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jsinjin - Posted - 08/20/2024: 18:57:40
I have been making myself transpose a guitar song each day before leaving the lab and converting the key and chords in the guitar to the key and chords in banjo. I write each note on 5 string tablature and I’ve got a lot of common tunings memorized now between the two. I’ve never played guitar before but most system related things are easy for me.
I am a sucker for Townes Van Zandt and transposed nearly all of the guitar tablature I could find. Then today I transposed Eddie Vedder’s “save it for later” which is a fairly simple song.
Here is where my lack of music experience comes in with a question: for example, “save it for later” or “pancho and lefty” I can fairly easily strum the harmony to a modification of a bum ditty. It’s pretty easy if I write it all and pay attention; after 10-20 run through I have it down. But I don’t know how to transpose the main melody and guitar pattern into banjo tablature. “Save it for later” has a really cool sounding repeat of a pattern and I’m not sure how that needs to translate to become clawhammer percussion and thumb.
Does anyone understand what I mean?
Take “concerning hobbits” from the opening of lord of the rings. The music has a series of base notes in the melody and someone did a very good job of transposing those into a claw hammer style where the main notes are sounded as the initial notes in most of the clawhammer “bum ditty” patterns or triplets of sound.
Is there a formula for this?
I’ll keep working but wanted to hear if anyone understands it already to help with tips.
Old Hickory - Posted - 08/21/2024: 09:52:49
quote:
Originally posted by jsinjin
Is there a formula for this?
No.
Each combination of song, key, and tuning presents its own challenges in playing on 5-string banjo something that approximates how it was played on 6-string guitar.
I don't play clawhammer. But I see no reason for the musical challenges to be any different in clawhammer than they are in three-finger.
There is no formula. All you can do is apply your ear, experience, and musical ability to determine which patterns, sequences or phrases can be rendered on banjo. This includes having the experience to know when transposing a song into a different key or using a different tuning might allow you to take advantage of opportunities (such as inversions or voicings) that come closest to the music you're trying to make.
Good luck.
jsinjin - Posted - 08/21/2024: 14:37:00
After doing some reading and coding I think it’s actually a pretty simple formula if you take a few things into consideration. After studying the tab and the strings and the notes I was able to transpose pretty automatically each time. Although I’m not great at playing I can definitely hear the melody now in the stings being played.
I think the art is the side notes and fill that occurs in the clawhammer. If I play the melody on the second or third note of the clawhammer triplet or quartet it falls out pretty well.
I’ve been transposing one or two guitar songs per day at the end of the day at work to practice the chords being transposed to the same corresponding key on banjo. Then using the guitar pattern in the tablature it can transcribe the pattern to the strings on 5 String then I have to figure out how to adapt that to the clawhammer percussion and ring notes but it’s possible every time if I take into account the tuning.
I can definitely hear the melody to American pie, Pancho and Lefty, Save it for Later, stairway to heaven, headstrong winds. I’m not very good at playing but I definitely can see where the pattern emerges for the translation and transposition. Sometimes there are variants but even then it’s one of two or three selections of strings to get the patttern adapted to clawhammer percussion-strum-thumb.
Regardless it’s tons of fun!
