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| Moderated by: Richard Hefner |
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| Size of Old-time Repertoire. - Clawhammer Banjo - Banjo - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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Shamrocker. Approved
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Would anyone care to estimate just how many old-time tunes there are out there? All the best, Harry.
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banjo brad Super Moderator 
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More than I'll ever learn! For a "brief" list, browse through The Fiddler's Companion and check out the tunes listed. Most Old-Time clawhammer tunes are fiddle tunes adapted to the instrument. Then there's the Child collection, the Sharpe collection, the Wolfe collection, and many others. Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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Shamrocker. Approved
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Yes, I suppose there are different 'sub-repertoires'. Like Irish music (which I'm involved in) there are smaller groups of tunes within the broader repertoire that are more particularly associated with certain instruments (although theses tune may certainly also enjoy an association with other instruments). For example; there are thousands of tunes currently played in Irish music, but, of those I'd say that the number of 'piping tunes' might only be in the hundreds (although certain of the other tunes could be adapted for pipes, but they are not obvious 'pipe tunes' due to the functionalities of the instrument). There are many similar Irish written collections that are full of tunes which aren't really presently 'active' in the living tradition if you know what I mean. So I'm thinking more of the effective, extant and practiced repertoire. I suppose its the core, practiced 'banjo tunes' repertoire as it played 'on-the-ground' that I'm enquiring about. Regards, Harry.
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banjo brad Super Moderator
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Well, a good start, then, might be to check out Dan Levenson's book "117 Old Time Festival Tunes for Clawhammer Banjo." His introductory notes include: This book presents 117 tunes for you to play. Most of these are festivalfavorites that are rather well known and often show up at many of the jam sessions you are likely to become part of. Some are cliche', others unusual, some easy, some difficult. This would be a good start at building an OT repertoire. I also have a couple of tune lists that I collected from others on the net, which has 368 give or take, tunes listed. It is from the "Pegram Jam" chord book, and lists almost all the tunes played at the jam over 5 years. You can check them out at: http://www.pegramjam.org . So, whether you're looking for the whole shebang or just a list to learn, I think you'll find more than you can ever want. If, by chance, you're looking for a list to learn, I would suggest you find a jam or music circle near you and get the list of what they are playing. This will help you learn the tunes you will be playing when you go there. I hope this helps answer the question I think you are asking. I may be totally out in left field, though, it's been known to happen. Keep on frailin' Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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Shamrocker. Approved
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Yes, Brad. That's more or less the gist of it. I'll check that book out. Thanks for the leads! Regards, Harry.
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cockneybanjo Approved 
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I think also that it's sometimes more a matter of opinion than fact, which are actually different tunes and which are variations of others. My teacher reckons there are about a dozen different basic tunes, the rest are variations of these - sometimes quite minor, sometimes very different, in the way that Duelling Banjos is actually a series of variations on 'Yankee Doodle' this is particularly the case in Old-Time, where many different tunings are used, sometimes only for a few songs
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banjo brad Super Moderator
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" My teacher reckons there are about a dozen different basic tunes, the rest are variations of these" Well, I'll agree there are a lot of variations of tunes in the OT rep., but I respectfully disagree with the number your teacher reckons. Just as a check, ask how many tunes he thinks were brought over to the Americas by the immigrants from Ireland and Scotland, as a check. These are the tunes that traveled to the Appalachian mountains and morphed into what I refer to as "Appalachian/Southern Mountain" Old Time Music. Then there are all the Breton tunes in the NorthEast, the Scandinavian folk around the Great Lakes, etc. I'm not an ethnomusicologist, and haven't really dug as deeply into the history as I would like to, but I think there are more that a dozen "core" melodies. Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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Lyle Konigsberg Approved 
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Six hundred and sixty-five? No wait, I forgot one. But seriously, "Ryan's Mammoth Collection" from 1883 had 1,050 (see http://www.nigelgatherer.com/books/ryan.html) tunes. Granted, there are redundancies, many jigs which have fallen out, and some hornpipes that are too darn hard to play in that collection, but still a goodly number.
____________________ ezFolk page: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1084/ Some Tabs at: http://lylewk.home.comcast.net/ |
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cockneybanjo Approved
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well I did ask him this at the time. He mostly works as a session musician and tours with his band from time to time, right now he is in Australia for a month or so. He routinely receives CDs which he needs to learn quickly, and if he couldn't do this he wouldn't be working. He tells me that there are about a dozen basic tunes, and about the same number again of principal variations of these, which are further qualified by being in different chord progressions for different instruments ( eg if you look on the uke pages you will see 'Under the Double Eagle' in F. You don't see this for banjos ) and by being combinations of different tunes ( eg British military marches which commonly contain three main elements ) I also take my younger son to see him from time to time, and Sam usually takes a CD for something he wants to learn on the guitar. Last time it was some hideous piece of screaming from a band called greenday, within 15 minutes Keith had got this down to three main sequences on an acoustic guitar, with the side remark that one of them was a hornpipe, which he went on to demonstrate, expanded as a self-contained piece on a banjo I've seen him do this many times so it must work of course if you take the position that every variation is a separate tune, then the permutations must be infinite, particularly as many traditional tunes seem to have numerous minor variations and often several names depending on context Last edited on Wed Jan 16th, 2008 04:33 am by cockneybanjo |
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Patrick_Woolery Approved
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Okay, I just have to ask, then. What are the 12 core tunes? And the principal variations? If this is the case, it would make it so much easier to fit in at a jam! (I'm a little skeptical, but willing to be convinced.) I have noticed that you can change a tune substantially and still have it work. I learned two totally different versions of Cotton Eye Joe and was surprised when I figured out (duh!) that they are the same chord progression. However, until I started to try to sing the words, I thought they were two totally unrelated melodies. Same name, though. I have read an opinion on the Banjo Hangout that most OT music is made up of a discrete number of phrases that can be strung together to create a tune. Reminded me of the old joke that there are only two banjo tunes. One of them is Cripple Creek and the other one isn't. Still, nobody seemed ready to offer a set of standard phrases that every banjo player needs in order to play the supposed 90% of OT music. I would find it really helpful to have such a selection, as it would simplify jamming for someone like me. I know that Bluegrass banjo players are sometimes told to learn several licks of one and two measures. The idea is that they can figure out a chord progression, plug it into the set of licks, and have an instant solo. I don't really see that working so well with OT banjo, though. Too many variations and you lose the melody. If anyone out there has a list of the needed licks/core tunes, I would love to learn them. -Patrick
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Philj200 Approved 
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It might also be true that everytime a picker half forgets a tune and fakes the rest of it, a new tune is born. Old Time is a style, not a chronologic determinant.
____________________ My MP3 Section: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/1143/ My Myspace area: http://myspace.com/philj200 |
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| ezFolk Forums > Banjo > Clawhammer Banjo > Size of Old-time Repertoire. | |
