Hi, The song of the week is 'Bury Me Beneath The Willow' in the key of G. Originally recorded by the Carter Family in 1927 (it was the first song they recorded), and then by the Monroe Brothers (Bill Monroe and his older brother Charlie) in 1937 (under the title: 'Weeping Willow Tree'), 'Bury Me Beneath The Willow' has gone on to become one of the most common of bluegrass standards. Here are some youtube links to listen to: Alison Krauss - key of E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzA68Ohwke4 The Stanley Brothers - sharper than F#, but flatter than G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohRY7WNqGJY Firebox Bluegrass Band - key of G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La1TRQEmEVM Roseanne Cash - key of A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVL8fIJLyYo for historical purposes, here are the Carter Family https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCniFuHlPG0 and Monroe Brothers recordings of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRxz4OQ4yzc Changing the Pronouns? Notice that both the Monroe Brothers and the Stanley Brothers sing the song in the person of a woman, just like on the original recording of the song by the Carter Family, whereas the lead singer in the Firefox Bluegrass Band changed the pronouns 'he' and 'him' to 'she' and 'her' so that he would not be singing from the first person perspective of a woman. The practice of changing the lyrics to a song sung from a first person perspective to make them correspond to the singer's gender has been called by at least one Bluegrass writer 'the dreaded gender-switch'. It works okay for some songs, but not so well for others. But, either way, changing the lyrics in this manner is entirely unnecessary in Bluegrass. There are many good recorded examples of Bluegrass songs sung by men in the person of a woman, and many examples of Bluegrass songs sung by women in the person of a man. Just as one does not need to be a parent to sing 'Bring Back To Me My Wandering Boy' (a song that has often been recorded by male Bluegrass singers that is sung in the person of a mother: no one I have ever heard sing the song changes 'mother' to 'father' in the lyrics), or to be a murderer to sing 'Banks Of The Ohio', or to be a dying little child to sing 'Little Joe', so, for precisely the same reasons, one does not need to be a woman to sing Bury Me Beneath The Willow in the person of a bride-to-be whose fiance has abandoned her, nor does one need to be a man to sing a song like 'Will You Be Loving Another Man?' Progression The chord progression for Bury Me Beneath The Willow (on all the recordings given here except for the Monroe Brothers' version) is the most common of all progressions in bluegrass (Prog. V7 on the Basic Progressions handout): 1144 1155 1144 1511 Here's a short list of standard bluegrass songs that use this same progression: Wreck Of The Old '97 I Still Write Your Name In The Sand I'm On My Way Back To The Old Home Your Love Is Like A Flower Y'all Come Down Where The River Bends Lost And I'll Never Find A Way Come Back Darlin Why Did You Wander If I Should Wander Back Tonight I'm Waiting To Hear You Call Me Darling Ain't Nobody Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone Road To Columbus Hold Watcha Got Blue Moon Of Kentucky (verse) Black Mountain Rag (C-Part) Flint Hill Special Rose Of Old Kentucky (verse) Tiny Broken Heart (verse) Little Annie (verse) White Dove (verse) Memory Of You In the key of G: 1=G, 4=C, and 5=D The G chord is made up of the notes: G, B, and D. The C chord is made up of the notes: C, E, and G. The D chord is made up of the notes: D, F#, and A. Together, these 7 notes make up the G major scale, and the melody of Bury Me Beneath The Willow makes use of all of them. (See the melody sheets attached here.) Pickups into Breaks When played in the key of G, the first melody note of the first full measure of the verses (and choruses) is the D note above the G note that the melody resolves on. When this is the case, the most effective pick up notes to use to kick off the song are the B, C, and C# notes immediately below that D note. Use of this series of notes is equally effective on all the bluegrass lead instruments. Give it a try. Start by finding the B note on your instrument, and then ascend in half steps (on a fretted instrument, this means you will not skip over any frets) until you reach the D note, playing the B, C, and C# notes as quarter notes, and be sure to place a heavy accent on that D note, since it is the first note of the first full measure of the song. Bury Me Beneath The Willow has been played at the jam almost just as frequently in A as in G. For the key of A, raise all the notes a whole step, so the pickup series becomes C#, D, D# leading to an E note. Two songs that so far have always been played in the key of G at the jam for which this same 3-note pick-up measure will work effectively, for the same reasons that it works so well for 'Bury Me Beneath The Willow' are: 'Foggy Mountain Top', and 'Gathering Flowers From The Hillside'. The same set of pickups are also good for 'Lonesome Road Blues' and 'Wreck Of The Old '97' (both on the additional 30 list) when played in G. 'Wreck Of The Old '97' has always been played in D so far at the jam. For the key of D, the pickup series becomes F#, G, G# leading to an A note. In the key of C, it would be E, F, F# leading to a G note. Key Pickup Notes Leading to: G B C C# D note A C# D D# E note Bb D Eb E F note B D# E E# F# note C E F F# G note D F# G G# A note E G# A A# B note F A Bb B C note [The note named as E# in the context of the key of B pickups is the same note as the note that is in most other contexts is named as F.]
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Hi, The song of the week is 'Soldier's Joy'. It is one of the more popular traditional fiddle tunes in Bluegrass circles, but one will hear it played not only at Bluegrass jams, but also at Old-Time jams, at square dances, contradances, and even sometimes at Irish sessions. Form Soldier's Joy follows the most typical form for traditional fiddle tunes: AABB (can be thought of as: verse, verse, chorus, chorus, if this helps), with each A-Part and each B-Part being 8 measures long. (Total: 32 measures). Like most traditional fiddle tunes, there is only one key that it is usually played in: in this case 'D'. Progression The chord progression that we use at the beginner jam for 'Soldier's Joy' is the one that I have heard most frequently at Bluegrass Jams and on Bluegrass recordings of the tune. It is: A-Part: 1 1 1 5 1 1 1/5 1 B-Part 1 4 1 5 1 4 1/5 1 In the key of D: 1 = D; 4 = G; 5 = A. Recordings Here are some good versions of 'Soldier's Joy' to listen to: Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys (guitar & fiddle breaks) (starts at 3:50) - key of D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyZWC5CVdaI Larry Rice and the Bottom Dollar Boys (mandolin, fiddle, Scruggs-style banjo: tuned GCGBD, & guitar breaks) - key of D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzZ2tSENgTY Earl Scruggs & John McEuen: a good example of Scruggs-style banjo and Clawhammer banjo being played together. Scruggs' banjo is tuned GCGBD; John McEuen's banjo is tuned GCGCE. Note: since there is no fiddle or mandolin here, they get away with playing Soldier's Joy in C (no capo) instead of D (capo 2). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5OKxPE59Bo 'To capo or not to capo' Many banjo players and some guitar players prefer to play Soldier's Joy in D by capoing to the 2nd fret and then playing it as if in 'C'. For this reason, I have included both key of D and key of C melody tabs for banjo and guitar in the attachments. If you have the capo on the 2nd fret for playing Soldier's Joy in D, then your chord shapes need to be the same as those for playing in the key of C without a capo: 1=C; 4=F; 5=G. Banjo Tunings Note: On banjo, no matter which of these two options you choose: capo 2 or no capo, you will need to raise your 5th string up to an A note (i.e., spike/capo your 5th string to the 7th fret) in order to be able to play an effective Scruggs-style or Clawhammer-style break. Most Scruggs-style banjo players who prefer the capo 2 option tune their 4th string down a whole step so as to retain access to the lowest melody note in the tune when playing within the first 5 frets. (This is called 'C tuning': without the capo the 4th string will be tuned down to a C note. With the capo on the 2nd fret, the 4th string will then register as a D note when not fretted. See the attachment: 'BBJ - Soldier's Joy - banjo tab C tuning'.) Most clawhammer banjo players play Soldier's Joy either by tuning to Double C tuning: GCGCD or Open C tuning: GCGCE, and then capo to the 2nd fret in order to be playing in D. I have included a Double C tuning banjo melody tab in the attachments. Intro Since the most effective way to start most fiddle tunes at a jam is by playing an 8 potato intro before starting into the first A-Part of your intro break, I have included an attachment that gives 8 potato intros suitable for Soldier's Joy and most other key of D fiddle tunes, for fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo. An 8 potato intro, reduced to its most basic form, essentially consists of droning the note that has the same name as the key of the tune in a highly rhythmic fashion for 4 measures. Accenting the first pickstroke (or, on fiddle, bowstroke) of each measure of the intro is crucial to an effective 8 potato intro, so as to make it unmistakably clear where each of the measures that make up the intro begin and end; it also helps to accent the first pickstroke/bowstroke of the second half of each measure, but this accent should not be quite as heavy as the accent on the beginning of the measure. Choose a version of the 8 potato intro that works for you, but don't wait until you are at the jam to 'practice' it. Make it habit to always start most of your fiddle tunes with 8 potato intros when you are practicing at home so that you will be better prepared to effectively use 8 potato intros when playing with others. Melody 'Soldier's Joy' is one of those tunes which - in one and the same version - is often played both with so many melody notes that there is little room left for additional 'filler' notes (i.e., as many as 8 melody notes per measure), and with the bare minimum of melody notes necessary to retain the identity of the tune (no more than 3 or 4 melody notes per measure). In my many years of experience with listening to hundreds of versions of this tune and playing it in a wide variety of jam situations, I have found that in playing 'Soldier's Joy', Bluegrass and Irish fiddlers and melodic (Keith) style banjo players tend towards trying to squeeze in as many melody notes as possible, while Scruggs-style and Clawhammer banjo players and Dobro players tend to play as few melody notes as necessary. Old-Time fiddlers, mandolin players, and flatpickers tend to fall somewhere in between these two extremes. For fiddle, mandolin, and guitar, I have included in the attachments melody tabs with 'few melody notes' and melody tabs with 'more melody notes'. Filler If you are not ready for a 'more melody notes' type version, then, to the extent that you are able to, try to add some filler notes to a 'few melody notes' version. Even for the 'more melody notes' versions, filler notes should be added in at least some spots so as to avoid playing half notes. Whenever you play a half note (or a note or even longer duration) in a break, you are decreasing your degree of control over the tempo and feel of the tune at that point. I have not included 'more melody notes' tabs for banjo, since that would take us well beyond Scruggs-style and traditional Clawhammer banjo into the realm of Melodic and Single-string style playing. If you are a three-finger style player, fill in the blanks with the Scruggs-style picking patterns you know how to play when these are feasible to use around the melody. If you are a clawhammer player, fill in the blanks with 'bum-ditty' figures and - if this is part of your playing - a few rhythmic drop-thumb figures here and there when they fit. More Melody There are many more extra melody notes that may occur in versions of Soldier's Joy, but, for the phase that the beginner jam is currently in, I didn't think it would be appropriate at this time to include any more notes in a melody sheet for Soldier's Joy than what is already included on the 'more (melody) notes' melody sheets. But, if you are feeling ambitious, and if you believe that you are ready for this, you can find some of these extra melody notes by applying the 'checkmark' pattern to the first half of measures 2 and 6 of the B-Part (notice the checkmark pattern in measures 1, 3, and 5 of the B-Part on the 'more melody notes' tabs when compared with the 'few melody notes' tabs), and upside down 'checkmarks' to the second half of measures 1, 3, and 5 of the B-Part. For a description of the checkmark pattern and how to apply it to melodies, refer back to the beginner jam song of the week email for 'Buffalo Gals', which is here:: http://www.idahobluegrassassociation.org/beginner-jam/category/buffalo-gals
Hi, The song of the week is 'Down The Road' in the key of A. Flatt and Scruggs - key of B (studio recording): all breaks are on banjo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmBOl82qXqs Flatt and Scruggs - key of A (live recording): banjo, fiddle and dobro breaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc0iFZSeY6A The Bluegrass Album Band - key of B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqJVrqQO1Dk Form The form of this song is unusual. Except for the last verse of the song (which has a common 8 measure form: 2 lines consisting of 4 measures each: this does not include the 2 measure tack-on 'shave-and-a-haircut' ending that follows the last verse), the form for Down The Road consists of 2 lines of unequal length. The first line is the standard 4 measures that lines in most bluegrass songs consist of, but the second line is 5 and a half measures long. This brings us to a total of 9 and a half measures. Add to this the bluegrass tendency to allow 1 or more extra measures of the '1' chord to go by at the end of a break that occurs right before a verse is sung, and you can end up with 10 and a half, or 11 and a half, or 12 and a half measures or more for the length of a break that occurs before a verse. Notice that on the first Flatt & Scruggs recording given here, the breaks are consistently 10 and a half measures long, while on the second recording, even more measures are added to the end of the breaks, but not always the same number of extra measures. However, and this is important to observe, on all the recordings, all the sung verses that are followed by a break are exactly the same length: 9 and a half measures. One way to think about this is that the number of beats that go by between the last sung syllable and the first full measure of the break that follows is always the same. Progression Not counting extra measures of the '1' that might occur at the end of some of the breaks, the chord progression for Down The Road is: 1 1/6m 1 5/1 1 1/6m 1 5 1 1 The 'half' measure in the form occurs in the spot where the 5 chord is played in the second line. If one is counting the beats in the second line in cut common time (2/2), one would count it as: 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,1,2.1,2. Notice the spot where there are two 1s back to back without a 2 intervening between them. On the sheet music attached here, I have written the 'half' measure (measure 8) with a time signature of 1/2. And then to indicate that the remaining two measures in the form return to 2/2, I have placed the time signature symbol that represents 2/2 at the beginning of the measure that follows the 1/2 time measure.) In the key of A: 1=A; 6m=F#m; 5=E The A (major) chord consists of the notes: AC#E The F#m chord consists of the notes: F#mAC# (it has two notes in common with the A major chord) The E (major) chord consists of the notes: EG#B For mandolin players especially: If you find yourself struggling too much with making the quick change from the 1 chord to the 6m chord and back, you may play the 1 in place of the 6m, since there are no notes in the 1 chord that will clash with the 6m. Banjo and guitar players should capo to the 2nd fret, and then play as if in G. In the key of G: 1=G; 6m=Em; 5=D Breaks When you look at the sheet music attached here for Down The Road, observe that the first measure of the break begins two measures from the time that the last syllable of the verse is sung. Another way of looking at this is that there are two measures of the 1 chord that are played at the end of the verse before the break begins. If enough of us make it a point to observe and practice this, this will go along ways towards minimizing the confusion that can easily result (due to the unusual form of the song) when Down The Road is played at a jam. There are two things that one can do to help prevent confusion about when the break begins (i.e., when the form starts over again): 1) Use three quarter-note pickup notes for leading into your break. For a good choice of pickup notes, see the attachment: 'Down The Road - melody in A': the notes are E, F#, G#: which are located at frets 2, 4, and 6 on the 3rd string of the mandolin, and would usually be represented in guitar, banjo, and dobro tab as 0, 2, and 4 on the 4th string for the key of G, capo 2 for the key of A.) Dig into your three pickup notes really hard so as to draw attention to yourself, and then dig into the note that comes next (namely, the first note of the first measure of your break) even harder so that there can be no room for doubt as to where the first measure of the form begins. These three pickup notes should be played during the last three-quarters of the last measure of the form, and they should be spaced apart from each other evenly. Breaks & Backup 2) Play a fill-in lick in the measure that contains the last syllable of the verse, and end that fill-in lick on the first downbeat of the next measure. Bring your volume up as soon as after the last syllable is sung, and hit the last note of your fill-in lick really hard (make it 'pop', especially if you are playing a G run on the guitar: the G chord fill-in lick that is given in the attachments represents one version of what is commonly called 'the G-run'). This makes it clear as to where the last measure of the form begins - which is helpful to make clear on account of the half measure that the form contains in its second line, after which some people may find the beat 'flipped around' in their head and/or in their playing. The first of the three pickup notes into the break begin right after the last note of the fill-in lick is played. If you don't already play fill-in licks on your instrument yet, or are new to playing them, refer to the A-chord fill-ins for fiddle and mandolin, or the G-chord (capo 2 for A) fill-ins for guitar and banjo given in the attachments for the preceding song of the week 'Mama Don't Allow' which I have reattached here for your convenience. Ending For the last verse, which is 8 measures long, rather than 9 and a half, it works best if everyone plays their last note at the same time as the last syllable is sung (as on the standard recordings given here). Then the banjo players can add a two measure tack-on ending appropriate for the '1' chord of the song (doesn't have to be the same ones that are on the recordings) that everyone else remains silent on except for the on the very last note of the ending. Have a happy Easter! Jason
Hi, The song of the week is 'Mama Don't Allow' in the key of A. Be prepared also to play Mama Don't Allow in the key of G, since that is the key the song has most often been played in at the jam when others have sang it. In the attachments, I have included melody sheets for Mama Don't Allow in both A and G. Recordings of the Song The two recorded versions of the song given below are very different from each other. The first, from Flatt and Scruggs (in the key of G), is a straightforward Bluegrass studio recording arrangement of the song, featuring only three lead instruments (banjo, fiddle, and dobro), while the second, from Doc Watson (in the key of A), has more of a jam feel to it, and, in addition to featuring traditional Bluegrass instruments (mandolin, banjo, guitar, etc.) it also includes and features some instruments that are not among the first instruments that usually come to mind when one thinks of Bluegrass (drums, piano). Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs - Mama Don't Allow It http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7mXpgGgpkM Mama dont allow - Doc Watson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xdtE8h6GuM Use of Fill-ins in Backup Playing While listening to the youtube links provided here, observe that the instruments not only take turns doing breaks, as determined by the lyrics, but also take turns being featured as the dominant backup instrument behind the vocals. As soon as the name of the instrument is mentioned in the first line of the verse, this is an opportunity for that instrument to play a fill-in lick during the two measures of 'dead space' that occur in the vocal between the last syllable of the first line of the verse and the first syllable of the second line of the verse. Two measure length 'dead' spaces' occur also after the last syllable of the second line and after the last syllable of the fourth line; so, in each verse there are three different spots where the appropriate instrument can 'announce' its presence by playing a fill-in lick in anticipation of its upcoming break. In the recorded versions, most of the fill-in licks used are not among the simpler ones to learn to play. In addition to the melody sheets for Mama Don't Allow, I have included in the attachments some easier fill-in licks for fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo to help you get started with using fill-in licks in your playing if you do not already do so. The licks are intended to start at the beginning of the 3rd measure of lines 1, 2, and 4 of the verse: the G licks for lines 1 and 4, and the D licks for line 2. Each lick ends at the beginning of measure 4 of the line, at which point you can simply go back to doing whatever kind of thing you were doing before you started the fillin, whether that be simple rhythm playing on the guitar or mandolin, roll backup on the banjo, or something else. On the attached chart of fill-in licks, notes in parentheses are not really part of the fill-in lick proper and may be omitted if they are inconvenient to get into from what you were doing immediately before the fill-in measure begins. For instance, if you are playing chop chords on the fiddle or mandolin right up to the point where the fill-in measure starts, you may wish to substitute a quarter note rest in place of the quarter note in parentheses that occurs at the beginning of the fill-in lick measure. Bluegrass songs typically contain at least 2 'dead spaces' in each 16-measure-length verse and in each 16-measure-length chorus that are long enough for a fill-in lick to be used during them. Depending on whether there are pickup notes leading into the next line of the song, these 'dead spaces' will last anywhere from one measure to two measures. These are always opportunities for fill-in licks to be played by a lead instrument. On bluegrass recordings, you may notice that the lead instruments usually take turns being featured as the dominant backup instrument. This same thing occurs also at jams. Mama Don't Allow is a good song to use to start to get the hang of doing this, for the lyrics of song draw attention directly to the fact that that is what is going in the backup, and so there need never be any doubt in this song as to which lead instrument should be featured at any given time. Singing and leading the song at the jam As more and more people (including those who have not yet led the singing on a song at the jam but might like to try), notice that the lyrics of Mama Don't Allow are among the easiest to learn of all the 50 songs on the two songs lists provided for the Beginner Jam, and that once learned, the lyrics are not easily forgotten even in the moment that one is about to start singing the next verse after a break, the need will likely arise to learn to play the song in keys other than G and A. This is because one or more of the 6 other standard keys for Bluegrass (Bb, B, C, D, E, & F) is bound to be more well suited to the vocal ranges of certain people at the jam than either G or A. The one thing that can sometimes be challenging about remembering the lyrics to this song is that one needs to keep track of which instruments one has mentioned in each verse so far, so as to not leave any instrument out that is represented at the jam, and so as to not over-feature any of the instruments. It helps to keep track though if one makes it a point to call each instrument type in the order in which one first encounters each type of instrument, going clockwise around the circle starting from the person who played the intro break for the song until one runs out of other instruments to call and one finally calls the name of the instrument on which the intro break was played. This is the system that I use for calling breaks on most songs at the jam. As traditionally played at jams, the bass player is given a break on Mama Don't Allow, whereas for most other songs this is not done. (Bass breaks for this song are not usually melody-based, so I have not included a melody sheet for bass in the attachments.) For this song, I don't usually call the breaks as each verse is ending. The person singing the verses is calling the breaks simply by virtue of singing the name of an instrument in any given verse. The only times when I have felt a real need to call a break on this song when someone else was singing it, is when either: a) I had failed to mention before the song started that the verse 'Mama don't 'low no bluegrass music round here' (or something similar to this) is - at least in the context of how our jam operates - a way of calling a collective 'everybody' break, and it seemed doubtful to me that enough people had caught on to this in time before the collective break was about to begin; or b) it was obvious that people were not catching on to which instrument was named by the person singing. This latter scenario occurs almost any time, for instance, when a singer abbreviates mandolin as 'mando': many people mistake this for 'banjo'. So, even though it is not as easy to squeeze a three-syllable instrument name into the verses as it is to sing a two-syllable instrument name, it is best to always sing 'mandolin' instead of 'mando' for the mandolin verse. About the Chord Progression for the song The progression for Mama Don't Allow is: 1111 1155 1144 1511 In the key of A: 1=A; 4=D; 5=E In the key of G: 1=G; 4=C; 5=D. This is a very useful progression to know by heart, for it is very common. (It is the one that is labelled as V2 on the Basic Chord Progressions handout.) It is the same progression that is used to play the well-known folk songs 'When The Saints Go Marching In', 'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain', 'Froggy Went A Courting', and (some versions of) 'Red River Valley'. Three other songs that I believe are especially well worth familiarizing oneself with if not yet familiar with them that also use the same progression are: 'The Crawdad Song' (a folk song adapted to Bluegrass that has tended to be popular at previous incarnations of Beginner jam in some of their phases), 'Will You Be Loving Another Man' (a classic Bluegrass song from Bill Monroe, very well-known in Bluegrass circles), the verses and breaks, but not the choruses, of 'Why Don't You Tell Me So' (a classic Bluegrass song from Flatt & Scruggs, also very well-known in Bluegrass circles). The 'Mama Don't Allow' progression, or, if this works better for you, the 'She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain' progression, or the 'When The Saints Go Marching In' progression, etc., all of which are much better ways to label the progression both for your own point of reference, and to explain the progression to others when the need arises, than by calling it Progression V2. (Only people who have carefully studied the Basic Chord Progressions chart I created for the beginner and intermediate jams might know off the top of their heads which progression it is that is in column 2 of row V on the chart without having to have to take a look at the chart.) I highly recommend making it a point to associate a particular song (or a small group of songs) with each progression on the chart, whenever this is possible, that you are really familiar with. Songs that you have known and, better yet, sung since childhood, and/or songs that were the first song example(s) of a particular progression that you learned to play on your instrument(s) tend to work best for this purpose. For a progression on the chart that you do not yet have a direct useful point of reference for, you might find it helpful to think of the progression in terms of its relation to a progression that is similar to it that you are able to easily associate with a particular song or group of songs.
Hi, The song of the week is 'All The Good Times Are Past And Gone' in the key of A. This song is traditionally played in 3/4 (a.k.a., 'Waltz') time. The chord progression for 'All The Good Times Are Past and Gone' is: 1141 1155 1141 1511 [Progression V6 on the 'Basic Chord Progressions' handout. Probably the most well-known song in 3/4 time that uses this same progression is 'Amazing Grace'.] In the key of A: 1 = A; 4 = D; 5 = E. With a capo on the 2nd fret, the chord shapes become: 1 = G; 4 = C; 5 = D. Notice that on the Flatt and Scruggs recording of 'All The Good Times' (see the youtube link below), and extra measure of the '1' chord is played at the end of each of the breaks before the vocal comes in. When playing this song at the jam, this may or may not happen, so be prepared for either scenario. Also be prepared for the possibility that more than one measure of the '1' chord may be added to the end of some of the breaks before the vocal comes in. The safest thing to do here is to just keep on hitting the root note of the chord (on bass and guitar) at the beginning of each of these additional measures of the '1' chord so as to guarantee that you will be playing the root note of the chord at the time when the progression starts over from the beginning. Flatt and Scruggs, key of A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LnhLmyOKmM To say that a song is played in 3/4 time means that there are 3 beats per measure in the song. On guitar, when playing rhythm, one measure will consist of 'boom-chuck-chuck', i.e., 'bassnote-strum-strum', rather than the more common rhythm for bluegrass songs of 'boom-chuck-boom-chuck'. Notice that this means that in 3/4 time it takes two measures, instead of one, to get through a cycle of root-5 (alternating bass) on guitar (and on bass, if you are playing only one note per measure). For this reason, it can be useful to think of the chord progression in groups of two measures. The root note of each chord is simply the note that has the same letter name as the chord. The '5' of the chord is the 5th scale degree of the major scale that has the same letter name as the chord. The first five scale degrees of the A major scale are A, B, C#, D, and E, so when playing 'root-5' over an A chord, this means that you are alternating between an A and an E note. There are six major (and six minor) chords for which identifying the '5' involves nothing more than counting up the musical alphabet, without having to worry about sharps or flats. The six are: A, C, D, E, F, and G. So, the 5 of 'C' (counting C is as '1') is G (1,2,3,4,5: C,D,E,F,G), the 5 of D is 'A', the 5 of E is 'B', the 5 of F is 'C', and the 5 of G is 'D'. Taking the progression two measures at a time, the first two measures allow one to play 'root-5' over the 1 chord, but the second group of two measures (i.e., the third and fourth measures) allow one to play only the root note of the chords called for there, because the second of these two measures has a different chord than what the first of these two measures does. So, this scenario is similar to what happens in the non-3/4 time songs we play at the jam in which a single measure is split between two chords (e.g., the 7th measure of each of the parts of Boil The Cabbage Down and Soldier's Joy, or the 4th measure of each of the parts of Shortnin' Bread and the B-Part of Cripple Creek.) The second line of the progression for All The Good Times allows one to play root-5 over the 1 chord and then over the 5 chord. Notice that this means that two root notes over the 1 chord end up being played back to back, one in the last measure of the first line, and one in the first measure of the second line, since the first line of the progression ended with the 1 chord, and there was only time to play the root note of the chord, but not the 5, because the third measure of the first line called for chord that was not the 1 chord. When playing a 'vamp'/'chop' rhythm on mandolin, banjo, fiddle, or dobro, a measure of 3/4 time will consist of 'rest-chuck-chuck', which is the same as the guitar rhythm, just without the bass note at the beginning of the measure. When playing a roll in 3/4 time on banjo, you will have time for a maximum of 6 plucked notes per measure (counted as '1 & 2 & 3 &'), rather than the usual maximum of 8 notes per measure ('1 e & a 2 e & a'), Considered in relation to a roll pattern consisting of 8 notes, this usually involves omitting either the last two notes of the roll, or in some cases, the 5th and 6th notes of the roll, or the 3rd and 4th notes of the roll. If approaching playing in 3/4 time from his angle, make sure that the 3/4 time rolls you create by dropping notes from the standard 8 note rolls don't result in the need to play two 8th notes back to back with the same finger of your picking hand. There are many standard (common time: 4/4, or cut common time 2/2) licks on banjo, as well as on the other bluegrass instruments, that have 3/4 time equivalents. The 3/4 time versions of these licks in many cases can be derived from the common time or cut common time lick by omitting a quarter of a measure's worth of the least essential notes of the lick. Happy Pickin', Jason
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Jason's Beginner Jam Blog 2017 - 2018
Songs regularly called at the Beginner Bluegrass Jam and links from Jason's "Song of the Week" emails. (from Renee)
Songs
All
in alphabetical order
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