Topic: where else on the interwebs...

[Mr.OMuck]

Excellent Frank!

[Prof Scratchy]

Yes indeed!

[nobocaster]

Dig it!

[Johnm]

That is spiffissimo, Frank!

[frankie]

thanks, guys!

[frankie]

Again - of tangential interest in the weenieverse:



I likes it, though... Roscoe!

[Lastfirstface]

Very cool. Are you picking the melody with your finger, your thumb, or switching back and forth like Roscoe?

Pete

[Mr.OMuck]

Love it!

[frankie]

thanks, fellas.  Pete, I'm alternating lead between thumb and index. One interesting thing about this song is that the main rhythm lick - where the melody comes to rest between verses - is played with the index leading on the 2nd string...  most times, Roscoe seems to lead with the index when the melody crosses over to the 1st string. Interesting to hear him do it differently here. I think he uses the same approach on his "Sitting On Top Of The World" too.

[Johnm]

I sure like that, Frank.  I love that calypso-y time stroke, between the vocal phrases.  Where does that stuff come from?  I know Roscoe did it, but I guess I mean it's not a rhythm you expect to hear coming out of East Kentucky.  I sure like those held high notes in the vocal at the beginning of each verse.
All best,
Johnm

[frankie]

Thanks, John -  I know what you mean about the time stroke. If you listen to a lot of his banjo songs that are picked in a thumb lead style, you'll hear that stroke whenever the melody drifts up to the 1st string. It seems like the prevailing wisdom is that he plays those notes on the 1st string with his thumb, but I don't hear that at all.

Who knows how he came up with it, but when I broke it down, I realized that the net result allows the thumb to keep up a constant 5th string time stroke on the 2 and 4 beats, consistent with how the thumb would treat the 5th string if the thumb were still doing the lead. Kinda clever.

[Lastfirstface]

Thanks for the explanation. I think George Landers used a similar pattern sometimes where he'd pluck the melody note with his index and then pinch the first and fifth string simultaneously with his index and thumb, which puts the drone string note at the same place in the bar as thumb-lead playing.

[frankie]

I'll go back and listen to George Landers. I don't think I hear RH doing a pinch during his index-lead moments. More like the attached tab - the index plays the first melody note with the index on beat 1, followed by the thumb on beat 2. Then the index on the "+" of beat 2 and the "+" of beat 3, followed with the thumb on beat 4.

When he leads with his thumb, you do hear the pinch being used, that's for sure.

[Lastfirstface]

Thanks for the tab, that clears up what you were referring to. I didn't mean to suggest that George Landers style was much like RH's playing, I was just thinking about how the pinch lick that he used intermittently moved the thumb string note to a different part of the bar than his other picking patterns, which were more analogous to clawhammer in their placement of the drone note.

[frankie]

I see what you mean - Hayes Shepherd kinda does the same thing in the context of his index-lead playing. It's interesting that when RH has to switch to index-lead, he does so in a way that maintains that thumb stroke in the same place relative to the pulse, in contrast to George Landers and Hayes Shepherd.

5-string banjo...  there really is no particular way to play the mamlish thing...