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

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!

Fiddle Tunes in their Natural Key: #2

Fiddle Bop

In my previous blog I talked briefly about Red Haired Boy in the Key of A. Today I will discuss an original fiddle tune that I wrote for the banjo. This tune is called Fiddle Bop, and it is written in the key of E.

Unlike Red Haired Boy that I played strictly using the single-string style, Fiddle Bop employs pattern playing a la Earl Scruggs and only a small amount of single-string technique. The chorus is also filled with arpeggio patterns that I feel mimic the sound of a fiddle in a similar fashion that the fluid scale passages do in Red Haired Boy.

The Major Scale

First things first; for those of you with little to no background in music theory, a major scale is a major scale no matter what the key is. When a scale is played in a closed single-string style on the banjo, the pattern or scale becomes movable without changing the pattern. Thus the pattern for one major scale is the same pattern in any other key. We'll take a look at this shortly, but first let's build upon our G and A scales from last time and add the E major scale.

As you can see the E major scale adds an additional sharp when compared to the A major scale; not to worry though as you will see below that the major scale pattern is the same for all keys regardless of the number of sharps or flats in the key. Meaning: it is no harder to play than any other major scale.

Single-String Major Scale Pattern

Let's start with the familiar banjo key of G. The tab on the left is for the G major scale, and the image on the right represents the pattern that the fingers make while ascending the scale from the first note to the last note of the G major scale.

G Major Scale

Now take a look at the banjo tab for the E major scale and its corresponding pattern. Note that the two patterns are identical. By learning one scale pattern in the single-string style we learn them all by default for all keys! This of course is true as long as you start your pattern on the 4th string in the open G tuning.

E Major Scale

Just to clarify, the red dot on the lowest string on the left is the root of the scale and starts the pattern.

Scales are the foundation of most music. I say most music because there are indeed works of atonal music. Atonal music basically lacks a central tone or key, or perhaps has a key but doesn't convey a sense of musical direction found in typical music.

For the vast majority of fiddle tunes and other music the bottom line is that scales are important; whether they are major, minor, or any number of other scales. Learn them!

Arpeggio

Probably the largest element of Fiddle Bop is the use of arpeggios to convey the melody. An arpeggio is simply a chord that is played as a sequence of notes. The image below is the first bar of the Fiddle Bop chorus. The two chords employed are the A major and B major chords. Over these two chords I am playing a Scruggs-style pattern of eighth notes that at least in my mind gives me a fiddle-like melody.

Banjo players will recognize these chords as a standard bar chord. The first bar chord here is the A major chord and then the B major chord follows in the last half of the measure. Playing chords in this manner is an arpeggio.

Summary

This song should not present too many obstacles for the average banjo player, and your fiddle playing friends should also enjoy it. Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles of Fiddle Bop is that it is written and played in the key of E. As I stated last time set your capo down and give it a try.

The banjo tab to Fiddle Bop can be found in the Download and Links section, and you can hear the tune by viewing the video as well. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a shout.

Keep on picking!

Downloads and Links

1. Fiddle Bop Banjo Tablature (PDF)
2. Fiddle Bop YouTube Video

Rioja

I recorded this song back in 2000 shortly after writing it after some prompting by master musician and singer Roger Bellow.

The song was written as thanks for a couple of bottles of Rioja wine that my aunt sent from Spain. Sadly it was placed on the shelf shortly thereafter, and I only recently found the original tracks.

I'm playing the electric banjo and bass and Roger covered everything else to include the guitar, mandolin, and fiddle parts.

Special thanks to Jamie Joyner for mastering the audio recording.

Downloads and Links

1. Rioja on YouTube Video

Tranquility

I write lots of music primarily on the banjo but never bother to actually let anyone else hear them. I'm not certain if it's due to laziness or my innate ability to believe that the next take will be even better. Of course this leads me to the "it's not good enough" thought and projects end up being left on the shelf to age.

Now I'm older and wiser as they say and have finally reached the conclusion that it is good enough, and I'm comfortable that the recording is far from perfect in my mind, so please check out Tranquility on YouTube. It's piece that I wrote a few years back for the 5-string banjo. It's not bluegrass, but it certainly has its foundation there. I hope you enjoy!

Downloads and Links

1. Tranquility on YouTube Video