Cherokee Shuffle

3/11/2017

Hi,
The song of the week is the fiddle tune 'Cherokee Shuffle' in the key of A.

'Cherokee Shuffle' is closely related to the key of D fiddle tune 'Lost Indian', but unlike Lost Indian, Cherokee Shuffle has an unusual form. The B-Part of Cherokee Shuffle is 10 measures long instead of the usual 8 measures that make up a part in a double reel. (The A-Part of Lost Indian is essentially the same as the A-Part of Cherokee Shuffle. The B-Part of Lost Indian uses the same progression as, and a similar melody to the A-Part. In some versions of Lost Indian, the B-Part is little more than the A-Part melody played an octave higher.)

Here are two good versions of Cherokee Shuffle to listen to:
Gravel Road Bluegrass - Cherokee Shuffle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRcn906A7iA&feature=youtu.be

Josh Williams - "Cherokee Shuffle"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOiMSTzwa28&feature=youtu.be

The chord progression we will use for Cherokee Shuffle at next week's intermediate jam is:

A-Part: B-Part:
1 1 1 6m 4 1 4 1
4 1 5 1 4 1 1 6m 4/5 1

Note: On both versions provided here, the second to last measure of the B-Part is played the same way as the second to last measure of the A-Part, instead of there being a 4/5 split measure in the B-Part.

Here is a version of Lost Indian for comparison:
Lost Indian - Norman Blake / Doc Watson / Tony Rice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnbOVXfh1sY

Cherokee Shuffle is one of the relatively few AABB-type fiddle tunes that I prefer not to start with an 8 potato intro at a jam, because the first melody note of the first measure is identical with the main note I would be droning in an 8 Potato intro (in the key of A, an A note that is in the same octave as the A note that the melody begins with), thus making it sound unclear where the intro ends and the tune begins. So, I start with three quarter note pickups instead that ascend into the A note (E, F#, G#: the 5th, 6th, and 7th notes of the A Major Scale.) Other tunes like this include Buffalo Gals, Salt Creek, and Red Wing.

The first four melody sheets attached here are just one of many hundreds of differing printed versions of the melody for Cherokee Shuffle. Most, but not all, of the alternate versions available fit just as well with the chord progression I have given for Cherokee Shuffle, so feel free to mix and match as you like the different versions you may know or may come across, but, in doing so, keep the chord progression in mind.

Although the melody sheets contain far more 8th notes than most other song of the week melody sheets, please remember that these sheets give only the melody (or rather, a melody); they are not full-fledged Bluegrass breaks, they provide you with nothing more than just a good starting point for creating such breaks (compare the melody sheets with the breaks you hear on the youtube links provided here, and notice the kinds of embellishments that are used in these breaks that are not represented anywhere on the melody sheets).

The "Banjo tab #2" melody sheet attached here gives only the most essential melody notes relative to the version of the melody given on the other melody sheets. The reason why I include it here is because it is characteristic of Scruggs-style banjo breaks for fiddle tunes to take a skeletal version of the melody and surround it with combinations of 8th notes and quarter notes that are clearly distinct from the melody and that often deviate significantly from the combinations of 8th notes and quarter notes that the other Bluegrass lead instruments tend to use as melody notes and/or filler notes. In order to be able to play the sequences of 8th notes written on the fourth melody sheet (banjo tab #1), which are the same notes given on the first three melody sheets, up to speed with finger picks, a banjo player would need to use single-string style or melodic style. (The fretboard locations I wrote for the notes in the A Part is intended for single-string style, and the fretboard locations I wrote for the notes in the B Part is intended for melodic style.)

Of all the melody sheets attached here, the "Banjo tab #2" melody sheet has the least in common with a bluegrass-style break. It contains far too many consecutive quarter notes, and no embellishments are given for any of the many half, dotted-half, and whole notes.

Most songs played at Bluegrass jams with a 6m chord in their progression could be played without the 6m and still sound musically correct, and Cherokee Shuffle is no exception to this. Although I don't think I have ever heard anyone play it like this, it would work to use the 4 chord in place of the 6m, because the main melody note in the 6m measures is a note that is part of both the 6m and the 4 chord (an F# note in the key of A.) F#m, which is the 6m for the key of A, consists of the notes F#, A, and C#. The D major chord, which is the 4 for the key of A, consists of the notes D, F#, and A.

The 6m chord shares two notes in common not only with the 4 chord, but also with the 1 chord. For this reason, when the 6m chord occurs in a progression for a song, it is common to be able to find other versions of the same song in which, depending on what the melody notes are at that point, either a 1 chord is used instead or a 4 chord used instead.

For instance, some versions of Will The Circle Be Unbroken (Prog. V3 on the basic progressions handout) use 1116m, or rarely 116m6m, in place of 1111 for the third line. At every bluegrass jam I can remember playing Sitting On Top Of The World, 116m6m was used for the third line, yet on all the old classic bluegrass recordings of the song that I am familiar with, that same line is played as 1111 (Prog. V3). In a previous incarnation of the beginner jam, Lonesome Road Blues was often played with 4416m for its third line in place of 4411 (Prog. W4). The Clumsy Lovers, the 'Raging Celtic-Bluegrass-Rock' band originally from Vancouver, BC that I have been a member of since the Spring of 2001, uses 6m511 for the last line of Amazing Grace in place of the much more common 1511 (Prog. V6), and 4416m in place of 4411 for the third line of You Are My Sunshine (Prog. V4).

Last month at the intermediate jam, I led Down In A Willow Garden with a 6m in the third line of the verses: 1116m, but with a 4 in the third line of the choruses: 1114 (the melody for both lines is identical) and then after the song was finished, I found out that Bart, who called the song, had intended for me to play both those lines as 1114, and I had simply misunderstood his instructions. (Left to my own devices, I usually play both lines as 1116m.) Yet other versions of the song use 4416m in place of the 6m6m16m that I typically use for the first line of the chorus.

At Bluegrass jams, the B-Part of Big Sciota is typically played as 155446m51, but at the Old-Time jam held at Pengilly's on Monday nights (right across the street from where our Wednesday and Thursday night jams are held), they usually play 6m in place of 4 and 4 in place of 6m, thus reversing the order in which the 4 and 6m occur in the progression: 1556m6m451.

Happy Pickin',
Jason