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janolov - Posted - 07/19/2024: 09:57:03
I have picked out Billy Faier’s version of Green Corn for this week’s TOTW.
Green Corn (A.K.A. Hot Corn or Hot Corn Cold Corn) is an old traditional tune. It is based on a rather easy melody and is a typical two-chord song, usually I I V7 V7 (in the key of G: G G D7 D7).
Green Corn has already been TOTW 9 September 2016. Aaron Zischkale made a very interesting write-up and focused on Lena Hughes’ two-finger playing , and I will try to avoid to repeat what he presented. I will just mention that Green Corn seems to be an old banjo tune, and it was presented in Phil Rice's Correct Method for Banjo 1858 (here is a later recording by Tim Twiss about 150 years later. Green Corn has also been known to guitarists and fiddlers, and has been played by both white and black musicians.
Billy Faier’s Green Corn has fascinated me since I first bought the LP album The Art Of The 5-String Banjo in the 1970’s. The album was recorded in 1957 and contains several interesting tunes. You can listen to the full album here: youtu.be/Z0mLWWzk13I (Green Corn is at about 03:15).
Billy Faier (December 21, 1930 – January 29, 2016) was an American banjo player and folk music evangelist. He, along with Pete Seeger, was one of the early exponents of the banjo during the mid-20th-century American folk music revival.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, he moved with his family to Woodstock, New York in 1945, and later lived in Marathon, Texas. He died in Alpine, Texas, in 2016, aged 85. Active in the Washington Square Park folk scene in Greenwich Village from the late 1940s, he recorded two albums for Riverside Records, The Art of the Five-String Banjo (1957) and Travelin' Man (1958). In 1959 he contributed to Elektra Records' combination LP and instructional manual, "How to Play Folk Guitar" along with Lee Hays and Milt Okun.
Faier performed transcription and notation services for Pete Seeger on several projects, most notably 1959's The Goofing Off Suite.
You can read more on Wikipedia. He had an own web site: billyfaier.com/ which is still alive.
Here is a BHO thread about his passing 2016: banjohangout.org/archive/314399 and another thread at Mudcat Cafe mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=159144.
Billy Faier and the banjo
Billy Faier learned banjo and guitar in the later 1940’s and early 1950’s. He banjo style was very influenced by Pete Seeger. He played Green Corn with a modified Seeger’s “basic strum”, but he has also an own finger-picking style influenced by classic banjo. I don’t think he played clawhammer or frailing. I regard him more as a folk musician than an old-time musician, but his repertoire included a lot of old fiddle tunes and Irish tunes.
Billy Faier’s Green Corn
Green Corn as played by Billy Faier is a very fascinating tune. Here are some recordings of Green Corn by Billy Faier:
He plays it up-picking Pete Seeger’s basic strum, but with some very special “licks”. He does a lot of hammer-on and pulling-off on the fourth string throughout the tune. I don’t know if this fourth string playing is meant as a drone, a counter melody, or fill-in lick, but it gives a nice effect throughout the tune. Another characteristic is that his playing pattern gets away from both bum-dit-ty and bum-pa-dit-ty patterns, and is more like “bum-pa-dit-ty-pa-bum-pa-pa” where bum is up-pick melody note, pa is hammer on or pulling off, dit is brush down, and ty is thumb on fifth string.
Here is an excerpt of the tab showing the playing pattern:
If the measure consists of 8 notes (eight 1/8 notes) the playing pattern may be described as:
Note | Right hand | Left hand |
1 | Pick a melody note with index finger (or frail with your frailing finger |
|
2 | - | Hammer on 2nd fret fourth string |
3 | Brush down with the hand the top 3 strings (or 2 strings or four strings) | (hold the string fretted) |
4 | Thumb the fifth string | (still hold the fourth string fretted) |
5 | - | Pull off the fourth string from 2nd fret |
6 | Pick a melody note with index finger (or frail with your frailing finger | - |
7 | - | Hammer on 2nd fret fourth string |
8 | - | Pull off the fourth string from 2nd fret |
The major melody notes are played on 1st and 6th note (in conventional bum-di-ty basic strum or clawhammer the major melody notes are played on 1st and 5th note!). This gives a nice syncopation of the melody.
He uses some variations. In the part C (see tab) he uses some thumb work on the 7th note (simultaneously as the hammer on).
He also makes some strumming (part D in the tab), where he brush up with index finger on note one and note six (the melody notes).
Billy Faier played it up-picking, but it should be possible to play it down-picking or clawhammer – however be careful to keep the right rhythm with melody down-stoke on 1st and 6th note in the measure. Donald Zepp has made a video where he demonstrates it . There is also a BHO thread connected to the video.
I have only heard Billy Faier and Donald Zepp playing Green Corn in this way, so I wonder if anyone else dare to make a try?
Here is my Tab in the tab archive (with TablEdit, pdf and midi file). I also attach the pdf file below.
Edited by - janolov on 07/19/2024 09:57:28
JanetB - Posted - 07/26/2024: 16:40:04
Thanks, Jan, for exposing us to an unusual rhythmic pattern of clawhammer playing. It's hard at first to grasp until one practices much and then it becomes as natural as a crooked tune you're first not used to playing. One of my future TOTW tunes uses the index/middle finger in unexpected places, but in the end, the tune sounds right and pleasing. I gave your tab a try and would need more time to try and master it. But the first line got easier and resembles what's heard in the Billy Faier recording.
My attempt at Green Corn in 2016 (listen below) is based on Lena Hughes' 2-finger picking and -- like in Faier's playing -- its rhythmic accompaniment is also unlike the sung melody. When Faier combined his singing and unique accompaniment as in your video link, would that be considered a type of counterpoint? Though different, they blend harmoniously and interestingly.
