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msv133 - Posted - 07/24/2024: 06:53:22
Hello! I just found the song "Hand me down my Bible" performed by Luke Kelly, and now I really want to learn this song on the banjo! I do an online search for tabs and come up wanting. Banjo players tell me to just "get the chord progression" and then figure out the tune from there. To me, this seems like an amazing feat. So often, when playing tabs that I've downloaded online, I look at the chord that the tabs are under and it seems that the chord may as well be irrelevant. Just because there is an F or a D above the tabs doesn't mean you are holding down all the frets needed to play an F or a D! I suppose the idea is that if your hand is in the position recommended, then you won't have any trouble getting your fingers to the correct frets?
RIght now, I get all my tabs from that awesome clawhammer guy on youtube and from my dearly beloved "Banjo Players Songbook."
I watch Tommy Makem play, for example, "Young Roddy McCorley" and he seems to moving around on the banjo quite a bit more than I do when playing the tabs from my Banjo Players Songbook. It would be so awesome to have the tabs for the notes he's playing, just so I can get an idea for what the tabs would look like for a top level banjo player. Then I listen to Makem's "Gentle Annie" and am mezmorized by the sounds coming from his banjo... What frets/strings is he holding/pressing!?!?
I realize that there is much more to making a banjo sing then having the correct tabs, but I feel (perhaps naively) that having access to the tabs that show what my banjo idols are doing would help me a step in the right direction. It's a bummer, you can acquire tabs to any song you can think of for a guitar via a quick google search, but for the banjo this is not so.
I guess I don't have a clear cut question in this thread, and it's not a tab request, but I just wanted to express my thoughts here and see what the you banjo maestro's have to say.
banjo bill-e - Posted - 07/24/2024: 08:05:38
Not what I would say. I say, learn the melody first and worry about the chords later, if at all. And tabs are just a tool. Use them if the help, but nothing replaces just learning the melody, first in your head so that you can hum it, and then find that on the fretboard. Try melody plus a bum-ditty now and then and see where that gets you!
jack_beuthin - Posted - 07/24/2024: 08:22:41
My two cents: There are really two “end member” approaches to working out a tune. One, as you mention, is to first learn the chord progression. The other is to focus more on finding the melody and then building a banjo arrangement around that (just as banjo bill-e mentioned as I typed this). The advantages of the chordal approach is that the melody notes are always somewhere in the chords, and if you know the chords, you can begin by faking your way through with picking/clawing on chords. The disadvantages are that there is often more than one possible chord progression. And btw, a piano player might play a very different progression than a rhythm guitarist, so be careful when you go hunting for chord progressions to songs/tunes. I usually think in terms of the simplest possible chord progression I could play on guitar, but that's not everyone’s approach.
If you want to get better at working out tunes, I would strongly suggest investing in some ‘slow downer” app like Transcribe! or Amazing Slow-downer. Load in any audio file and you can slow it down, change the pitch and play measure by measure. Over time, your ear will start to develop too, and the “amazing feat” will start to be within your grasp. Btw, I just used Transcribe! to work out Luke Kelly’s cover of “Peat Bog Soldiers”. Would have been a real challenge without the app. I worked out the melody first, then back-filled the chords.
Edited by - jack_beuthin on 07/24/2024 08:24:41
Texasbanjo - Posted - 07/24/2024: 08:24:39
Eventually, you'll get to the point where you will WANT to learn the chord progression first so you can play backup and get ready for a break when your time times (this is in bluegrass). Right now, if you're a beginner, tab is probably the best and quickest way to learn, so go ahead and continue to find tabs of songs that you want.
It's still a good idea to learn chord progressions, regardless of where you are in terms of experience, but it's not a necessity at first since there's so much tab out there for beginners (and others).
As you get more familiar with what you're doing, then you can think about chord progressions and going to jams and listening, learning to play with others. That's what it's all about! at least as far as I'm concerned.
Edited by - Texasbanjo on 07/24/2024 08:25:23
Old Hickory - Posted - 07/24/2024: 10:25:04
quote:
Originally posted by msv133
... the chord may as well be irrelevant. Just because there is an F or a D above the tabs doesn't mean you are holding down all the frets needed to play an F or a D! I suppose the idea is that if your hand is in the position recommended, then you won't have any trouble getting your fingers to the correct frets?
The section I bolded may be the most important lesson you can learn this early in your banjo journey.
No, the chords are not irrelevant. They define the harmonic structure of the song. Combined with the melody, they're how the song goes. If the melody were played against chords other than those that are called for, it could sound recognizably wrong.
And, no, the chords aren't listed so you'll be able to get to their required frets easier. They're listed to help you understand how the song goes, to help someone accompanying you, and to help you play accompaniment (backup).
So what's the lesson I mention? It's that in playing a lead, you don't always have to be fretting all or only the notes in a chord. (Note: I'm a three-finger player. I hope I don't say something that doesn't apply to clawhammer.) Melodies (both vocal and instrumental) float above, through, and around chords. While what I call the "core" melody, or the important melody notes -- such as the first note of every measure or the notes that happen on chord changes -- will nearly always be a chord tone, the passing notes will not necessarily be within the chords.
If you're trying to play a melody, that's the most important note you want at any time. It will probably sound good if one of the other strings you hit is a note within the chord. But you already know the 5th string is often going to be outside the chord and you'll hit it anyway. Same can be the case with other strings. Maybe some open string not in the current chord works at a particular moment.
In three-finger, there's a technique of playing melody on the second string (B in G tuning) and using the open 5th (G) and first (D) as drones. In such passages, we fret only the second string. The G and D notes are note part of every chord, yet they sound fine. I think the same thing is happening in clawhammer and in particular in what you describe Tommy Makem as doing.
Finally, and even more to the point: there's no reason to fret strings you're not hitting. In three-finger, we fret the first two strings a lot as we "roll" (pick patterns) on partial chord shapes. Every typical two-note pair used this way on the first two strings can imply different chords (because they'll be 2 of the 3, 4 or 5 notes in several different chords). So we (and presumably you, on clawhammer) can get the effect of a chord without fretting the full chord.
Hope some of this makes sense.
Have fun.
Bruce Berry Banjos - Posted - 07/24/2024: 10:31:50
If you can hear the song in your head, then you can tell WHEN the changes happen.
By figuring out the melody first, it'll give you hints to the chords.
Wherever you're at in the melody when it changes, try all the chord shapes which incorporate that tone.
By trying the most likely first (i.e. which chords use that tone in a simple triad) you'll happen together the simplest arrangement of any song.
LyleK - Posted - 07/24/2024: 11:46:21
Before commenting, it is useful to look/listen to The Dubliners with Luke Kelly performing this one. There are two banjos being used here. One is a four string tenor and the other (Luke Kelly's) is a long neck banjo (a la Pete Seeger) with a capo at the third fret (so just like a regular gDGBD tuning). The melody is coming from the singing. Neither banjo is doing the melody. They are just laying down chords. If you look at a guitar "tablature" it is just a listing of the chords, so not really a tablature. If you want to do what Luke is doing you will need to sing to get the melody and do a quarter note/eighth note/eighth note rhythm (never been fond of calling that "bum-ditty) or some other rhythm on the chords that you can get from a number of different places.
KCJones - Posted - 07/24/2024: 12:19:21
Cutting through the minutia and addressing the larger issue that I see:
It sounds like you struggle to be able to hear how a melody and chord changes are connected, and also to pick out a melody or chord progression by ear and be able to play it. It also sounds like you've primarily learned songs through tablature.
My advice is to abandon tablature, at least temporarily. Redirect your efforts to focus on two things. 1- Learning practical music theory (what is a key, what is a chord, what is a scale, and how are they all related?). 2 - ear and finger training so you can hear a chord progression or melody and mimic it on your banjo without the use of pen/paper or other note taking.
Do those things and it will all come together. There's lots of resources for those two topics so I won't list a bunch, but I had great results from the YouTube tutorials published by Sean Ray, John Boulding, and Happy Banjo Dude.
Edited by - KCJones on 07/24/2024 12:19:36
LyleK - Posted - 07/24/2024: 13:40:13
I'll try this again. Listen to/watch Kelly Griner as he has a tutorial on the banjo for "Hand Me Down the Bible." He is playing on a long neck banjo with a capo at the third fret, just like Luke Kelly. All Kelly Griner is doing is singing (for the melody) and strumming along through chords. I agree that one should be able to hear chord progressions, understand I-IV-V, etc. if playing chords on the banjo is what you want to do. I am married to an autoharp player and she can hear chord progressions like a fiend when I play fiddle (so melody). If your sole intent is to strum chords to go with a melody, then I agree with the above comments on chords. As an (also) fiddle player, I want my banjo playing to complement the melody and even produce the melody. As examples, below are some recordings I did of Cripple Creek as the TOTW long ago. They have the melody and, very occasionally, chords. Cripple Creek, for bluegrass, is generally one of the first tunes learned using a bunch of rolls across chords and singing "Goin’ up Cripple Creek goin’ in a run, Goin’ up Cripple Creek to have some fun..." to get the melody.
banjo bill-e - Posted - 07/25/2024: 06:16:36
Lyle is exactly right about the playing in that video, which I finally watched. My confusion came from it being posted in the Clawhammer/Old Time forum, where strumming to chords is not very common. For the style in that video it really is just a matter of learning the chord changes and strumming a steady rhythm while singing, which provides all of the melody. You can ignore anything in the tab other than the chords, for now, and maybe explore adding the more intricate parts later. a
You should also visit the Irish/Trad forum where more members will be familiar with the music you enjoy.
Owen - Posted - 07/25/2024: 07:29:14
Without comment, I'm reminded of:
Bob Newhart: "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'."
CosmicCharlie24 - Posted - 07/29/2024: 06:43:01
One of my “ah ha” moments was when I moved away from tabs and started constructing my own arrangement of songs. I don’t play traditional Old Time songs so there are no tabs for what inspires me. I now learn the chord structure of a song and build around it with melody notes. I enjoy playing so much more without thinking about how to play a song note for note per someone else’s arrangement.
johnedallas - Posted - 08/13/2024: 07:38:34
quote:
Originally posted by CosmicCharlie24
One of my “ah ha” moments was when I moved away from tabs and started constructing my own arrangement of songs. I don’t play traditional Old Time songs so there are no tabs for what inspires me. I now learn the chord structure of a song and build around it with melody notes. I enjoy playing so much more without thinking about how to play a song note for note per someone else’s arrangement.
That's how I see it, too!
Luke Kelly and Tommy Makem, who are cited in this discussion, were Irishmen (like myself). In Ireland, we have no tradition of banjo-playing. It's just that some of us get our hands on a 5-string banjo and use it as a handy accompaniment when we sing. Singing is very traditional in Ireland, but accompaniment is not. In the old days, accompaniment was for bourgeois people who could afford a piano. So when I, as an Irishman, accompany myself singing, and do it on an instrument that has no tradition behind it, how I do it is all up to my creativity. In modern Irish Folk, we have no "Earl" to emulate, so we don't need tabs to show us, note for note, what an "Earl" would have played.
Since the Clancy Brothers and The Dubliners, Irish song-books have had chord names printed above the stave. But in my 20 years as a Luke-Kelly-type musician (vocalist and 5-string banjoist in an Irish Folk group) I found that I often had to revise the chord sequences that someone else had devised for a given tune.
What my right hand does when my left hand holds down the given chords, is influenced by the run of the tune, the content of the words, the need for lead or support of the melody. I don't think I ever played an accompaniment exactly the same twice - although I was always careful to get the lyrics and the tune right!
Just my 0.02 Euros!
John
