rkdjones - Posted - 03/13/2025:  22:39:29

I'm at level 1; but I can't call myself a beginner after so many years playing clawhammer. I like Irish music and would like to play jigs. I like playing clawhammer style. I also have a tenor banjo tuned GDAE and learned a couple tunes playing with a plectrum. I just read the 3 pages of comments about jigs here so I know one can play Irish music with a clawhammer technique.

I would like to know others' experiences playing jigs or other Irish music on these two different instruments. If you play Irish tenor banjo and clawhammer 5-string, do you prefer one to the other and why. My attention span and years left on this earth are limited, so I'm just not sure where to focus my efforts.

trapdoor2 - Posted - 03/14/2025:  04:47:31

I simply play Irish on the Tenor and Oldtime on the 5-String. I'm not a "notey" CH player, it just doesn't fit my style.

I do tune my Tenor to ADAE. 99% of IT tunes never use the low G. Easy to retune if one sneaks in...

Joel Hooks - Posted - 03/14/2025:  05:46:02

I am fairly obsessed with a class of music historically referred to as "Jigs and Reels", but this should not be confused with the current orthodoxy of "Irish Session playing" which, I believe, uses a strict adherence to O'neill's classifications.

None of that seems to have applied to the general area of "Jigs and Reels" as associated with the (regular) banjo prior to "Irish Session" music taking form in the early 1920s/30s with the tenor banjo and finding final form in the post WW2 folk revival.

The terms "Jigs and Reels" were very broad and were not confined to specific time signatures. Generally anything we might call a "fiddle tune" would fall into this, but even more structured (A, B, A, trio,) type pieces that modulate the key for the trio would be called "jig" or "reel".

Now that I have blathered on for awhile about useless stuff, I play these on 5 string.

Here are some examples: (this sort of material for banjo is seemingly endless)

Joel Hooks - Posted - 03/14/2025:  05:50:56

Attached is a fantastic collection of Jigs and Reels for banjo. While from the 1970s, this would be an "orphaned" work, long out of print. Walter Kaye Bauer was primarily a mandonlist who did lots of radio work and even toured with Orville Gibson and his mandolin group.

The cool thing about this collection is that he added chord symbols. At the American Banjo Fraternity Spring Rally (coming up in may-- all are invited) a few of us usually pull this or the above two out and jam through a number of them.

Reading and playing this stuff is one of my favorite evening pastimes.

Jigs and Reels Bauer

 

Nic Pennsylvania - Posted - 03/14/2025:  06:59:36

quote:

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Originally posted by Joel Hooks

The terms "Jigs and Reels" were very broad and were not confined to specific time signatures. Generally anything we might call a "fiddle tune" would fall into this, but even more structured (A, B, A, trio,) type pieces that modulate the key for the trio would be called "jig" or "reel".

---

I've often wondered when and why this changed occured. It makes more sense to me that you would classify a dance type by the time signature, so I'm not complaining. I'm just trying to understand the evolution, as years ago I noticed most jigs printed prior to the 1930s were written in 2/4. 

Eulalie - Posted - 03/14/2025:  07:07:55

quote:

---

Originally posted by rkdjones

I'm at level 1; but I can't call myself a beginner after so many years playing clawhammer. I like Irish music and would like to play jigs. I like playing clawhammer style. I also have a tenor banjo tuned GDAE and learned a couple tunes playing with a plectrum. I just read the 3 pages of comments about jigs here so I know one can play Irish music with a clawhammer technique.



I would like to know others' experiences playing jigs or other Irish music on these two different instruments. If you play Irish tenor banjo and clawhammer 5-string, do you prefer one to the other and why. My attention span and years left on this earth are limited, so I'm just not sure where to focus my efforts.

---

I've been at this for a while and have never felt that clawhammer style works for Irish music.  Sure, there are a few players with a delicate touch who can make it happen, but to my ear, jigs are best played with a crisp articulation and proper triplet accent that does not happen easily in clawhammer style.  On the other hand, this is easily done on tenor banjo played with a plectrum.  Whenever I played with my many friends who were stuck on Irish music, I switched to mandolin.

I was going to mention the tradition of jigs and reels in American old-time fiddle repertory, but I see that Joel Hooks has offered a good selection of examples.  If you dig into the very early recordings of fiddle players like John Baltzel of Ohio and Jehile Kirkhuff of Pennsylvania, you'll find that their rep included as many jigs as "hoedowns".  That distribution is what 19th century banjo music looked like as well. 

dbrooks - Posted - 03/14/2025:  07:10:06

I play jigs at our weekly contra dances using clawhammer.  Tenor banjo offers a more straightforward approach, but tenor banjo just didn't speak to me.  Your previous reading about jigs on this site probably says all, or nearly all, there is to say, but here's an excerpt from a booklet I put together last year.

David

Jigs use 6/8 time. There are 6 beats in each measure with the eighth notes getting one beat each.  In practice, however, it is easier to think of there being two pulses in a measure made up of 3 eighth notes on each beat: 1-2-3  2-2-3.  A different clawhammer stroke is called for with a jig.  There is a downstroke on the first and third beats and on the fourth and sixth beats.  The middle beat, if it is sounded, will be done with a left-hand lick (hammer-on or pull-off) or with a drop thumb.  In the tabs, the downstrokes may sometimes be noted with the letter m and a drop thumb will be noted with a t.

A measure may also be populated with a quarter note paired with an eighth note.  This combination adds a bit of syncopation to the rhythm.  The quarter note counts for 2 eighth-note beats, and the eighth note adds the 3^rd beat: 1 & 3  1 and 3.  Ken Perlman offers a handy way to think about 6/8 time using the nursery rhyme, “Hickory Dickory Dock.”

6 eighth notes in a measure will sound like – “Hickory Dickory”

1 quarter note (beats 1 and 2) paired with an eighth note (beat 3) will sound like – “. . . Dock a Mouse Ran Up the Clock.”

In the last measure of the attached PDF, the dotted half note associated with “clock” has the value of 3 beats – 2 for the half note and 1 added by the dot.

Sample Jig Stroke

 

janolov - Posted - 03/14/2025:  07:36:16

You should study this thread banjohangout.org/topic/348387 where Noah Cline is demonstrating how to play clawhammer jigs.

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 03/14/2025:  16:30:51

quote:

---

Originally posted by rkdjones

I would like to know others' experiences playing jigs or other Irish music on these two different instruments. If you play Irish tenor banjo and clawhammer 5-string, do you prefer one to the other and why. My attention span and years left on this earth are limited, so I'm just not sure where to focus my efforts.

---

I think it depends on how seriously you want to get into Irish Music.  Irish tunes can certainly be wrangled onto the 5-string CH style, and the music can be quite nice, however if you really want to get into Irish Trad in a big way, tenor banjo, IMO, is definitely the way to go.

To me, the 5-string has some serious drawbacks:

1) By virtue of the right hand technique, CH doesn't have the sort of "attack" that imparts the drive to the music that plectrumed tenor banjo does.  The tenor has the ability to cut through, and is a particularly nice foil to the fiddle or accordion.

2)  CH technique in general lacks the ability to ornament (hard single-note triplets, aka the "birl", cuts, rolls, crans, etc., etc.) as is a hallmark of the Irish style of playing whereas, Irish tenor banjo players have developed a system of ornamentation that closely approximates that of instruments like the flute, fiddle, and even the uilleann pipes.

3)  By virtue of its tuning (GDAE- same as fiddle, mandolin, etc.), the tenor can easily play all of the tunes in their proper keys.  This is very important because Irish musicians usually play medleys consisting of 2,3, or even more tunes, and these medleys often feature attractive and even striking key changes- there is no time for retuning as is often necessary on the 5-string.  In fact, even single tunes can feature parts in different keys.

One will note that by-and-large, if not exclusively, that Irish groups who make a career of playing jigs, reels, and other dance tunes do not have a 5-string banjo in the line-up.  Irish music is very accepting of any instrument which works within the tradition, hence the inclusion of the plethora of free-reed instruments, keyboard instruments, and instruments like the Greek bouzouki, octave mandolin, guitar, etc., but alas, no 5-string banjo.

My musical "career" has been exclusively OT, with the exception of the ten years I spent eating, breathing, and sleeping Irish fiddle, with forays into tenor banjo, bouzouki, etc. I've played in concert bands (think Irish versions of "Silly Wizard"), and a ceili band (my Irish immigrant mother-in-law ran one of the largest, if not the largest Irish Dance school in L.A. for  decades)  I'm seriously not by any means the undisputed expert on the subject, but this, FWIW is what I've gleaned from my own experience with Irish music and the banjo(s).

Again, this all comes down to how much time you want to dedicate to Irish music, and what you want to make of it.  Not withstanding the above, there are some wonderful examples of Irish tunes CH-style as they stand on their own, and if they attract you, by all means pursue them.

In my opinion, our own Noah Cline, as above, is the best player I have heard of Irish dance music in the CH style.

I've only found the one jig set by Alison DeGroot (hopefully there are more) and it is magnificent:

Allison de Groot with Quinn Bachand. Tom Billy's/ Trip to Athlone. Clawhammer Jigs.

I'll duck as I hit the "Post Reply" button, because there are folks that will tell you that you can play any tune in any key on the banjo.  As wonderful as this sounds, I just have not found it to be true.  Not wanting to be discouraging, just hoping to save you some of the time you are recognizing has become increasingly valuable.

Ultimately though,  as one of our long-time members is wont to say; "It's your banjo kid. Play it however you want."

Edited by - R.D. Lunceford on 03/14/2025 16:45:31

rkdjones - Posted - 03/14/2025:  18:28:53

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I find the 5-string to be in a world of its own compared to other stringed instruments. It's fun and frustrating. There is a reason why I am at level 1 after this many years messing around with it. But I keep coming back.

Bill H - Posted - 03/15/2025:  06:41:11

I play with a couple of New England dance fiddlers on occasion who play lots of jig. I just could not get the hang of them with clawhammer, particularly at the speed they play. I have been working on jigs in three finger style and have made some progress, but it is a challenge.

My advice, if you really like Irish music, is to start practicing the tenor. It will make the music more accessible and in general a better fit. I am working on Scatter the mud right now and it will be weeks to get it up to speed on the five string.

rkdjones - Posted - 03/15/2025:  13:03:55

Tangential to this thread is the broader comparison of the 5-string and the Irish Tenor.

One of my challenges with learning tunes on the 5-string from tabs or listening is separating the core melody from the ornamentation. I've started going to Mandolessons.com to learn the melody on a 4 string tuned in fifths before attempting to learn it on the 5-string (I use a baritone ukulele tuned GDAE).

Noah Cline - Posted - 03/19/2025:  18:12:30

My preference: both. I love the growl and snap tenors get of those I've listened to and played, but I also like arranging and playing jigs on the five-string. I find ornamentation like triplets work best for me with the fretting hand, though I've seen a few use the picking hand for triplets. I agree that the motion of the right hand with playing jigs is not as fluid as reels or old time fiddle tunes, but it's doable, and just the nature of it. 

While I've owned a couple tenors that I've worked on, and played a couple I've built, I still go back to my five-string (the tenors didn't stay long). However, I do tend to grab my mandolin or fiddle sometimes when figuring out a tune, before translating it to the five-string. Fifths tuning does have its advantages. I regret that having recorded a couple Irish albums that I didn't include a set that changed keys (like the "Tarbolton"). The tuning I've found pretty versatile for quickly changing keys within D, G, and A, along with Am, Em, Bm, and Dm, is aDADE (which is sort of close to GDAE). A friend on guitar and his daughter on penny whistle play a set that switches from G to D to Am. Double D works, or at least I've found, playing along with them. 



This video was one that I was quite impressed with and made me smile while watching it, especially when it came to the head taps: youtu.be/lRYVhje3CZQ?si=Fg_iFLmYYQTvHXDv

Bill Rogers - Posted - 03/19/2025:  23:14:42

Hard to add anythnig to R.D.’s excellent disquisition. I would look to who you play with and what style of music you play with others—as well as by yourself for your own amusement. While you can play both (American) old-time and Irish, focusing on both in one band is difficult. I know of no such bands. Playing the occasional tune from the other tradition is one thing. It’s much easier and more likely successful to choose one or the other in a given band. So if your focus is Irish music, get a tenor and learn to play it well for all sorts of tunes. If your focus is want to focus on old-time, get a tenor-string and learn enough technique to play the occasional jig, while recognizing, as R.D. Noted, that there are simply licks in Irish banjo that you cannot play in clawhammer style.