Homestead On The Farm

Hi,
Excellent jam on Thursday! 
The song of the week is 'Homestead On The Farm' (a.k.a. 'I Wonder How, The Old Folks Are At Home') in the key of G. 

When it was the song of the week 2 months ago, it was played in the key of A, in the attachments, In the attachments here, I have included the same melody sheets that were given at that time (http://www.idahobluegrassassociation.org/intermediate-jam/category/homestead-on-the-farm​)

Transposing from A to G
In the present context, transposing from A to G involves nothing more than simply lowering every note by a whole step.

The guitar and banjo tabs are written in G with the instruction to capo 2 for A. So to play them in G, just ignore the instruction to capo to the 2nd fret.

To transpose the standard notation melody sheet from A to G, all you need to do is to change the key signature from 3 sharps to 1 sharp, and then lower each note on that is on a line on the staff to the space immediately below that line, and lower each note that is in a space on the staff to the line immediately below that space. (Note: The accidentals in measures 6 and 14, i.e., the G natural and the C natural notes become F natural and Bb respectively when transposing from A to G: Bb, not B, is the note that is a whole step lower than C, for there is no note between B and C. Both accidentals must remain accidentals in the transposition process.)

To transpose the mandolin tab from A to G, do the following:

• Subtract 2 from every number you see on the key of A tab. In cases in which the difference is zero or greater, then there is nothing more to do for transposing the notes in question.
• In cases in which the difference is less than zero, the following two steps must then be added: Add 7 to the difference. Then move the resulting number (the sum) down one string lower in pitch. E.g., All zeros on the 2nd string become 5's on the 3rd string. For: 0 - 2 = -2, -2 + 7 = 5,  and, the 3rd string is the string that is one string lower in pitch than the 2nd string. 

Blank staff paper and a blank mandolin tab sheet are here for the convenience of those who would like to rewrite the melody sheets in G instead of transposing on the fly while reading the key of A melody sheets. And, for those who have little or no experience with writing sheet music or tab, I have also included partially filled in sheet music and mandolin tab papers for Homestead On The Farm in G to help get them started for writing the notes in. 

In all my years of experience with learning songs/tunes, which is by now well into the thousands - number of songs/tunes, not number of years! - ,I have always found that writing the music out by hand rapidly speeds up the memorization process.

Tip for getting the form and progression down pat: 
Pay attention especially to how long you need to play the '2' chord for each time it comes around in the song arrangement, and to how long you need to play the '5' chord that follows the '2' chord each time that it comes around in the arrangement.

Some may find it best to scroll down immediately at this point to the section of this write-up that starts with the header: 'Form, Progression, and Arrangement of the song'  before listening to the youtube links and before reading anything else in this write-up.

History and Recordings of the Song
'Homestead On The Farm' was recorded by the Carter Family in 1929, but in bluegrass circles, this song tends to be more closely associated with Mac Wiseman, who first recorded the song more than 20 years after the Carters. On the points where Mac Wiseman's arrangement differs from the Carter Family's arrangement of the song (chord progression, melody, etc.), bluegrass players have tended to follow Mac.

Mac Wiseman, who at the age of 91 is still active in music, played guitar and sang harmony on Flatt and Scruggs' Mercury Sessions recording of 'Someday We'll Meet Again Sweetheart', which was one of the very first records Flatt and Scruggs made together after they left Bill Monroe's band. And, in the role of lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Mac Wiseman was Lester Flatt's immediate successor in Bill Monroe's band. Mac, for instance, is the lead singer on the original 1949 Bill Monroe recording of the popular bluegrass standard 'Can't You Hear Me Calling'. 

Here are two of Mac's recordings, and one live performance, of 'Homestead On The Farm':
key of Bb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6uxNzkH1Vc

key of A:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82_0ui4taWI

key of A:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBzQXXDC6w4

Form, Progression, and Arrangement of the song
The chord progression I use for Homestead On The Farm is the same as the one that Mac Wiseman usually used:

Verse:
1411
1144
4411
2255

Chorus:
1411
1144
4411
2511

(In the key of G: 2 = A. In the key of A: 2 = B. That is, the '2' chord is always a whole-step higher than the 1 chord.)

Notice that the verse ends on the 5 chord, instead of the 1 chord. This requires the verse progression to be followed by the chorus progression in order for the song to sound resolved. Since the verse ends with one being left hanging on the 5, the chorus may easily come across as though it were simply the second half of a really long verse. For this reason, the parts of the song (breaks, verses, choruses) are usually arranged in such a way that the verse progression is never played twice back to back without the chorus progression intervening.

A typical jam arrangement of the song is:
Intro break - played over the chorus progression, (so that the intro break sounds resolved)
Verse 1
Chorus 
Break - played over the verse progression
Break - played over the chorus progression (by a different instrument than the one that played the immediately preceding break)
Verse 2
Chorus
Break - played over the verse progression
Chorus

If more breaks are needed than this, another break over the verse progression followed by another break over the chorus progression may be inserted right before Verse 2, and/or another break over the chorus progression followed by another break over the verse progression may be inserted right before the final chorus.

The '2' Chord
In a previous song of the week write-up ('I Can't Feel At Home In This World Anymore'), I discussed the '2' chord at length, and then added more information relating to this chord in yet a more recent song of the week write-up ('Cry Cry Darlin''):
http://www.idahobluegrassassociation.org/intermediate-jam/category/i-cant-feel-at-home
and
http://www.idahobluegrassassociation.org/intermediate-jam/category/cry-cry-darlin

More on the '2' chord:
Just as one may substitute a dominant 7th chord (usually called just simply a 7th chord) in place of a major chord when a 5 chord is called for (e.g., D7 in place of D when playing in the key of G; G7 in place of G when playing in the key of C), so the same is also true for '2' chords (e.g., B7 in place of B when playing in the key of A; D7 in place of D when playing in the key of C; E7 in place of E when playing in the key of D). 

Notice on the Mac Wiseman live performance included here, Mac is playing a B7 instead of a B: and this is common practice for bluegrass rhythm guitar when a B chord shows up when playing in any key without a capo in which the B chord functions as the 5 chord (key of E), the 6 chord (key of D), the 3 chord (key of G), or, in this case, as the 2 chord (key of A). 

However, B7 in place of B would not work well if the B chord were functioning as the 1 chord (key of B), except when used as a transitional chord to lead from the 1 to the 4 (in the key of B, one might for instance play the first half of the I'll Fly Away progression as: BBBB7EEBB), and would not always work well for the 4 chord either (key of F#), and would almost never work for the b7 chord (key of C#). Most bluegrass rhythm guitar players need not concern themselves with this since most of them would never consider playing in any of these keys without a capo, and the two latter keys are not among the 8 Major keys that bluegrass songs are commonly played in at jams. But, it is good for all to be aware - regardless of which instruments they play - that there are only certain chords for which it is 'safe' to habitually substitute dominant 7ths in place of majors. 

When playing in the key of G in standard G tuning, banjo players may often automatically play a dominant 7th in place of a major for the 2 chord (in the key of G, an A7 chord in place of an A chord) without being consciously aware that they are doing so, for the 5th string - the short string - on the banjo is tuned - when in G tuning and when not capoed - to a G note (banjo players rarely ever fret this string), and this is the very note that when added to an A chord makes it into an A7 chord. (This same A7 chord will also often show up in place of an A for the 6 chord when banjo players are playing in C without a capo.)

To make any major chord a dominant 7th chord, all that one does is add to the chord the note that is a whole step lower than the note that has the same letter name as the chord: this is the b7 note/scale degree on the Nashville Number System Chart handout.

I think it sounds best if only some of the players at any given time, rather than all at the same time, in a band, or at a jam, use the dominant 7th in place of the major when playing over 2, 3 and 6 chords. On 5 chords, I like to hear the dominant 7th used even more sparingly.

Happy Pickin',
Jason