Hi, The song of the week is 'Lonesome Road Blues' (a.k.a. 'I'm Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad) in the key of G. Recordings Here is one of the first sung bluegrass versions of Lonesome Road Blues I remember hearing. It is a live recording of the Stanley Brothers, and it is played at quite a fast tempo: The Stanley Brothers - key of G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNeAMI1O9M Here is what is probably the most well-known instrumental bluegrass version of Lonesome Road Blues, played as a banjo-feature tune on the Flatt and Scruggs' album 'Foggy Mountain Banjo', and at a slower tempo than the Stanley Brothers' live version: Flatt and Scruggs - key of G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4dgyx9Q850 Here is a sung version by Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music Bill Monroe - key of C https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_s2hGkBAs Finally, another sung version in a live performance, by a young Japanese band. Since there are breaks in this version played on four different instruments - banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and guitar, and they are all really good, I was happy to come across this version on youtube. Bluegrass Police - key of G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNY0-xZV2iE Progression The chord progression used in the versions of Lonesome Road Blues on the recordings given here is the same one that I use when leading the song: 1111 4411 4411 5511 (Prog. W4 on the Basic Chord Progressions handout) ...though, I have heard it played at some jams with the last line played as 1511 (Prog. V4 on the Basic Chord Progressions handout), and/or with the third line played as 4416m. Blue Notes Notice the Bb note in measure 2 of lines 2, 3, and 4 on the melody sheets attached here. Relative to the key of G, the Bb note is the b3 (flatted third scale degree). Together with the b7 (for the key of G, an F note), making good use of this note will often add a 'bluesy' characteristic to your playing. Arrangement Lonesome Road Blues is one of those small handful of songs that at a typical bluegrass jam it would not be out of the ordinary for it to be played either with or without singing. Lonesome Road Blues is also one of those songs that may be sung either with or without a chorus. Other songs that have been played at the jam that are also like this include: Down The Road, Handsome Molly, Amazing Grace, and Little Birdie. When sung without a chorus, the set of lyrics that make up the chorus in the versions of Lonesome Road Blues that use a chorus will usually be sung as one of the verses in the song - usually as the first or as the last verse, or as both. For most of the songs that may be sung either with or without a chorus, I tend to choose to sing them without a chorus when I lead them at a jam, and this is how I sing Lonesome Road Blues. This arrangement allows more time for a greater number of breaks to be played without making the song unusually long. Happy Pickin' Jason Lonesome Road Blues - banjo tab Download File Lonesome Road Blues - guitar tab Download File Lonesome Road Blues - mandolin tab Download File Lonesome Road Blues - melody in G Download File
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Hi, The song of the week is 'Leaning On The Everlasting Arms' in the key of A. Recordings The Grascals - key of G https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsByGPoBBtQ Solid Blue - key of B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpHf0hn6otk I suggest first listening to, and playing and singing along with, the slower and simpler arrangement by the Grascals to get the basics of the song down pat, before moving onto Solid Blue's faster and more complex version. But, be sure to listen to Solid Blue's version, since their arrangement of the song comes much closer to how it has been played and sung at the jam. Progression The chord progression that is used on the Grascals' version of Leaning On The Everlasting Arms is: 1144 1115 1144 1151 (In the key of A: 1=A, 4=D, 5=E; In the key of G: 1=G, 4=C, 5=D; In the key of B: 1=B, 4=E, 5=F#.) The progression is a bit unusual when compared with the progressions for most of the other 1-4-5 type songs that are regularly played at the jam. The 5 chords all occur a measure later than what one would ordinarily expect to be the case. For this reason, both lines 2 and 4 are often played as 5 measure lines in bluegrass versions of the song. This is how it is played on Solid Blue's version of the song, so as to allow for 2 measures of the 5 chord in line 2 (11155) and 2 measures of the 1 chord at the end of line 4 (11511), since this allows for fillin licks to be played by the instruments since a pause is thereby created in the vocal before the next line starts. 1144 11155 1144 11511 The pauses in the vocal that result from adding the extra measures also allow the singers a moment to catch their breath in preparation for the next line. The faster the song is played and sung, the more desirable it becomes to put in these extra measures. The way that I like to play the song is to keep line 2 as a 4- measure line, while extending line 4 to being a 5-measure line. The resulting progression is: 1144 1115 1144 11511 This is how we played the song last night, and is how we'll play it when I lead it this coming Wednesday. So, when two or more breaks occur back to back, keep in mind that we are using a 17 measure form for the song instead of a 16 measure form; otherwise, the beginning of your break (especially if you play pickup notes into your break) will overlap with the fillin licks that others may be playing at the very end of their break (or at the end of the chorus that occurs before your break). Harmony Notice that in Solid Blue's version, harmony is sung not only on the choruses, but also on the repetitive parts of the verses: i.e., lines 2 and 4 ('leaning on the everlasting arms'). Also ,notice that in the same version, on lines 1 and 3 of the chorus, the lyrics for the harmony parts are not the same as the lyrics for the lead part. While the lead singer sings: 'Leaning, leaning', the harmony singers sing: 'Leaning on Jesus, leaning on Jesus'. Rhythmically, the way this lines up is as follows: Lean - / ing / lean - / ing Lean - ing on / Je - sus / lean - ing on / Je - sus This is the way I like to hear the song sung when I lead it, and everyone at last night's jam who participated in singing harmony on the song at the end of the night did a great job on this, so I am especially looking forward to leading the song next week as the song of the week. In case you have difficulty catching this from the recordings, the lyrics for line 2 of the chorus are: 'safe and secure from all alarms'. Breaks Leaning On The Everlasting Arms has a particularly strong melody line. For songs like this, one should be careful about when and how one deviates from the melody when playing a break for the song. You might notice in the breaks on the recordings that deviations from melody-based playing are less frequent than what has often the case in breaks on the recordings for other previous beginner jam songs of the week. For beginner level players, I advise them to base their breaks squarely upon the melody. (For help with finding the melody on your instrument, see the attached melody sheets.) This does not mean playing nothing but the melody: by all means one should put the usual frills around the melody notes that are typical in Bluegrass breaks to the extent that one knows how to use them: stuff like (depending on which instrument you are playing): double stops, slides, shuffle rhythms, fillin licks, rolls, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. Notice on the recordings, that in the few spots where the players deviate from melody-based playing in their breaks in favor of lick-based playing, they do not linger on any one note for any length of time. Rather, in those spots, they play a rapid flurry of notes. The second half of the guitar break on the Solid Blue recording, for instance, consists mostly of eighth notes. The same is true of the last line (last quarter) of the fiddle break on the Grascals recording. In a song with a strong melody, dwelling on a non-melody note will sometimes work in a break, but more often it will sound out of place in the song. Happy Thanksgiving! Jason Leaning - banjo tab
Download File Leaning - guitar tab Download File Leaning - mandolin tab Download File Leaning - melody in A Download File Hi, The song of the week is 'Clinch Mountain Backstep' in the key of A. Ralph Stanley 'Clinch Mountain Backstep' is a bluegrass banjo tune composed by Ralph Stanley (Feb. 25, 1927 - June 23, 2016), who until his recent passing, was the last surviving of the great first-generation pioneers of bluegrass banjo playing. (Ralph Stanley is the only first-generation bluegrass artist that I have met in person; I met him twice: once at a concert in a school gymnasium in Sedro Woolley, Washington when I was about 15 or 16 - after his concert, I played our current song of the week in his presence on a banjo he had with him for sale - and then again he spoke with me in 2004, during breakfast at the hotel that both of us were staying at for the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Our conversation started by way of Ralph asking me questions about some of the other bands and artists playing at the Festival.) There is a good documentary on Ralph Stanley available on youtube that is well-worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHinziS4O4g Ralph says that he came up with 'Clinch Mountain Backstep' by combining 'Cluck Old Hen' with 'Liza Jane'. Recordings Here is my favorite of Ralph's studio recordings of Clinch Mountain Backstep: Ralph Stanley - key of A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcDtNcbcJ2Q ...and, when he was a bit younger, when his older brother Carter was still alive, here is Ralph playing Clinch Mountain Backstep on a live TV show: The Stanley Brothers - key of A (no breaks on any other instruments, all banjo). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur7cXcU5Nlk There are no mandolin, guitar, or dobro breaks in the preceding renditions of the tune. Here is one which has all three: Blue Highway - key of A: live performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTEF5keaPhk Progression The chord progression for the A-Part is: 1115 1151 The chord progression for the B-Part is the same, except that there is an extra 'half-measure' of the '1' before the first '5'. If one is counting the beats in the first line of the B-Part in cut common time (2/2), one would count it as: 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,1,2. (On the sheet music attached here, I have written the first line of the B-Part as 3 measures in 2/2, followed by a measure in which the time signature changes to 1/2, followed by a measure that returns to 2/2.) Melody & Key Although the melody of Clinch Mountain Backstep consists only of the notes of the Am pentatonic scale, it is called at jams in A (Major) rather than Am because the '1' chord that is used in the chord progression for the song is an A Major Chord rather than an Am Chord ('1m'). To call Clinch Mountain Backstep in A Minor instead of in A (Major) at a jam would imply that 1m Chords are to be played in place of 1 Chords. In the attached melody sheet for Clinch Mountain Backstep, I have used the key signature for Am (no sharps or flats, same as the key signature for C Major, the Relative Major of Am) instead of the key signature for A Major (3 sharps) to avoid the need to write natural signs in nearly every measure. I hope that my doing this makes the sheet music easier to read than if I had used the key signature for A Major. The notes that make up the Minor Pentatonic Scale, or as I like to call it sometimes 'The Clinch Mountain Scale', are: 1, b3, 4, 5, and b7. Remember these notes, for these will be useful to know not only for playing 'Mountain Minor' tunes like 'Clinch Mountain Backstep' and 'Cluck Old Hen'. Any time when you wish to add a 'bluesy' element into a break or backup part for a Major key song, just remember to play your 'Clinch Mountain notes'. To see what these notes are for A (or for any other key for that matter: G is an especially practical place to start for this if you are a banjo or guitar player who usually plays in A by way of capoing the 2nd fret of your instrument), refer to the Nashville Number System Chart in the attachments. For more on the Am and Gm pentatonic scales, refer back to the song of the week write-up for 'Cluck Old Hen'. The first five paragraphs under the section 'Melody & Breaks' may be read as though written about Clinch Mountain Backstep instead of Cluck Old Hen. https://www.idahobluegrassassociation.org/beginner-jam-blog/category/cluck-old-hen Relative Majors & Minors If you have ever played the melody for Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Amazing Grace, My Home's Across The Blue Ridge Mountains, Shortnin' Bread, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, or Camptown Races, or any other melody that uses only 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 notes (Major Pentatonic Scale), then you are already familiar to a certain extent with the combination of notes that make up the 'Clinch Mountain Scale', although those melodies sound very different than the melodies for Clinch Mountain Backstep and Cluck Old Hen. Notice, for instance, that 1, b3, 4, 5, b7 for E (E,G,A,B,D) are the very same notes as 6, 1, 2, 3, 5 for G. G is the Relative Major of Em. Every Minor has a Relative Major. To find the Relative Major of a Minor, treat the b3 of the Minor as the 1 for the Major. (Thus, C is the Relative Major of Am - one uses the same notes for playing the melody of Will The Circle Be Unbroken in C as one does for playing the melody of Clinch Mountain Backstep in A; Bb is the Relative Major of Gm, etc.) Going in the opposite direction, that is, to find the Relative Minor of a Major, treat the 6 of the Major as the 1 for the Minor. (So, Am is the Relative Minor of C, Em is the Relative Minor of G.) Happy Pickin', Jason Sheet music for Clinch Mountain Backstep:
Clinch Mountain Backstep - Banjo tab Clinch Mountain Backstep - Guitar tab Clinch Mountain Backstep - Mandolin tab Clinch Mountain Backstep - Melody in A Hi, The song of the week is 'Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong' in the key of C. Recording This song was written by Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt, and was recorded in 1947 by the original bluegrass band, Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, which at that time consisted of: Bill Monroe on mandolin. Lester Flatt on guitar, Earl Scruggs on banjo, Chubby Wise on fiddle, and Howard Watts on bass. On this song, as on most of the songs that Bill Monroe recorded with this lineup, Lester sings lead, and Bill sings the tenor harmony, i.e., the harmony part that is pitched directly above the lead part. Here is a link to the 1947 recording: key of D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L668QuLYOnE Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys - Sweetheart, You Done Me Wrong Recorded and released in 1947 (Columbia 20423). Written by Bill Monroe & Lester Flatt. Lead vocals: Lester Flatt ----- Tenor: Bill Monroe. Progression The chord progression and the melody for this song are both very simple. It is the same chord progression that is used for 'Blue Ridge Cabin Home', which is regularly played at the jam, and for many other standard bluegrass songs. 1144 5511 played through twice for a complete verse, or a complete chorus. In the key of C: 1=C, 4=F, 5=G. In the key of D: 1=D, 4=G, 5=A Melody The melody consists of only 5 notes. In the key of C, these notes are, from lowest to highest, G, A, B, C, and D. In the key of D, these notes are: A, B, C#, D, and E. Many of the melody notes are lingered on for a good length of time, so this song could make a good place to start for learning to pick up melodies by ear, and/or to make a first attempt at singing harmony. Feel and Tempo As you listen to the recording, pay close attention to the feel of the song, before making an attempt to play along with it. Because the song has a different feel to it than most of the songs we play at the jam, I strongly recommend playing along with the recording after having listened to it a few times through. It is a slow song (about 84 beats per minute on the recording), and, at the jam, I may choose to play it even slower than the speed it is at on the recording. Be careful not to push the beat on this song - be mindful of this when practicing along with the record: otherwise it will tend to end up gravitating too much towards the tempo ranges that we play a lot of other songs at the jam, and, at the same time, will lose its distinctive feel. If you are a guitar or a bass player, it may help you to maintain the right feel on this song if you dig in a bit more deliberately than usual into the first bass note you play in each measure while playing rhythm. Breaks (on all instruments) will also tend to work better for this song if one accents a little heavier than usual your first note at the beginning of every odd numbered measure, and additionally, also if one accents a little more than usual the last note of a fill-in lick coinciding with the beginning of an even numbered measure. Breaks On the record, the breaks within the body of the song are only half the length of a verse, and the intro break is even shorter than that. At the jam, however, we will play full-length breaks (i.e., breaks that last the same length of time as one verse, in this case, as in most other songs sung at the jam, this is 16 measures). Note to Mandolin Players If you are a mandolin player, and you have found yourself copying the non-melody based break that Bill Monroe plays after the 2nd chorus of the song, and you wish to use it as part of a full length break for the song at the jam, something you might try doing is to play the first half of your break in a melody-based manner, and then, for the second half of your break, play along the lines of how Bill plays it on the record. Transposing from D (the key that the song is played in on the recording) down to the key of C involves lowering the notes a whole step, which is the equivalent of 2 frets. Note to Banjo Players While many banjo players will tend to capo to the 5th fret when a song is called in the key of C, I suggest trying to play this song without a capo. If you are a banjo player who has little or no experience playing in C without a capo, this song, because of its slow tempo, simple chord progression and melody, can make for a good place to start to learn to play in C without a capo. After having worked out the song in C, then, if you wish to play along with the recording in D, all you need to do is the same thing that you would ordinarily do for playing in the key of A, namely, capo to the 2nd fret and spike, capo, or tune up your fifth string to an A note. Happy Pickin', Jason
Hi, The song of the week will be 'In The Sweet By And By' in the key of G. Sacred songs, in many cases taken directly from old Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian hymnals, occupy a prominent place in the Bluegrass music tradition. They make up one of the largest single categories of songs in the genre. It is common for Bluegrass bands at all levels (ranging all the way from hobby bands to top-notch professional touring bands) to record entire albums consisting of nothing but sacred songs, and many of the biggest names in Bluegrass have recorded several of these. There are even some Bluegrass bands that specialize in 'Bluegrass Gospel' to the total, or almost total, exclusion of other categories of songs. (The very first hobby Bluegrass band that I was part of when I was in my early teens was one of those types of bands.) Most of the bands that I played with during my teen years, in doing the Summer Bluegrass festival circuit in BC, needed to have at least 45 minutes worth of this type of material in their repertoire, so that they would be able to play a Bluegrass Gospel set when scheduled to perform on a Sunday morning at a festival. Many of the first-generation Bluegrass pioneers learned the fundamentals of music, including how to sing, in church. It was therefore quite natural that they would adapt some of the songs they knew from church to the new genre of music they were creating. I associate 'In The Sweet By And By' with weekend afternoon jams with friends, late night jams around campfires at Bluegrass festivals, and impromptu live performances much more so than with any particular studio recording of the song by a well-known Bluegrass artist. For that reason, the first youtube link I present below is that of such an impromptu live performance of the song. Slope Valley and Palmetto Blue: Key of G: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEE0EXC8GYI&feature=youtu.be Notice that on the last 2 choruses the lead singer drops down to the baritone harmony part. This part is quite audible and straightforward (no unusual note choices) and therefore a good place to learn the baritone harmony from. I have also included in the attachments ('03 Track 3') a recording (from 2006) of 'In The Sweet By And By' (key of D) that I played banjo on, in which the band consisted of people that I used to jam with at Bluegrass festivals. In accord with the wishes of the leader of the band 'String Lizzy' (who kicks off the song on the mandolin at a somewhat faster tempo than what the song is customarily played at - but the tempo choice is well-suited to her straightforward playing and singing style - and sings lead on the song, and mostly in German), we recorded the album by standing in a circle around a few mics in the middle of the circle, to make it feel as much like a jam as what is possible in a recording studio session. Many of the songs that ended up on the album were done in just one take. Notice the similarities in the vocal arrangement on the first youtube link with the following non-bluegrass arrangement ('call and response' arrangement for the chorus, for instance) that is along the lines of the type of church singing that most of the first-generation Bluegrass artists were familiar with from their childhood: Primitive Baptist accapella arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6d9IkgBSMs In addition to my own handwritten melody sheets for the song in the attachments, here is a link to sheet music from a hymnal that shows three harmony parts together with the melody. The melody is the higher of the pairs of notes that are on the top staff (written with the treble clef); what we call the baritone harmony in Bluegrass is the lower of the pairs of notes on that staff. (If you have a really high voice for Bluegrass, you may raise each of these lower notes an octave higher to create what is called the 'high baritone' part.) The higher part on the bottom staff (written with the bass clef) is what we call the tenor, or the low tenor in Bluegrass depending on whether one sings it in the octave that makes it higher or lower than the melody; and the lower part on that same staff is the bass harmony part. If you are not familiar with reading music written with the bass clef, move each note the equivalent of one line/space higher on the staff so that it can be read as if written with the treble clef, and then, if desired, drop each note an octave lower. Although we will only play breaks over the verse progression, I have written out both the verse and the chorus melodies in the attachments. The song has such a strong melody and I find it quite satisfying to play as an instrumental banjo, mandolin, or guitar tune in which my playing stays very close to the melody, embellished by little more than slides and hammer-ons into the most important melody notes, rolls ( on banjo) or crosspicking (on guitar) around the melody, or double stops (on mandolin and guitar) to harmonize certain parts of the melody. I thought that perhaps some of you would like to have the chorus melody included on the melody sheets for the same reason. Finally, here is a good professional bluegrass studio recording of 'In The Sweet By And By': Bluegrass Martins: key of C https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQoWCd3S64k Jason In The Sweet - Mandolin tab
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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)
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