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Don Borchelt - Posted - 02/19/2007: 14:20:47
I listened to them last night. Very nice.
"Well, I know there's a lotta big preachers that know a lot more than I do
But it could be that the good Lord likes a little pickin' too."
- Tom T. Hall, from The Year That Clayton Delaney Died
chip arnold - Posted - 02/19/2007: 14:23:14
Great link John. I love those tunes. I learned Baptist Shout and Reno Factory from Kirk Sutphin's Old Roots, New Branches cd. but I pick them 2-finger style.
Anyone know where Reno Factory comes from?
I think of that kind of tune as "banjo tunes" where the banjo really plays the lead without a fiddle or with a fiddle accompanying.
Coal Creek March and Snowdrop are a couple more.
Play with a plan
Chip
chip arnold - Posted - 02/19/2007: 22:11:16
Tish just put a 2-finger, index lead tab for Reno Factory on our little website. http://tishandchip.tripod.com/ There are a few places where the index crosses over the thumb and I've written the right hand sequence under the tab in those spots.
Play with a plan
Chip
ramblin - Posted - 02/19/2007: 22:43:24
"Reno Factory" and "Roach's Pickup" come from Posey Roach - sure would like to hear what he sounded like, although Kirk sounds great playing those tunes.
Thanks for the comments on my playing.
frankie
--
http://donegone.net
Edited by - ramblin on 02/19/2007 22:45:23
janolov - Posted - 02/20/2007: 07:35:48
quote:
Am I the only one who can't figure out where the link to the music is on his site?
Follow the link:
http://forum.sugarinthegourd.com/vi...ic.php?t=445 and you come to another discussion forum worth to visit (Sugar In The Gourd). The post on top (at least at the moment) is by a Frankie. In the middle of Frankies post you can read two links:
Country Blues - Dock Boggs
Babtist Shout - Frank Jenkins
Click on Babtist Shout and you come to another site
http://www.donegone.net/?p=132 , where there is a link to the mp3-file with Baptist Shout just to the right of the photo.
You can't miss it!
Janolov
mwc9725e - Posted - 02/20/2007: 10:08:45
quote:
Originally posted by janolov
quote:
Am I the only one who can't figure out where the link to the music is on his site?
Follow the link: http://forum.sugarinthegourd.com/vi...ic.php?t=445 and you come to another discussion forum worth to visit (Sugar In The Gourd). The post on top (at least at the moment) is by a Frankie. In the middle of Frankies post you can read two links:
Country Blues - Dock Boggs
Babtist Shout - Frank Jenkins
Click on Babtist Shout and you come to another site http://www.donegone.net/?p=132 , where there is a link to the mp3-file with Baptist Shout just to the right of the photo.
You can't miss it!
Janolov
Got it. Thanks for the help.
Joe Garinger - Posted - 02/23/2007: 21:29:24
I know Dock Boggs used a lot of different tunings. Is there any info on how he played the picking hand? ie picking patterns etc.
Joe
Yopparai - Posted - 02/24/2007: 00:27:33
I caught these yesterday. Great stuff, and saved for future reference.
Bluegrass Limey - Posted - 03/03/2007: 15:28:59
quote:
Originally posted by Joe Garinger
I know Dock Boggs used a lot of different tunings. Is there any info on how he played the picking hand? ie picking patterns etc.
Joe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3z0LZDxoCISeems to be three-finger picking, but more of an off-beat pluck than anything Scruggs or otherwise.
5 Strings good, 4 Strings bad
ramblin - Posted - 03/05/2007: 16:35:18
quote:
Originally posted by Bluegrass Limey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3z0LZDxoCI
Thanks for the excellent Dock Boggs clip - I've studied that one a lot... it's on a Vestapol Video called Shady Grove that has some great footage of Kilby Snow, Tommy Jarrell and Roscoe Holcomb as well.
quote:
Originally posted by Bluegrass Limey
Seems to be three-finger picking, but more of an off-beat pluck than anything Scruggs or otherwise.
No, it's not really like Scruggs style - I don't know enough about Scruggs to articulate the exact technical differences, but certainly Dock has a quite different sound quality in mind, as well as being concerned primarily with accompanying his own singing. He doesn't quite have the same transportable "lick" concept that seems to me to inform Earl Scruggs' playing. Instead, Dock plays in an old-time way - the song and the melody come first. Improvisations are subtle and more likely to a lengthening or shortening of phrases than an elaboration of the harmony of the song (a concept Scruggs borrowed from jazz idioms).
Frankly, this lengthening and shortening of phrases has largely dropped out of practice, even with solo players, since the focus has shifted to ensemble playing and most peoples' expectations are conditioned by that. It's clear that the old guys knew how to make time work for them when playing alone - and this is as true for Wade Ward, Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb as it is for Furry Lewis, Charlie Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Unfortunately, lots of our contemporaries assume the old guys couldn't count (feh!) - simply because they assume that to be musical (in an ensemble), the form has to work out evenly every time.
Not!
frankie (sorry if I'm preaching to the choir - had to get that offa my chest!)
--
http://donegone.net
Don Borchelt - Posted - 03/05/2007: 22:15:16
ramblin wrote: "Frankly, this lengthening and shortening of phrases has largely dropped out of practice, even with solo players, since the focus has shifted to ensemble playing and most peoples' expectations are conditioned by that."
I think this is a very old habit, and reflects the influence of the acappella ballad singing tradition, where the singer is following the natural rhythm of the words more than the set meter. This is a very ancient practice, and is a tendency of modal style just as much as the scale patterns we normally associate with the term. I think the occasional occurance of "crooked" tunes is ultimately rooted in the same tradition.
- Don Borchelt
"Well, I know there's a lotta big preachers that know a lot more than I do
But it could be that the good Lord likes a little pickin' too."
- Tom T. Hall, from The Year That Clayton Delaney Died
twelvefret - Posted - 03/06/2007: 06:09:23
quote:
I think this is a very old habit, and reflects the influence of the acappella ballad singing tradition, where the singer is following the natural rhythm of the words more than the set meter.
I am always having my understanding broaden here. Don, would the fact that Doc played alone be another factor. Most of my fiddle and banjo playing is such that I am not being "backed up". I find myself trying new things and not always being very conventional. I hear that in those clips of Doc.
Twelvefret <><
"Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple." Pete Seeger
" I 'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park" from the movie, "Cars"
Don Borchelt - Posted - 03/06/2007: 08:39:38
twelvefret wrote: "Don, would the fact that Doc played alone be another factor."
Well, in a sense it's the same factor. The unaccompanied ballad singer is primarily a solo tradition. Before the introduction of the guitar, when the traditional singer did add some form of accompaniment, whether it be fiddle, banjo, or appalachian dulcimer or other zither type instrument, he or she tended to play some form of the melody in unison with the singing, rather than use the instrument strictly as a rhythmic device. While Boggs is clearly playing rhythm on his banjo, no question, I still hear vestiges of that older tradition in his playing, especially when he modifies his timing to suit his sense of the flow of the vocal line. My argument here is that this is not done out of some inherent lack of discipline, musical ignorance, or negligence, it is done because it sounds right to him based upon the tradition he grew up with. In other words, it is deliberate, on some level, not accidental.
Ancient plainsong, the oldest form of western music for which we have accurate transcriptions, was unmetered in the modern sense. But that is not to say it was without rhythm. Instead, the singers, both solo and ensemble, would follow the natural rhythm of the words. Until modern times, virtually all theatrical oratory was poetic, in that the performer spoke or sang with a pulsing meter. Remember studying iambic pentameter in high school? Even Shakespeare wrote his dialogue with a natural rhythm. It's not as rigid as musical meter, but it is still there. The distinction between poetry, music, drama and oratory is more absolute in modern times than it was in the medievil period, and before. When we listen to Dock Boggs, and other traditional appalachian ballad singers, we are looking through a sort of leaded-glass window, catching tinted glimpses of that past tradition.
That's my theory, anyway, for what it's worth.
= Don Borchelt
"Well, I know there's a lotta big preachers that know a lot more than I do
But it could be that the good Lord likes a little pickin' too."
- Tom T. Hall, from The Year That Clayton Delaney Died
Edited by - Don Borchelt on 03/06/2007 08:41:15
twelvefret - Posted - 03/06/2007: 18:48:26
quote:
That's my theory, anyway, for what it's worth.
...and it's appreciated!!
Twelvefret <><
"Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple." Pete Seeger
" I 'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park" from the movie, "Cars"
