Jelle - Posted - 06/23/2020:  00:43:09

Does anyone know the name of this tuning? Perhaps more common when tuned up to A.
I gives a similar vibe as sawmill, but much darker. I tried playing some sawmill tunes in this tuning, and it lets you slide the second string very often, which gives a pretty cool effect.

AndrewD - Posted - 06/23/2020:  01:37:09

I thing of it as G minor tuning. I used to play a couple of tunes in it that I got very many years ago from a book of tabs published on the late 60's (?) which. Can't remembe the name but I'll look it out and repost later. If I remember it had tabs for Reuben and Blow the Candle out in this tuning.

AndrewD - Posted - 06/23/2020:  01:41:05

Anita Kermode's tunings encyclopedia has it listed as gDGA#d "Open G minor tuning".

lucas73b - Posted - 06/23/2020:  01:54:46

Hi Jelle,

I know this one simply as "G-minor tuning" (just the open Gm chord), there could be other names for it as well.

Lucas

Jelle - Posted - 06/23/2020:  01:57:53

Thanks! I promised myself to stick to open G, sawmill and double C but it seems I'll have to add one more to the collection..

Bill Rogers - Posted - 06/23/2020:  02:06:50

One of my favorite tunings. i use it for Old Man at the Mill/Leatherwing Bat, Weevily Wheat, Young Man Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn and the Seegers’ John Hardy.

Culloden - Posted - 06/23/2020:  06:33:16

This is the tuning I use for When Johnny Comes Marching Home.

Bill - Posted - 06/23/2020:  06:43:33

Also:

A Rose for Polly

Lew H - Posted - 06/23/2020:  14:31:19

If you ever want to claw Bill Monroe's "Jerusalem Ridge," this G minor tuning capoed to A minor (for the ease of other musicians) is what you want.

QldPicker - Posted - 06/23/2020:  15:25:00

And;
Star of The County Down.

banjo bill-e - Posted - 06/23/2020:  15:41:15

Jelle posted---"Thanks! I promised myself to stick to open G, sawmill and double C but it seems I'll have to add one more to the collection.."

Double C requires more re-thinking, but I'm certain that you can quickly adapt to changing only the second string of Open G up or down a half step. And it is remarkable how that one little change, changes everything! It's called "atmosphere".

ceemonster - Posted - 06/24/2020:  12:30:14

I learned it as "G-Minor" tuning from the first Alec Slater book, "Clawhammer Banjo Solos (On Modal Music and in the Irish Tradition)." I believe one of the g-minor tunes was "West Virginia Gals," a haunting and faraway tune.



That book was very cool.   An early and low-tech MeI Bay offering that was out of print when I came across it. It later became an expanded edition with the Alec Slater tunes plus tunes from a co-author, Lisa Schmitz.

Edited by - ceemonster on 06/24/2020 12:33:00

banjo_brad - Posted - 06/24/2020:  14:38:41

I have the expanded edition of that book. ceemonster. I was disappointed with the cassette, though - it was one of the first 2 or 3 books I bought to learn clawhammer, and expected solos of the tunes presented.

I came to appreciate it as I got farther into the abyss.

ceemonster - Posted - 06/24/2020:  17:19:18

Oh, a cassette? I never got the expanded version of the book, just stumbled on a used copy of the original by Alec Slater alone. It had a funky black and white photo on the cover of him in overalls holding a "mountain banjo" with a wood top. Ha, much like the type of banjos that currently are trendy. I learned about the expanded version after my original got torn up and I was hunting online for another. The tunes, at least in the Alec Slater original, are unique and tasty, and heavy on the modal-minor  . . .

Edited by - ceemonster on 06/24/2020 17:20:19

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2020:  12:47:22

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lew H

If you ever want to claw Bill Monroe's "Jerusalem Ridge," this G minor tuning capoed to A minor (for the ease of other musicians) is what you want.

---

Watch out for TOTW mid September this year where a Rose for Polly will be featured along with a discussion about Jerusalem ridge and a Rose for Polly being the same .   

Bob Smakula plays a great version of a Rose for Polly which he credits to Glen Smith and there are recordings out there of Glen playing this tune well before Bill Monroe is credited with composing Jerusalem ridge in 1971.    Further study has the tune Rose for Polly recorded earlier than Glen Smiths version on fiddle  by Tommy Hunter .     So is it the same tune?  If not it's very very similar.  

 

Here's Bob Smakula version

youtu.be/4FAlJWxLXJA

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2020:  13:20:47

juneappalrecordings.bandcamp.c...tradition

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 06/25/2020:  14:48:51

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lew H

If you ever want to claw Bill Monroe's "Jerusalem Ridge," this G minor tuning capoed to A minor (for the ease of other musicians) is what you want.

---

Watch out for TOTW mid September this year where a Rose for Polly will be featured along with a discussion about Jerusalem ridge and a Rose for Polly being the same .   

Bob Smakula plays a great version of a Rose for Polly which he credits to Glen Smith and there are recordings out there of Glen playing this tune well before Bill Monroe is credited with composing Jerusalem ridge in 1971.    Further study has the tune Rose for Polly recorded earlier than Glen Smiths version on fiddle  by Tommy Hunter .     So is it the same tune?  If not it's very very similar.  

 

Here's Bob Smakula version

 

youtu.be/4FAlJWxLXJA

---

Just found the next tune I'm going to learn! Thanks for sharing this.

Andy

Lew H - Posted - 06/25/2020:  16:30:39

Hay-on-Wye I hadn't heard this tune from Smakula before. It's dandy, and there is a bunch of overlap with Monroe's tune. Jerusalem Ridge has more parts. I never know how to count them, but I think of as three or 4 parts. I don't know the facts here, but it is possible that Monroe or some of his band members heard this older tune and elaborated on it. Monroe is known to have taken sole credit for songs that his band members helped to write. Bluegrassers generally have taken oldtime tunes and "souped them up." Something like this could have happened.

ceemonster - Posted - 06/25/2020:  17:26:56

Fiddler Chance McCoy plays a gorgeous "Rose for Polly," heard him do it with Ben Townsend on banjo about 8 years back at an oldtime weekend. Ben Townsend and Dave Bing do a lovely rendition as well, paired with "Brokedown Gambler" on this 18-minute NPR Illinois Mountain Stage recording from Augusta Heritage Center:



npr.org/2014/10/22/357563686/d...ain-stage

Ha, I will never adjust to Chance McCoy's Old Crow Medicine Show, Grammy luminary guitar-man status.  To me he's "just" a great West Virginia fiddler

Edited by - ceemonster on 06/25/2020 17:36:14

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2020:  18:32:29

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lew H

Hay-on-Wye I hadn't heard this tune from Smakula before. It's dandy, and there is a bunch of overlap with Monroe's tune. Jerusalem Ridge has more parts. I never know how to count them, but I think of as three or 4 parts. I don't know the facts here, but it is possible that Monroe or some of his band members heard this older tune and elaborated on it. Monroe is known to have taken sole credit for songs that his band members helped to write. Bluegrassers generally have taken oldtime tunes and "souped them up." Something like this could have happened.

---

Yes I think your right. The band leader  usually took the credit for tunes the band created and I've read Munroe was up there with the best of the band leaders in doing so.  It also strikes me that Monroe wouldn't write a tune in which his instrument wasn't predominant in the lead.  I think Munroes version is also a 3 part tune like a Rose for Polly except he dosnt use the chord rhythm Smakula uses for the C part but rather a sort of a chromatic run.   

 

youtu.be/URA1q31UAGM

i think if I was a copyright lawyer I'd be advising Bill Monroe to add "Based on a Rose for Polly" to the title of his tune.   

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2020:  18:56:27

quote:

---

Originally posted by ceemonster

Fiddler Chance McCoy plays a gorgeous "Rose for Polly," heard him do it with Ben Townsend on banjo about 8 years back at an oldtime weekend. Ben Townsend and Dave Bing do a lovely rendition as well, paired with "Brokedown Gambler" on this 18-minute NPR Illinois Mountain Stage recording from Augusta Heritage Center:



npr.org/2014/10/22/357563686/d...ain-stage

 

Ha, I will never adjust to Chance McCoy's Old Crow Medicine Show, Grammy luminary guitar-man status.  To me he's "just" a great West Virginia fiddler

---

Think chance McCoy must have got his version from  Tommy Hunters version also preceding 1971

juneappalrecordings.bandcamp.c...tradition

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/25/2020:  19:01:54

I digress, the tune a rose for Polly, has become a bit of a journey for me since I bought the Old Sledge album about 10 years ago and heard the tune. The only other tune I know in g minor is the ballad pretty Polly.

Jelle - Posted - 06/25/2020:  23:02:24

Interesting stuff! I just started practising Garfields Blackberry Blossom in this tuning. Sounds pretty dark

Jelle - Posted - 06/25/2020:  23:08:56

quote:

---

Originally posted by ceemonster

Fiddler Chance McCoy plays a gorgeous "Rose for Polly," heard him do it with Ben Townsend on banjo about 8 years back at an oldtime weekend. Ben Townsend and Dave Bing do a lovely rendition as well, paired with "Brokedown Gambler" on this 18-minute NPR Illinois Mountain Stage recording from Augusta Heritage Center:



npr.org/2014/10/22/357563686/d...ain-stage

 

Ha, I will never adjust to Chance McCoy's Old Crow Medicine Show, Grammy luminary guitar-man status.  To me he's "just" a great West Virginia fiddler

---

He's a fiddle genius. Saw a live performance of him last year in which he mainly played his new guitar based music. At one moment he jumped on the table and played  his fiddle and the crowd went wild

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 06/26/2020:  06:46:15

So - I'm excited by this tuning, and searched for a tab here on BHO and only found this one for A Rose for Polly. banjohangout.org/tab/browse.as...l&v=23028
Which is in standard G tuning, and in 3 parts.
I wonder if any one has a tab in that G minor, or if I can just nudge everything on the second string a half step higher? I'll give it a try anyway.
(I like double C tuning but with the first string a half step higher. Same kind of feel as this g minor, but with that low c in the bass.)

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/26/2020:  07:00:27

I have a tab for bob Smakula version, well my version of what he’s doing. I’ll post it late tomorrow when I’ve found it. Tune your banjo to standard G and then lower 3rd sting from B to Bb.

Bill - Posted - 06/26/2020:  08:22:17

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

I have a tab for bob Smakula version, well my version of what he’s doing. I’ll post it late tomorrow when I’ve found it. Tune your banjo to standard G and then lower 3rd sting from B to Bb.

---

I'm glad that you have a tab of the Smakula version.  I fell in love with it when I saw/heard the YouTube of him playing.  I tabbed it out as best I could and uploaded it to the tab archive here on BHO.  Looking forward to making mine better by studying yours.

Edited by - Bill on 06/26/2020 08:23:25

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/26/2020:  09:49:11

I can’t open your tab as can’t get tabledit on my iPhone and don’t have a computer. Mine is hand written so I’ll upload a photo of it

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 06/26/2020:  10:15:45

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

I have a tab for bob Smakula version, well my version of what he’s doing. I’ll post it late tomorrow when I’ve found it. Tune your banjo to standard G and then lower 3rd sting from B to Bb.

---

Thanks Neil, I've worked out the A part already, but your tab would be lovely!

Thanks for this. 

Andy

Andyrhydycreuau - Posted - 06/26/2020:  10:19:06

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

I can’t open your tab as can’t get tabledit on my iPhone and don’t have a computer. Mine is hand written so I’ll upload a photo of it

---

Try "Tefview" app? It's on Android, but there's no tabledit there either, I just presumed it would be apple only.

But handwritten is great too.

Andy

AndrewD - Posted - 06/26/2020:  10:25:32

Tabledit is Windows only (or Linux with Wine). TefView (or TefPad for Android or IOS) allows reading of Tabledit files on just about anything.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/26/2020:  10:41:24

I’ve downloaded techies and it seems to work ok.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/26/2020:  14:35:13

I’ve asked Janet to upload my tab as I don’t know how to convert a photo to pdf, but thick on computer stuff.
But here’s a video of the tab slowed down a bit. The 3rd part of the tab is not accurate as I can’t figure how to tab his strumming pattern

youtu.be/Mu6xPFWOchE

JanetB - Posted - 06/26/2020:  15:30:25

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/26/2020:  20:50:18

Thanks Janet. I couldn’t find my old tab so re-wrote it last night. I know how the 3rd part should sound but havnt the musical know how to express on tab what it is. The notes are correct, just not the time values . You have to listen to Bob Smakulas version to figure the rhythm. It also helps if you play right at the top of the pot by the feetboard and have Bobs magic delicate touch and sense of timing!
I’ll record a bette version of me playing it over the weekend without thinking about the tab I’d just written out, which probably isn’t the normal way I’d play it if I wasn’t thinking about it. Infact, there are so many ways to get the notes in this tune Depending on how many hammer ons, pull offs and skip notes you use In it. I probably play it differently each time.
Bit of a rush job writing this tab down but I’ll put a better video up later in weekend when my mind is Not consciously thinking of what I should be playing.

Bill - Posted - 06/27/2020:  09:09:03

I added a PDF tab to the TEF one I posted earlier. I hope it helps.

As before, it's in the tab archives.

Edited by - Bill on 06/27/2020 09:09:33

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 06/27/2020:  09:31:00

Thanks Bill, I’ll give it a try later

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 07/02/2020:  13:02:46

Another good tune that sounds well in G minor is an old Lancashire song from England recorded by Mike Harding. He has it written down as in D major but I’m not sure If it is and it certainly works in G minor.

youtu.be/UeK-kAzcGWM

I’ve worked out a clawhammer version of it I’ll upload in a couple of days once I can sing AND play it

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 07/02/2020:  13:14:50

The song was collected by Paul Grainey, an avid folk collector from Pendle hill, famous for its witch trials in the 17th century.
I agree with Mike Harding, probably one of the Most beautiful plaintive songs out there

bigleaf - Posted - 07/03/2020:  11:04:58

Let’s see... you got a g, a D, a G, a B, a b, and a D. How many strings have you got on that banjo, anyway?? ;-)

Jim Yates - Posted - 07/03/2020:  11:37:13

I call it Open Gm tuning, 'cause that's what it is.



I use it for I Can See Your Aura and It's Ugly .  Thanks to Janet Burton I now have Rose For Polly to also play in this tuning.



Thanks a lot Janet.

Edited by - Jim Yates on 07/03/2020 11:41:10

bart_brush - Posted - 07/03/2020:  16:17:18

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

---

---

Watch out for TOTW mid September this year where a Rose for Polly will be featured along with a discussion about Jerusalem ridge and a Rose for Polly being the same .   

  

What does TOTW stand for?

 

 

youtu.be/4FAlJWxLXJA

---

JanetB - Posted - 07/03/2020:  16:35:45

quote:

---

Originally posted by bart_brush

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

quote:

---

---

Watch out for TOTW mid September this year where a Rose for Polly will be featured along with a discussion about Jerusalem ridge and a Rose for Polly being the same .   

  

What does TOTW stand for?

---

TOTW stands for Tune of the Week, a weekly feature on the BHO forum called Playing Advice: Clawhammer and Old Time Styles.  There are over 600 tunes that have been covered and links are available to all of them. They go over history, resource musicians, especially fiddlers, and include performances and tabs.  I am coordinator and will gladly answer any questions and welcome you as a volunteer presenter if you would like to do that.

---

Jim Yates - Posted - 07/04/2020:  16:39:06

Actually, I should've thanked both Janet Burton and Neill Connor above.



I Can See Your Aura   Mark Graham



I've done lots of spiritual healing

I'm in touch with all my feelings

I've read palms and read the stars for kings and queens,

And I hate to bum you out, but you have without a doubt

The ugliest aura that this poor boy's ever seen



'Cause I can see your aura and it's ugly.

Your Spirit must be rotten to the core,

And to a new age guy like me

You'll just bring pain and misery,

So my dear, I cannot love you anymore.



In some life you lived before

You murdered people by the score.

Your evil is so totally complete.

All good in you is gone, you are darkness with no dawn,

Either that or you are eating too much meat.



'Cause I can ...

Jim Yates - Posted - 07/04/2020:  21:33:19

It was up there for a while, but my tab for I Have Seen Your Aura seems to have disappeared.

I learned this song from Sing Out! magazine. A wonderful singer/guitarist Lynn Miles played this at a Cobourg Folk Club in the nineties. She did a ragtimey guitar accompaniment, but I'd never hear a New Age clawhammer tune before, so I tried it on the banjo.

Edited by - Jim Yates on 07/04/2020 21:34:11

I Can See Your Aura - Mark Graham

 

darryl k. - Posted - 07/04/2020:  21:44:53

Tried this tuning a few days ago and a new tune just fell out if the banjo. Ill post it later. I just love this tuning.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 07/06/2020:  12:18:22

Another tune in g minor. English folk tune about wakes week in Lancashire

youtu.be/20wJ36wAyYA

It sounds better 2 finger style which I’m trying to get down . Would also sound better if I could sing!!!!

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 07/07/2020:  09:36:04

He’s a 2 finger version

youtu.be/4LjuiLpTZUk

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 07/07/2020:  09:39:24

Had to learn 2 finger just to play that!! Quite like it