Chapter 6

Working Up Your First Tunes: Clawhammer and Bluegrass

In This Chapter

Unearthing the melody notes

Arranging melodies for clawhammer and bluegrass banjo

Using slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to enhance solos

Playing four clawhammer and bluegrass tunes

You’ve no doubt been waiting for this moment: You’re ready to step into the spotlight and play your first melodies on the banjo! If you’ve worked through the previous few chapters, you’re taking a big leap forward as you move from just playing along with a tune to being able to actually play the tune itself. In time, you’ll not only be someone who can accompany others, but you’ll also be a soloist (or, in banjo speak, a picker).

The beauty and challenge of working up a good solo is integrating the melody with the playing techniques that are unique to clawhammer and bluegrass banjo, which is what I help you tackle in this chapter. I break down the process of working up solos into a series of steps that can get you started down the road to creating your own music. You discover the relationship between scales and melodies and use this knowledge to more easily map out a song on the banjo fingerboard. You then apply right-hand clawhammer and bluegrass techniques to make this melody come alive. Next, you throw in left-hand slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to turn your tune into great-sounding banjo music.

I close the chapter by having you play clawhammer and bluegrass versions of four well-known tunes that all banjo players like to play: “Boil Them Cabbage Down,” “Cripple Creek,” “Goodbye Liza Jane,” and “Ground Hog.” You can follow along by listening to tracks on the CD that accompanies this book and by reading the banjo music (called tablature) that’s in this chapter. You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so get out your banjo, get in tune, and get started!

Finding the Melody

As unbelievable as it may sound, you can find folks out there who think that all banjo music sounds alike. They even assert that you can tell one tune apart from another only by its title (yes, a banjo joke is in here somewhere). I believe that our mission as banjo players should be to dispel this cultural misunderstanding by trying to play as much of the melody as possible in each song we play while still trying to make it sound like good banjo music. Because the melody of each tune is unique, each banjo version of a song also has the potential of being different.

A well-played banjo solo consists of a melody, but a lot more is usually going on as well. You may also hear the cascade of rolling notes that accompanies a bluegrass banjo solo or the percussive and syncopated brush and 5th-string techniques clawhammer players use. The real wonder of banjo music is how the melody can be expressed inside and through these techniques.

When you figure out a tab arrangement from a book (like, for instance, Banjo For Dummies), the melody is already provided for you, but bringing out that melody as you play the song so a listener can recognize it is still up to you. With more playing experience, you can work up your own arrangements from scratch. In this case, you have to locate the melody notes on your banjo on your own and combine the melody with the left- and right-hand techniques that you know can make your arrangement sound like good banjo music. Either way, knowing how to bring out the melody of a song is a must.

Because melodies are made up of a series of notes that can be organized into a scale, understanding just a little bit about scales can be a big help in finding the melody notes to any song on your banjo (yes, this is a bit of formal music theory, but I promise that you’ll be a better banjo player for it). Armed with your scalar knowledge, you also have the opportunity to play a few tunes in the following sections.

Starting with the scale

The first step in working up a banjo solo is to locate the melody notes of the tune on your fingerboard. Unless you’re moving straight to avant-garde modern classical music (in which case, this may not be the right For Dummies book for you), the majority of the melodies you encounter are made up of just a few notes. If these notes are grouped from low to high, they almost always form a scale.

You can begin a scale on any string or on any fret of the banjo. Scales are made up of a select group of notes on the banjo fingerboard, and different types of scales group notes in different ways. Melodies can start at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a scale.

Many advanced players, especially those interested in jazz on the banjo, take the time to locate the notes of a particular scale in every position and on each string of the banjo and learn all kinds of scales appropriate to this style of music. So if you’re interested in playing jazz on the banjo, you better get to know your scales.

The major scale is the most commonly used scale in much of the music of the Western world as well as a great deal of banjo music (banjo music is part of country and western music, after all). Most people have the sound of the major scale thoroughly ingrained into their musical subconscious from years of hearing and singing this scale in all kinds of songs. Do you remember Julie Andrews singing “Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music soundtrack? Okay, maybe you don’t want to remember this, but at any rate, that song is all about the major scale.

To get started with playing melodies on the banjo, all you really need to know for now is how to construct a major scale. In the following sections, I show you how to do just that.

Scaling one string: Discovering the G-major and D-major scales

You can create a major scale on any note on the fretboard by following the formula in this section. The first note of the major scale indicates what kind of major scale you’re playing.

For example, because many of the melodies you’ll be playing use the notes found on the G-major scale, you can discover how to build a major scale by starting on the open 3rd string, which just happens to be a G note. You then travel up the 3rd string, finding all the notes of the G major scale (do - re - mi - fa - so - la - ti - do!) as you climb up the neck of the banjo.

To uncover a G-major scale, begin by picking up your banjo and following these steps:

1. Play the 3rd string open, and as you hear the sound of this note on the banjo, try singing the same note.

Think of this note as the first note, or the “do” of a major scale. You can also think of this note as the first note in the melody “Frère Jacques.”

2. Sing what you think the second note of the major scale should be, using the syllable “re.”

You can also think of this note as the second note in the melody “Frère Jacques.”

3. Find this second note on your 3rd string.

Because it’s a higher note than the first note of the scale, you need to fret this string. Compare what you’re singing (and hearing in your head) to the sound of the fretted string. You can find a match for the second note of the G-major scale, the “re” note, at the second fret.

4. Sing “do” and “re” again, but now also continue up the scale by singing “mi,” the third note of the G-major scale.

This note is also the third note in the melody of your ol’ buddy “Frère Jacques.”

5. Find this “mi” note on the 3rd string.

The match is at the fourth fret of the 3rd string.

6. Try singing the next note in the scale, the “fa” note, and try finding this note on the 3rd string.

This isn’t the next note in “Frère Jacques,” by the way! You can find this note at the fifth fret, only one fret up from the “mi” note.

If you continue singing the rest of the notes of the major scale (so - la - ti - do) in this way and match the corresponding notes on the banjo’s 3rd string to your singing, you end up with the scale in Figure 6-1 as it ascends up the banjo’s 3rd string. And if you can’t sing, Figure 6-1 shows you the notes, which you can hear on Track 55.

Figure 6-1: Finding the G-major scale on the 3rd string.

As you can see in Figure 6-1, the names of the musical notes in a G-major scale are G / A / B / C / D / E / F / G. However, when you’re playing the banjo, you rarely think about the actual names of the notes — you don’t have enough time to worry about this! Banjo players more often think about the distances between the notes in a scale, as measured by the number of frets between one note and the next and the sounds that they hear as they move from one note to another. When you think of the G-major scale in this way, the pattern shown in Figure 6-1 emerges.

Banjo players just love to play songs that use the G-major scale, but sooner or later you also have to find your way around other scales. D major is also a popular key for music played on the banjo (and you can play “Arkansas Traveler” in Chapter 9 with this scale). Using the same formula for finding a G-major scale, you can also discover the D-major scale if you start on your open 4th string D and choose the ascending notes. If you do it correctly, you end up playing a D-major scale, shown in Figure 6-2. You can also listen to Track 56 on the CD.

Figure 6-2: Finding the D-major scale on the 4th string.

Bringing more than one string into play: The G-major scale

As you can probably guess, when you play melodies on the banjo, you don’t usually run up and down just one string. It’s more economical to play the higher notes of the scale on the 2nd and 1st strings and the lower scale notes on the 3rd string. This limits the movement of the left hand to the lower frets of the banjo and makes it a lot easier to quickly find the correct melody note.

Figure 6-3 provides a road map to the G-major scale as you can find it on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings of your banjo.

Figure 6-3: The G major scale on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings.

However, melodies often go below the starting point of the G-major scale, using notes found on the 4th string. You can now add these 4th-string notes to get the full picture of where you can find the notes of the G-major scale, using all four strings on the lower frets of your banjo. Be sure to note that by starting on the open 4th-string D, you’re still playing a G-major scale, but you’re now catching some of the lower scale notes that you use when playing melodies. Check out Figure 6-4 and listen to Track 57 on the CD.

Figure 6-4: The G-major scale on all four strings.

Although knowing the names of all the notes on the fingerboard of your banjo is an impressive feat (the kind of information that can certainly win you new friends at the next banjo players’ cocktail party), this same info can be found in Appendix A in the back of this book! Remembering this kind of information isn’t crucial right now. Focus instead on knowing where the notes of the G-major scale are located on the lower frets of your banjo and learn the sounds of these notes.

Trying out a tune (or two)

After you’ve found the notes of the G-major scale on the lower frets of the banjo (see preceding section), it’s now time to work out some melodies by using this scale. Keep in mind that all the open, unfretted strings on your banjo in this tuning are also notes in the G-major scale.

With your banjo at the ready, try playing the melody of “Frère Jacques,” which you can find in Tab 6-1 and on Track 58 on the CD. “Frère Jacques” shows the relationship between a melody and its scale: all of this song’s melody notes are in the G-major scale. After playing this song, you can probably see how becoming familiar with this scale can make figuring out a melody on the banjo much easier.

Tab 6-1: Playing the melody to “Frère Jacques” (Track 58).

Because you don’t have much of a chance of hearing “Frère Jacques” at a jam session, you can try something a little closer to home with “Red River Valley.” (If you don’t know this song, listen to Track 8 on the CD, where I sing the song with a pinch-pattern accompaniment, which is covered in Chapter 3.)

I’d like for you to challenge yourself and make an attempt to figure out the melody first by using your ears in a trial-by-error approach before you look at the tab for “Red River Valley.” This exercise trains your ears and brain to locate the melody by using your familiarity with the G-major scale on the banjo neck. Here’s a hint to help you get started: Play the open 4th string, and then the open 3rd, followed by the open 2nd. These are the first three notes of the tune. Now try to find the rest of “Red River Valley” on your fretboard, using your memory of the melody or my sensitively beautiful vocal rendition on Track 8 of the CD to guide you.

Don’t expect to get all the melody notes perfectly the first time around. As you experiment, you can learn from your mistakes, so don’t be afraid to make them!

Try playing your version of the melody to a loved one and see whether she can guess what song you’re playing. Did she hear “Red River Valley”? I hope so, but if not, that’s okay too. You’re just getting started with this process, and coordinating your brain, hands, and ears to figure out a melody and play it without stopping could take a while. Now, compare your version with the arrangement in Tab 6-2 and Track 59 on the CD.

Finding the melody by ear is the first step towards working up a great banjo solo. Remember to let your ear be your guide and keep in mind that not all songs use the G-major scale. After you’ve figured out the basic melody, you can then use it as your foundation to work up a more “banjoistic” version of the tune.

Tab 6-2: Playing the melody to “Red River Valley” (Track 59).

Making Melody with Style

After you feel like you’ve got a handle on a basic melody (see preceding section), it’s then time to add right-hand clawhammer and bluegrass techniques and make the melody really come alive. As you begin to play honest-to-goodness, authentic-sounding banjo music, the excitement can really begin to kick in (let me hear a resounding “Well, alright!”). So as you make melodies in both the clawhammer and bluegrass styles in the following sections, hold on tight!

If you need a quick right-hand techniques refresher before moving forward, check out Chapter 4. And if your basic left-hand fretting techniques are giving you any trouble, you may want to look over Chapters 2 and 5.

Starting with the right hand

As you work up a solo, using either clawhammer or bluegrass right-hand technique, you want to preserve as much of the melody as possible so that your listeners (and you) can keep track of what you’re playing. However, you also want to keep the right hand flowing by incorporating the basic clawhammer technique or bluegrass roll patterns with as little interruption in the music as possible. All players experience conflicts between these two goals at times. Listening and learning from other players and experimentation is the key to coming up with your own solutions.

Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you start to work out melodies for clawhammer and bluegrass banjo:

Be flexible with the basic clawhammer technique and the bluegrass rolls and adjust these patterns to play those strings where the melody notes are located. For example, if the melody is on an open 2nd string, make sure you play that note as part of your bluegrass roll pattern or basic clawhammer technique. Also, use the right-hand techniques to make the solo flow continuously, but don’t be afraid to stop and play a few melody notes all by themselves if that’s what seems to work the best at a given moment.

Although playing those melody notes that occur on the first beat of a chord change is a good idea, don’t worry about trying to hit every melody note. Decide which notes are the most important and see how you can adjust the right-hand patterns to play as many of these notes as possible.

Relate the chord progression to the melody. For instance, if the song’s chord progression moves to a C chord, some of the melody notes will very likely be the same as the fretted notes that are part of the chord you’re playing. Fret the full chord first and then go hunting for those melody notes.

Jump at the chance to enhance the melody. Most melodies have some notes that are held for a relatively long time, alternating with notes that are shorter in duration. Long notes provide a great opportunity to continue playing either the basic clawhammer technique or a bluegrass roll that accentuates that same melody note.

Adjust your playing to the duration of the note. Maintaining a flowing right-hand technique is more difficult in those passages with shorter melody notes. In these cases, you may have to interrupt your basic right-hand technique to play those notes, and then resume when the melody notes are once again of longer duration.

When playing with others, always try to hold up your end of the rhythm. Playing in time and changing chords at the proper time is much more important than playing a solo that expresses every melody note but doesn’t maintain the correct rhythm or follow the chord progression.

Ready to use these tips in action? In the following sections, you get the chance to add clawhammer and bluegrass right-hand techniques to the melody of “Red River Valley” and play two different arrangements of this song. Don’t hesitate to use the tab and the CD together to help speed up the picking process.

Getting a feel for the clawhammer way

Try playing the arrangement of “Red River Valley” in Tab 6-3 and Track 60, using basic clawhammer right-hand technique to capture as many melody notes as possible. You can refer back to the bare bones melody of “Red River Valley” in the section “Trying out a tune (or two),” earlier in this chapter, to compare and see how the clawhammer version differs.

Tab 6-3: Playing “Red River Valley” the clawhammer way (Track 60).

Taking on the melody bluegrass style

For some serious melody-making, try “Red River Valley” in bluegrass style, using the alternating thumb, forward-backward, and forward rolls I indicate in Tab 6-4. You can always find more than one way to capture a melody with bluegrass rolls. The more you experiment with different solutions, the more skilled you become in working out your own arrangements of tunes. But for now, get the feel for a bluegrass melody by following along with my arrangement and listening to Track 61.

Note in Tab 6-4 how the melody note often determines which roll works best in each measure. For instance, in the first full measure (at the syllable “val-” of the word valley), I selected a forward roll that features the open 2nd string prominently, because at this point in the song, that’s the melody note. The next measure has three melody notes (matching the lyrics “say you are”). These melody notes are the open 2nd string (a B note), a 3rd string fretted at the second fret (an A note), followed by an open-string B note once again. As you can see, the forward roll changes to accommodate each of these melody notes.

Tab 6-4: Playing “Red River Valley” bluegrass style (Track 61).

Adding the left hand

After you’re comfortable incorporating melody notes into clawhammer and bluegrass right-hand technique (see preceding section), you can enhance your solos by adding left-hand slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and chokes. Because you use these left-hand techniques to draw attention to melody notes, banjo players naturally use them when they need to make a melody note really stand out in a solo.

Here are a few additional guidelines on how to use these left-hand techniques to make the melody really pop:

If a melody note falls on an open 3rd, 2nd, 1st, or 5th string, that’s a good time to play a slide or a hammer-on on a lower string that moves up to the same pitch as the open string. For example, if the melody note is on an open 3rd string, you can emphasize this same pitch by sliding from the second to the fifth fret on the 4th string.

If the melody moves down from one open string to the next, try a pull-off or a backward slide on the lower string to facilitate this movement. For instance, if the melody moves from an open 2nd string to an open 3rd string, try a third- to second-fret pull-off on the 3rd string.

If a melody needs a bluesy or bent note, call on your left-hand choke. You can use chokes in much the same way as a slide to make a transition from a lower to a higher note.

I’m still amazed how adding a bit of left-hand flash can enhance any arrangement. In the following section, you can play two versions of “Red River Valley” that both add slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to the basic right-hand techniques of clawhammer and bluegrass banjo.

Creating clawhammer melodies

Try the arrangement of “Red River Valley” shown in Tab 6-5 and on Track 62 of the CD. In this version, you play slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to create an even more authentic and exciting clawhammer banjo sound. In banjo tablature, these techniques are indicated by letters below the tab staff: s stands for slide, h for hammer-on, and p for pull-off.

Note that at measures 11 through 14 you’re first fretting a C chord and then a D7 chord for two measures each. Sometimes you have to lift one of your fretting fingers up to play an open string (as in the first note of measure 11) or move a fretted note from one string to another to get ready for a slide (as in the fourth note of measure 13, where you move your middle finger from the 3rd string, second fret to the 4th string, second fret).

Compare this arrangement with the version presented earlier in this chapter as Tab 6-3 in the section “Playing Melody with Style” to explore how these left-hand techniques can add more stylistic impact to an arrangement.

Tab 6-5: Playing “Red River Valley” the clawhammer way with slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs (Track 62).

Playing the bluegrass way

Just as you can add slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs to clawhammer banjo arrangements, you can also add these same techniques to right-hand roll patterns to create a more genuine bluegrass banjo sound. Give it a try by listening to Track 63 and playing the arrangement of “Red River Valley” in Tab 6-6.

Before tackling this bluegrass rendition of “Red River Valley,” you may want to take a moment and look at the exercises in “Keeping both hands busy in bluegrass banjo” in Chapter 5 to make sure you’re comfortable adding left-hand embellishments to bluegrass roll patterns.

You may notice how incorporating these techniques in bluegrass style makes your playing sound much closer to that of such greats as Earl Scruggs, Sonny Osborne, and J. D. Crowe.

Tab 6-6: Playing “Red River Valley” bluegrass style with slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs (Track 63).

Tackling a Few More Tunes

I close this chapter with a special bonus song section that includes arrangements of four banjo favorites in matching clawhammer and bluegrass versions that bring together all the important new skills you have covered in this chapter.

Review the following tab, listen to the corresponding tracks on the CD, and try to play along:

Tab 6-7, Track 64: Clawhammer arrangement of “Boil Them Cabbage Down.”

Tab 6-8, Track 65: Bluegrass arrangement of “Boil Them Cabbage Down.”

Tab 6-9, Track 66: Clawhammer arrangement of “Cripple Creek.”

Tab 6-10, Track 67: Bluegrass arrangement of “Cripple Creek.”

Tab 6-11, Track 68: Clawhammer arrangement of “Goodbye Liza Jane.”

Tab 6-12, Track 69: Bluegrass arrangement of “Goodbye Liza Jane.”

Tab 6-13, Track 70: Clawhammer arrangement of “Ground Hog.”

Tab 6-14, Track 71: Bluegrass arrangement of “Ground Hog.”

Don’t forget to consult the CD as a primary resource as you work on these tunes, using the tablature sparingly.

Tab 6-7: Clawhammer arrangement of “Boil Them Cabbage Down” (Track 64).

Tab 6-8: Bluegrass arrangement of “Boil Them Cabbage Down” (Track 65).

Tab 6-9: Clawhammer arrangement of “Cripple Creek” (Track 66).

Tab 6-10: Bluegrass arrangement of “Cripple Creek” (Track 67).

Tab 6-11: Clawhammer arrangement of “Goodbye Liza Jane” (Track 68).

Tab 6-12: Bluegrass arrangement of “Goodbye Liza Jane” (Track 69).

Tab 6-13: Clawhammer arrangement of “Ground Hog” (Track 70).

Tab 6-14: Bluegrass arrangement of “Ground Hog” (Track 71).