and/or left hand pulls. Using the Rules to craft an arrangement of a tune: Just to bring it all together, lets check out the following tab for the first line of "Temperance Reel," a particularly notey tune of Irish descent that I play in Old G (gDGDE) tuning:
Figure 3 - The first line of "Temperance Reel" in Old G (gDGDE) without any indication of how to play it with your right hand. Note that a full tab and video of this tune are available in a previous post (here).
The tab above looks dauntingly-melodic. Obviously, we can't get this thing up to speed by playing everything with our index finger so we turn to Rules 1 and 2 to figure out how to play it "in stride." Rule 1 guides us on how to play the on beat notes (those with the numbers 1-4 above them): these all get played with the index finger. So, we've just got to figure out how to play all the notes on half beats ("and" beats). For simplicity, I'll just list every beat and half beat along with which right hand approach should be used to play them according to rules 1 and 2 below:
Playing Figure 3 "by the rules" Measure 1, Beat 1: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 1 +: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 2 +: Drop thumb (Rule 2a) Measure 1, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 3+: Hammer on (Rule 2b) Measure 1, Beat 4: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 4+: Hammer on (Rule 2b) Measure 2, Beat 1: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 1+: Drop thumb (Rule 2a) Measure 2, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 2+: Pull off (Rule 2c) Measure 2, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 3+: Drop thumb (Rule 2a) Measure 2, Beat 4: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 4+: Hammer on (Rule 2b) We can cover all of the notes above without ever having to break right hand stride! Here's how the first line of "Temperance Reel" looks as a result:
Figure 4. The first line of "Temperance Reel" with hammer on's, pull off's, and drop thumbs added to maintain right hand stride. Slurred notes indicate a hammer on or pull off; bracketed notes are meant to be played with the thumb.
So, we know the rules for maintaining right hand stride, and we can even use them to make arrangements of complex melodies. As an aside: I very rarely opt for left string pulls in my playing - as of now they just don't come naturally to me in a melodic context and when I try to use them they really stick out. I know they can be pretty useful tools (especially if you've got to go up more than one string on a half beat) but I just don't need them that often as of now. Perhaps this will change one day : )
So now that we've "learned the rules" that govern right hand stride, lets break them! Step 2: Breaking the rules! "Angeline the Baker" is one of the more common D tunes out in the world. That being said, playing the melody faithfully to your average fiddler's version can be a bit complicated for a beginner. Before getting too much further, lets take a look at the first line of the A part to show you what I'm talking about. It should be noted that this is one of those tunes of which people will argue about which part is the A part: for the record, I now think of the low part as the A part, but when I first learned the tune I was firmly in the other camp (kinda can't even imagine it now...)
Figure 5. The first line of the A part of "Angeline the Baker" with words that correspond to each note. To be played in double D tuning (aDADE)
The fiddle tune we call "Angeline the Baker" comes from Stephen Foster's vocal tune (i.e. song) "Angelina Baker" so it makes sense that you still hear people singing this one (though "Angelina" seems to have shifted to "Angeline the" at some point). I lean towards Crooked Still's take on the tune; in my opinion Aoife O'Donovan has one of the best voices in music today and Rashad Eggleston's cello playing is fantastic. I've put the words Aoife sings below the notes in Figure 5. Rather than subjecting you to my singing to demonstrate the phrasing, I'll play an example on the piano (you're welcome : ).
The rhythm we're shooting for in the melody of "Angeline the baker" repeated 4 times on piano (tabbed for banjo in Figure 5; the final "bum ditty" is not played here).
So how would we play Figure 5 "by the rules?" See Below
Playing Figure 5 ("Angeline the Baker") "by the rules" Measure 1, Beat 1: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 1 +: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 2 +: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 3+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 4: Ghost note (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 4+: Drop thumb (Rule 2a) Measure 2, Beat 1: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 1+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 2, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 2+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 2, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 3+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 2, Beat 4: Brush with Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 4+: thumb (Rule 2b) Here's the resulting tab:
Figure 6: Playing "Angeline the Baker" by the rules. To be played in double D tuning (aDADE)
Bracketed note is meant to be played with a drop thumb.
So, we can play "Angeline the Baker" by rules 1 and 2, which allows us to maintain right hand stride. But, its a tall order for a beginner (or even a seasoned player!). First off, the lack of a note on beat 4 of the first measure necessitates the use of a "ghost stroke" which many people find awkward to begin with. Still, many players can handle a ghost stroke in isolation, but this is actually a ghost-stroke-to-drop-thumb, combo (an even tougher sell). Finally, the drop thumb is followed by an index strike on the same string, a move that always feels a bit crowded to me. Once again, this can be done, but many players (including myself) choose not to.
Surprisingly, some players avoid all this ruckus by altering melody: if you move the offending melodic bits over a half beat things become a lot easier on the banjo player. Here's what I'm talking about:
Figure 7. The first line of "Angeline the baker" with a melodic shift to allow for easier playing.
To be played in double D tuning (aDADE)
As you can see, the offending melody note shifts over from the "4+" half beat of the first measure to the "1" beat of the second measure. The next note is an easy hammer on. This approach necessitates some filler for the last bit of the first measure: I just added a "brush-thumb" in to complete a "bum ditty" that starts on beat 3. By doing this, we've changed the core melody as follows:
Altered melody of "Angeline the baker" repeated 4 times (tabbed for banjo in Figure 7; "bum ditty's" are omitted here).
I guess it sounds okay, but don't try to sing along : ) Also, it may subtly clash with a fiddler; since I like playing duets with a fiddle, this has the potential to really stick out...not ideal. Luckily, we really don't have to pick between making melodic compromises (i.e. playing Figure 7) and potentially train-wrecking to avoid breaking rules (i.e. playing Figure 6). This is where I simply Ignore the rules and play Figure 5 as follows:
Playing Figure 5 ("Angeline the Baker") by breaking the rules! Measure 1, Beat 1: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 1 +: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 2 +: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 1, Beat 3+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 1, Beat 4: Pause your right hand (break stride) Measure 1, Beat 4+: Index (rule violation) Measure 2, Beat 1: Hammer on (rule violation) Measure 2, Beat 1+: Pause your right hand (break stride) Measure 2, Beat 2: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 2+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 2, Beat 3: Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 3+: (empty - I just rest my thumb on the 5th string for this beat) Measure 2, Beat 4: Brush with Index (Rule 1) Measure 2, Beat 4+: thumb (Rule 2b) As you can see, my transgressions are unashamedly presented in bold above : ). Really I start breaking the rules before even sounding a note by avoiding a "ghost note" on the 4th beat of the first measure. What do I do on the 4th beat? Just kind of sit there really...it feels weird at first but you get over it. Having "reset my hand" for half a beat, the next two notes (a cross measure open string to 2nd fret hammer on) really don't feel that odd; its easy to pretend like I'm "on beat" for this move. Finally, I spend the 1+ half beat in the second measure slowly moving back "into phase" in preparation for the rest of the tune. The first time you try this it will feel (and sound) awkward, but eventually it can become second nature. Here's the resulting tab:
Figure 8. Breaking the rules in the first line of "Angeline the Baker." To be played in double D tuning (aDADE). Slurred notes indicate a hammer on. A star above the staff indicates the use of an index finger in an unexpected place.
Here's me on banjo playing figure 8.
Playing Figure 8 on the Buckeye (double D tuning; aDADE)
Not too terrible, right? Once I embraced a willingness to break the rules governing right hand stride, I found that a lot of tunes that seemed like they "just didn't work for clawhammer" in the past came into my grasp - next week I'll share a tab for one!
Thats it for now! Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!
4 Comments
Stew
11/27/2016 12:40:30 pm
Interesting topic. First of all, can I get you to say "striking finger" instead of index. Rafe Stefanini, Josh Turknett, I and I believe Steve Arkin strike with the middle finger (not that I am in their league).
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Jeff N
11/30/2016 11:31:24 am
Hey Stew - thanks for your comment! First off - I didn't mean to ostracize those with a preference for the middle finger! I'll try out "striking finger" in future posts (and below : )
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Jeff N
2/14/2021 06:49:43 am
Thanks Ashlee!
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