Fireball Mail

Back to Basics

The five string banjo sounds beautiful when playing bluegrass. It's a perfect pairing, but sometimes I find myself neglecting bluegrass in favor of my own music. When this neglect comes to mind, I realize that I need to get back to basics.

With this in mind I present to you three variations of a well known tune, Fireball Mail. Fireball Mail does indeed have lyrics, but I've mostly heard this preformed as an instrumental. 

Variation 1

The first variation stays fairly true to the basic Scruggs version with two exceptions to note. The first is the non use of the 5th string as a drone. All three versions replace the 5th string with the 3rd string as a drone nearly all the way through.

The second departure is the use of chord substitution. To stay true to standard bluegrass banjo I use this sparingly in the first version. See the image below for the first chord substitutions played against the D chord in the first half of song.

Starting half way through measure eight I start walking up the scale from the initial F#. This takes me through the Em, Am, and then finally a short stop on the Ddim7 chord that leads to the G in measure 10. At this point I feel that I haven't strayed too far from the traditional sounds of bluegrass, and with exception of the Ddim7 chord, everything in these two measures fits with the tonality used in the key of G.

Variation 2

The second variation leads us slightly further astray on paper than it sounds when played. Take a look at measure 23 in the image below. In this case I am playing the notes of an E7 chord against a G chord. An E7 chord is constructed from the following notes: E, G#, B, and D. It's not too outlandish, and it leads down to the D chord in measure 24 quite nicely.

The last real chord substitution is at measure 31. This comes on the tail end of a bluesy passage that starts in measure 26. Take a look at the image below. In this case I am substituting the last D chord in the song with an F chord. This serves to link the long bluesy run in the previous measures to the standard bluegrass banjo G ending in measure 32.

Variation 3

The third and last variation is just straight bluegrass banjo. It's not quite the way that Earl played it, but it doesn't stray far from tradition at all. 

I hope you enjoy this. Don't forget that you can find the tab in the section below or on my tablature page. I have two versions for you. One is PDF that most people should be able to read, and the other is GPX. GPX is used with the latest version of Guitar Pro.

Thanks for reading!

Downloads and Links

1. Fireball Mail Banjo Tab (PDF)

Rolling Thunder/Baby's Breath

Original Banjo Music

I recently released a video showcasing two of my songs, Rolling Thunder and Baby's Breath. These are both original songs that I wrote and thought that they just might complement each other, so I recorded both and combined them into one video. You can find the link to the video in the Downloads and Links section below.

Videography

Creating videos is something that is fairly new to me, but I'm finding it to be a new diversion that I find quite enjoyable; however, it's also time consuming and requires a bit of new found creativity and most of all the willingness to learn new techniques and the tools necessary to achieve the end product. 

For this particular video I employed the use of what is now known as the Ken Burns effect. This is basically the effect of panning and zooming a still image in video to give the illusion of motion. I believe that one of its intents is to draw attention to a particular subject in the still image.

I also learned the technique of taking a still image and turning it into a cartoon. This comes in handy when I'm the actor as I feel that I don't have to worry about the details as much when I'm represented as a cartoon.

Rolling Thunder

This song was written using typical Scruggs patterns that one find in most bluegrass banjo tunes. The overall sound conveyed touches on some classical tones using full banjo rolls with those few exceptions towards the end of the song where I use full on bluegrass banjo fill licks to complement the descending line. Take a look at the tab below. This example is played near the end of the song.

Baby's Breath

Baby's Breath is a completely different animal than Rolling Thunder. This is especially true in regards to technique and chord structure. Although I classify both songs as contemporary pieces, Baby's Breath uses a variety of interesting chords and there are quite a few meter changes between 4/4 and 3/4 in the last half of the song.

Regarding the interesting chords, Baby's Breath begins with a Gmaj7 and descends over the next two bars to finally land on a D. Take a look at the banjo tab excerpt below from the beginning of the song. This gives it a cool jazzy sound that ends with a D major chord and notes with long sustain.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video and the music, and I appreciate you giving it a listen.

Downloads and Links

1. Rolling Thunder/Baby's Breath YouTube Video

Fiddle Tunes in their Natural Key: #3

June Apple

The next song in my series on playing fiddle tunes in their natural key (on the banjo) is June Apple in the key of A.

Like the other songs in the series, you will need to be versed in multiple banjo playing techniques. In the case of June Apple this includes a mix of single-string technique and arpeggio picking patterns in the first part or verse. The second part or chorus is entirely different and relies purely on the use of the melodic picking style.

As always you can find the tab used in this blog in the Downloads and Links section and on my the tablature page.

One of the nice musical features of June Apple with respect to the 5-string banjo is the musical mode that it employs. June Apple uses the same mode that is used in Red Haired Boy. That mode would be the mixolydian mode. This mode takes the major scale and lowers the seventh degree by a half step. This gives us a G instead of a G# for the seventh note of the scale. This also gives us another note that matches one of our open strings and makes our melodic passages much easier to play. In chord speak this gives us the A7 chord as well.

The image below depicts the A scale and its corresponding pattern. The G scale is provided as a familiar reference. In this case the seventh degree is also lowered a half step. Note that this pattern is for the mixolydian scale and is the same pattern for all keys.

Mea Culpa

After stating that bar #7 is giving me problems, I can't seem to find my way past it. I've altered bar #7 slightly to hopefully make this easier to play. Take a look at the fourth note in the image below to see the change.

I hope this helps you as much as it is helping me.

I don't have a video prepared for this installment but will update the article as soon as I post it.

If you have any questions, feel free to give me a shout.

Keep on picking!

Downloads and Links

1. June Apple Banjo Tab (PDF)

New Tab Page

Just wanted to let you guys know that I added a new tablature page to the blog. My current intention is to only add the tabs that either I author or arrange, but we all know how things can change. It's not complete yet and there are only a few entries, but it will grow over time.

I currently have links to tabs in Adobe PDF format, but I will also add Guitar Pro GPX format as well. This is a tab editor that I have used for many years. Don't let the Guitar Pro name fool you; it provides tabs and standard music notation for many instruments.

Take a look, and I hope you enjoy!