Hi, The song of the week is 'New River Train' in the key of F. Recordings Here are some youtube links to good versions of 'New River Train' to listen to: First, here is the classic Bill and Charlie Monroe recording from 1936, with just mandolin and rhythm guitar and two voices - key of D. Notice how fast they play the song. In order to do this well, one needs to avoid all unnecessary motions in one's playing: e.g., keep your picking, strumming, - or on fiddle, bowing - motions short and compact so as to not overexert yourself, and don't allow your left hand fingers to fly away from the strings when taking them off the fretboard, keep them curled in towards the strings and have them anticipate the location on the fretboard where they need to go next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyWMFjly24o Tony Rice and Norman Blake - also in the key of D, and quite a bit slower than the Monroe Brothers recording: good guitar breaks on this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y36HCn4Ivws Here are a couple of full band versions of the song (both in the key of E) in which - of the main bluegrass instruments - more than just guitars and mandolins are represented for the breaks: The White Brothers - New River Train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eLjdbN1xdg Roland White - New River Train - Live at McCabe's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EZCsTzPb2k Lyrics The lyrics of New River Train are quite repetitive and easy to memorize. For this reason, this is one of the songs I recommend learning to sing to those who wish to lead a song at the jam, but do not have much experience doing so. Other songs on the top 20 list and on the additional 30 list that are fairly easy to memorize include: Mama Don't Allow, My Home's Across The Blue Ridge Mountains, Hand Me Down My Walking Cane, Lonesome Road Blues, Long Journey Home, She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain, This Little Light Of Mine, When The Saints Go Marching In, and Worried Man Blues. For a song that has a chorus, 3 verses (in some cases, even just 2 verses) are plenty to sing for the song at a jam, and singing more than 4 verses is almost always too much, especially when songs are not being played up to speed. For a song that does not have a chorus, 5 verses is often perfect, more than 6 is usually too many, and just 4 verses will sometimes be enough. Note: In offering the preceding points about the number of verses for typical jam arrangements of songs, I have in mind songs in which each verse is 16 measures long and, if the song has a chorus, then songs in which each chorus is also 16 measures long. For songs in which parts of the song are shorter or longer than 16 measures each, the numbers given above should be adjusted accordingly. Progression The progression I use for this song is the same as the progression used on the recordings: 1111 1155 1144 5511 (W2 on the basic chord progressions chart) Notice that the 4 is followed by the 5 without a 1 intervening between the 4 and the 5. Keep this is mind if it helps you to avoid confusing this progression with the closely related progression given below in which a 1 does intervene between the 4 and the 5: 1111 1155 1144 1511 This latter progression (V2 on the basic chord progressions chart) is the one used for playing 'Mama Don't Allow' and a few of the songs on the additional 30 list. (Notice that in one case, on the additional 30 list, I have offered the option of using at either V2 or W2 for Red River Valley: for that song, which progression is used should be determined by the version of the melody being used for the beginning of the 4th line.) Key of F In the key of F: 1=F, 4=Bb, and 5=C For mandolin, fiddle, and bass players (and players of any other instrument on which capos are not commonly used): the two major scales that share the most notes and in common with the F major scale (one flat in the scale: Bb) are C (no flats or sharps), and Bb (two flats: Bb and Eb), so if you are more familiar with playing in Bb and C than with playing in F, you might find it helpful for finding your way on the fingerboard in the key of F to think of it as having a lot in common with playing in these other keys. (The F major scale differs by only one note from the C major scale, and differs by only one note from the Bb major scale.) As for the three most frequently used chords in the key of F (F, Bb, and C, the 1,4, and 5 respectively), you might notice that two of these chords are among the three most frequently used chords when playing in the key of C (C, F, G, the 1,4, and 5 respectively), and when playing in the key of Bb (Bb, Eb, F, the 1,4, and 5 respectively). For New River Train in the key of F, some guitar players will prefer to capo to the 5th fret and play as if in C, while others will prefer to capo the 3rd fret and play as if in D. The C capo 5 option for F works well for doing a Carter-style guitar break for the song (i.e., a break in which the melody is carried on the bass strings of the guitar with strums in between the melody notes when there is time for them), for all the notes of the melody can be found within the first 3 frets on the 5th, 4th, and 3rd strings. Among other things, the D capo 3 option for F allows for lower-pitched fillin licks on the 1 chord that make use of the 6th string (e.g., the D chord equivalent of the famous bluegrass guitar 'G run'). I have included both a key of C and a key of D guitar tab melody sheet in the attachments For beginner banjo players, I recommend playing this song as if in the key of D: capoing the 3rd fret and spiking the 5th string at the 10th fret to arrive at the key of F. This way you can find all the melody notes on the 4th and 3rd strings. (See the attached banjo tab of the melody.) If you, like myself, do not have a 10th fret spike on your banjo, use your 9th fret spike and then manually tune the 5th string up the extra half step to a C note. Happy Pickin', Jason
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Hi, The song of the week is Cripple Creek. Form & Arrangement Cripple Creek is a two part fiddle tune (AABB form) that is traditionally played in the key of A. Although Cripple Creek has lyrics, it is usually played as an instrumental in bluegrass circles, and is often thought of as being more of a banjo tune than a fiddle tune. Each part of Cripple Creek is 4 measures long. Each part is repeated before going on to the next part. Progression The progression stays on the 1 chord for most of the time, with just a very quick change to the 5 chord (for a half a measure) at the beginning of the last measure of each line, and a quick change to the 4 chord at the beginning of the 2nd measure of the A Part. A-Part: 1 4/1 1 5/1 (play twice) B-Part: 1 1 1 5/1 (play twice) (In the key of A: 1=A, 4=D, 5=E. In the key of G: 1=G, 4=C, 5=D.) The progression for the B Part is typical for fiddle tunes in which each part is 4 measures long (instead of 8 measures long) before it is repeated. Other fiddle tunes that use the same progression as the progression for the B Part of Cripple Creek include: Cotton-Eyed Joe (key of A, both parts), Sally Goodin (key of A, both parts), Shortnin' Bread (key of G or A, both parts), Cumberland Gap (key of G: both parts), Black Mountain Rag (key of A: A and B Parts), The Eighth Of January (key of D: B Part), Sourwood Mountain (key of A, both parts), Ida Red (key of A: both parts), Lee Highway Blues (key of D: A Part), Fire On The Mountain (keys of A and D: both parts), Four Cent Cotton (key of C: both parts), and Hell Broke Loose In Georgia (key of C: A, B, and D parts). Recordings Here are a few youtube links to listen to. Flatt and Scruggs, key of A (instruments are tuned a little more than a quarter tone sharp, so although the intended key is A, the pitch on the recording is closer to Bb than to A): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4sqishGuYw Butch Robins with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys: key of A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZuYpXXgAs Since there are no guitar breaks in either of these youtube clips, here is a guitar teaching video that starts off with a couple of good breaks for Cripple Creek (played in G): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDc7308cURA&list=RDkDc7308cURA For those interested in a version with lyrics, here is one that I remember from my early childhood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXkM11kp_tg Melody & Breaks Concerning the melody sheets attached here: Each sheet has two versions of Cripple Creek on it. The version at the top of the page is the melody as I would hum or sing it. (This is only one of many possible interpretations of the basic melody of Cripple Creek.) With the exception of the banjo tab sheet, the version at the bottom of each page is a more elaborate interpretation of the melody of Cripple Creek, and makes for more interesting breaks on fiddle, mandolin and guitar. When playing guitar or mandolin breaks for Cripple Creek at the jam, I often play something very similar to this. But, just as often I will play a break that is somewhere about halfway between the basic version of the melody and the more elaborate version of the melody. So, if you find that the version at the bottom of the page is too difficult for you to play at the faster speeds that Cripple Creek is sometimes played at the jam, you might play the basic melody for the most part, but every so often make use of a measure, or even just half a measure, of the more elaborate version of the melody. By doing this, you can come up with many different ways to play a break for Cripple Creek, and this also makes the tune more interesting when all your breaks on a song don't sound exactly the same as each other. (Note: Instead of writing first and second endings for the A and B Parts of second version of Cripple Creek on each page, I wrote the last measure of each part as an incomplete measure. This measure is completed by the short pickup measure found at the beginning of whichever part one is going to play next.) Banjo: Melody & Breaks On the banjo tab sheet, the version of Cripple Creek at the bottom of the page is not a more elaborate version of the melody, but is rather a Scruggs-style break that is based upon the basic version of the melody. Bluegrass fiddle, mandolin, and guitar players, when surrounding a melody with additional notes, will tend to choose notes that closely neighbor the melody notes on the scale. This tends to make many of the extra notes sound like additional 'melody' notes. Bluegrass banjo players have less of a tendency to take this type of approach when adding extra notes. Bluegrass banjo players from the 'Scruggs-style' tradition do very little of this, but instead usually use in their breaks not much more than only the most essential melody notes of a tune, and then surround these notes with 'chord' notes (notes that belong to the chord being played at the time in the song), and/or 'drone' notes (notes that belong to the '1' chord - e.g., G chord when playing in the key of G, regardless of what chord is called for at the time in the song). These notes are chosen in accord with certain set picking patterns (called 'rolls'), and with little regard to the width of the interval between any two successive eighth notes. The overall effect that this has is to make the notes added around the melody not sound at all like additional melody notes. Their function is comparable in some ways to the function of the strums that occur between melody notes in 'Carter-style' guitar breaks, and in other ways to the function of bagpipe drones. Even for banjo players who are really familiar with playing Cripple Creek, I recommend picking through the basic melody for the tune if you have never done that before. For, the clearer one's idea is of the melody, all the more natural it becomes to give good clear accents to the melody notes in one's break. However, since the melody as written here has several eighth notes back to back played on the same string, unless you already play 'single-string' style (in which the thumb plays the first note in a pair of 8th notes while the index finger plays the second note in the pair, regardless of which strings the notes occur on), I recommend picking through the melody with a flatpick (guitar pick) just as a guitar or mandolin player would. Happy Pickin', Jason
Hi, The song of the week is 'Way Down Town' in the key of E. Here are a couple of youtube links for 'Way Down Town' to listen to: Tony Rice (key of D): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u326dPx_5U Doc and Merle Watson (key of E) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf_1Zwl6i9g Progression 'Way Down Town' has the same chord progression as 'This Land Is Your Land', 'Gold Watch And Chain', 'Back Up And Push', 'Rubber Dolly', the B-Parts of Red 'Red Wing', 'Randy Lynn Rag', and 'Home Sweet Home' and the choruses of 'How Mountain Girls Can Love', 'Think Of What You've Done', 'Snow Deer', 'Montana Cowboy', 'Cash On The Barrelhead', and 'Shall We Gather At The River' and many other common bluegrass and old-time songs. It is the same 8 measure cycle repeated over and over again: 4411 5511 Twice through this 8 measure cycle is the length of one part of the song, whether that be a verse, a chorus, or a full-length break. (Prog. W10 on the Basic Chord Progressions handout.) ...which in the key of E is: AAEE BBEE The notes that make up the E chord are: EG#B The notes that make up the A chord are: AC#E The notes that make up the B chord are: BD#F# Together, these 7 notes make up the E major scale: (four sharps:) EF#G#ABC#D#. Relation of E to A The key of E is a closely related key to the key of A. For they share 6 of the 7 notes in common that make up their Major scales. (The A Major Scale has a D instead of a D#) The A Major Scale has 3 sharps instead of 4: ABC#DEF#G#. For their 1,4, and 5 chords, the keys of E and A have two chords in common, namely E and A. In the key of A, 1=A, 4=D, and 5=E. In the key of E: 1=E, 4=A, and 5=B. Melody Way Down Town has a fairly narrow melodic range. In the key of E, the lowest note is 'e', and the highest note is 'c#'. The melody therefore does not contain a d# note, which is the note that distinguishes the E Major Scale from the A Major Scale. In ascending order of pitch, the melody notes are: E, F#, G#, A, B, C#. This is the very same range of notes that the melodies of All The Good Times Are Past And Gone, Little Birdie, Gold Watch And Chain, Goodnight Irene, Leaning On The Everlasting Arms, This Little Light Of Mine, and Worried Man Blues consist of when played in the key of A. Although, in the attachments, I have included melody sheets for this song, I suggest that this would be a good song to try to learn the melody by ear for those who do not have much experience yet with picking up melodies by ear. Fiddle & Mandolin: Easy Double Stops Notice that, in first position, the melody is carried on only the 2nd and 3rd strings. It is convenient that the 1st string on the fiddle and on the mandolin is tuned to an E note, for both the E and the A chords contain that note. Therefore, the open first string can be played along with the melody notes that occur on the 2nd string during E and A chord measures to create double stops. Banjo: Capo 2, Spike 9 I recommend that banjo players try to play this song with the capo on the 2nd fret and with the fifth string capoed, or spiked to a 'b' note, i.e., 9th fret, playing as if in the key of D. This way the melody can be located on the 3rd and 4th strings at the very same locations as is most common for melody notes for songs played in the key of G (or with a capo, A, Bb, etc.) See the attached melody sheet. Guitar: Capo 2 or 4 Guitar players will probably want to capo either to the second fret to play as if in D (1=D; 4=G; 5=A) or to the fourth fret to play as if in C (1=C; 4=F; 5=G). The latter option will work better for those who wish to play a Carter-style break for Way Down Town, but the first option lends itself more easily to the use of 'blue notes' which can also sound good when used in appropriate spots in breaks for this song. Therefore, I have included two melody sheets in the attachments in guitar tab. 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
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in alphabetical order
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