Topic: Playing Peg Leg Howell's "Low Down Rounder Blues"

[Johnm]

Hi all,
Before I went away, Banjo Chris asked about Peg Leg Howell's "Low Down Rounder Blues", and I have been working on it a ton since I got back.  I believe I have figured out how he did it.  I have two recorded versions of it, one with an absolute pitch of E, and one with an absolute pitch of F.  They are both obviously played out of the same position, but one begins with an intro featuring runs up the neck.
I have always assumed that the tune was played out of C, standard tuning because most of the treble work on the top three strings comes right out of the vocabulary so heavily mined by Blind Lemon in C, but close listening revealed some real problems with standard tuning as a basis for playing the tune:
   * The opening run starts with a high I note on the first string with the I note an octave lower on the second string and the V note below that on the third string being hit simultaneously with the run.  C standard puts the I note on the first string at the eighth fret, the major seven note B, on the open second string, and the V note, G, on the open third string.  To get the notes on the second and third strings that sound behind the beginning of the run, then, you have to tune the second string up one half step to C.
   * Against both the IV and IV chords when they occur, Peg Leg hits the major third note of the I chord on the fourth string.  In standard tuning, that major third lives at the second fret of the fourth string.  Since that major third note is in neither the IV nor the V chord, the only reason to play it under both the IV and V chords is that it is an open string, and requires no fretting.  So I think the fourth string is tuned up one whole step to E.
   *  Peg Leg frequently hits the one note, C, and the V note, G, throughout the course of the tune against the I, IV and V chords, pretty indiscriminately, and often during florid passages in the treble.  He never hits a note lower than the low V note in the entire course of the song.  I believe he tuned the sixth string up to G, and the fifth string up to C.  With his strings in this tuning, GCEGCE, capoed to the fifth fret, his descending run, which you pointed out, Chris, was in some ways the most problematic aspect of C standard sits really naturally; you go from the third fret of the fourth and sixth strings to the second fret of the fourth and sixth strings, continue to the first fret of the fourth string and strum the top four strings open.
With the guitar tuned this way, everything in the song sits really easily and naturally, though in slightly different places than in standard tuning, of course.  In fact the only time you fret the fourth and sixth strings is during the descending run, and the fifth string is never fretted.  If you have misgivings about using a tuning that requires raising the sixth, fifth and fourth strings a step-and-a-half, step-and-a-half, and whole step respectively, you can always tune to the open B flat version of this tuning and capo two frets higher.  That works out to:  FBflatDFBflatD.  Sixth and fifth strings come up a half step, the fourth string stays put, first and third strings drop a whole step and the second string drops a half step.
The strings end up being voiced V-I-III-V-I-III in this tuning.  I worked out this tuning several months ago as a way of playing open A: E-A-C#-E-A-C#.  I thought I had something new, but I guess not.  I know of no other country blues song played in this tuning.  Maybe Peg Leg Howell did not use it either, but it certainly makes what he played accessible in an easy and natural way.  I think it's a real good bet.
All best,
Johnm

[Johnm]

Hi all,
It occurred to me that some of you might be skeptical that Peg Leg Howell used the GCEGCE tuning capoed to the fifth fret to play "Low Down Rounder Blues", or might not want to alter your tuning that much for one song.? So, here is where his descending lick on the tune lives in less extreme re-tunings.

If you tune the guitar EADGCE, the lick will go from sixth fret of the sixth string and fifth fret of the fourth string, down one fret on each string then descending one more fret on the fourth string before picking/brushing the first three strings open.

If you tune the guitar EAEGCE, the lick will go from the first fret of the fifth string and the third fret of the fourth string, down one fret on each string, then descending one more fret on the fourth string to the first fret, before picking, brushing the first three strings open.

I think it is certain that Peg Leg tuned the second string to C, reasonably certain that he tuned the fourth string to E, and less certain that he tuned the sixth and fifth strings to G and C respectively.? I guess the point is that it is probably not necessary to do a drastic re-tuning of the guitar to get something very close to what he did, though the full re-tuning to the weird open C makes it easier in the left hand.
All best,
Johnm

[banjochris]

John --

Just wanted to say thanks for working on this -- I've been away from the computer awhile so I'll sit down and mess with this some.
Chris

[frankie]

The strings end up being voiced V-I-III-V-I-III in this tuning.  I worked out this tuning several months ago as a way of playing open A: E-A-C#-E-A-C#.  I thought I had something new, but I guess not.  I know of no other country blues song played in this tuning.  Maybe Peg Leg Howell did not use it either, but it certainly makes what he played accessible in an easy and natural way.  I think it's a real good bet.

I agree about this tuning being a good bet - I'd been puzzling over this and on first listening was also sure it was in C, capoed high, but the descending run in the bass is just impossible to get sounding right.  Unfortunately, I only have one copy of the song to work from, but on the version I have, it's perfectly plausible that the guitar might have been tuned lower than C and capoed somewhere between the 5th and 7th fret.

It's eerie how similar the notes in the treble sound to C, standard, though.

[Johnm]

Hi Frank,
I agree with you that it is quite possible, maybe even most plausible that Peg Leg Howell tuned down to get this tuning's intervals, either at A:  EAC#EAC#, or at Bflat: FBflatDFBflatD, and then capoing at the 7th to 9th fret.  I have been playing some in this tuning (though not "Low Down Rounder Blues" or "Fairy Blues", the two Howell songs that I think were played in this tuning), and it has a very sweet sound.  It also preserves the sound of C standard tuning in the treble, as you say.  I like tuning to it in Bflat, because tightening the 6th and 5th strings a half-step and lowering the top three strings just a bit keeps the tone very crisp; nothing is too floppy, which the G string ends up being if you go to this tuning in A. 
It is fun to play in a tuning that is so unfamiliar that it requires you to exercise intuition a lot, since you don't know where anything lives.  You just have to kind of hunt and peck to find the sounds you want.
All best,
Johnm

[Baird]

This tuning is an absolute blast! Been stuck on it after reading your post.

[frankie]

It also preserves the sound of C standard tuning in the treble, as you say.

The other weird thing about this tuning, pointed out to me by Ari, is that the intervals are the same as a C chord, fretted with a V in the bass:

e-0-
B-1-
G-0-
D-2-
A-3-
E-3-

from bass to treble:  V - I - III - V - I - III

I'm sure everybody saw that already, but it didn't really occur to me until Ari noticed it....  it also essentially recycles string relationships that are typical in other major-chord tunings, but puts them in less familiar spots - just for comparison:

spanish:   V -  I  -  V  -  I  - III -  V
high-bass: I - III -  V  -  I  - III -  V
vestapol:  I -  V  -  I  - III -  V  -  I
pegleg:    V -  I  - III -  V  -  I  - III

The V - I - III relationship is repeated in a second octave with peg-leg tuning, which makes it a weird kind of kissing cousin to high-bass tuning.

[Johnm]

Very good points about the tuning, Frank, and I like the designation "high bass" tuning that you use for the I-III-V-I-III-V tuning.  I have never heard it described that way before.  That is the tuning that John Jackson used in instances where most people would use Spanish tuning--I remember him going to it in a class of his that I attended once, and it surprised the hell out of me.  I hadn't known that he used it up to that point.  Of course, it is the tuning most commonly used by dobro players, too.
All best,
Johnm
Edited to add, 1/30, Welcome to Weenie Campbell, Baird, and I'm glad you are having fun with the tuning!

[frankie]

I can't remember where I heard that term, and could easily be mixing it up with banjo-tuning nomenclature.  I remember having that exact experience in John Jackson's class, watching as he tuned up.  Black Ace also used that tuning, too, but I never expected anyone to use it for bottleneck or knife-style.

[Baird]

this might be a bit of a recycling of frankie post the resemblence of the Peg Leg tuning to other commonn tunings.

i just realized that the Peg Leg tuning shares five identical open string pitches with Spanish tuning having the same root pitch. It's therefor kind of easy to mentally 'subtract' the oddball string from Peg Leg (the 4th) and think of yourself as being in Spanish tuning (with a missing high string!).

[Johnm]

Hi all,
It's been a while since this topic has been discussed, but I have been working the last several hours on transcribing "Low-Down Rounder Blues", and can now say with absolute certainty that Peg Leg Howell played it out of a 5R35R3 tuning, whether tuned at GCEGCE, FBflatDFBflatD, or somewhere else.  In the open B flat tuning that I've been using, a capo at the sixth fret puts you in pitch with the recording, and since the take I've been working from never goes beyond the fifth fret (relative to capo placement), you still have plenty of room, even on a guitar that is twelve frets to the body.
It's a good thing I love this song, because this is one of the most difficult transcriptions I've ever done.  Considering the rarity with which this tuning is encountered, you might think that the left hand poses the greatest difficulty in the transcribing process.  Not so--it is Peg Leg's right hand which ends up being the most difficult aspect to piece together.  It's so unusual that there is virtually nothing in his right hand approach that can be taken for granted and simply "plugged in" from previous experience doing transcriptions.  He sounds as though he was a thumb-and-index player, probably wearing a thumbpick, with lots of brush strokes going both directions and very cleanly detailed melodic runs in the treble.  It would certainly be interesting to know who his models were, because his sound, except where hints of Lemon come through in the runs, is about as much without precedent in recorded Country Blues as it is possible to be.  It's not as though he spawned a host of imitators, either.  He was a great, great player though, and certainly one of my favorites.  I look forward to working on "Low-Down Rounder Blues" and getting it to the point where I can play it with some flow, instead of haltingly.  Anyhow, I thought some of you might be interested who know this tune.
all best,
Johnm                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

[Cleoma]

Haltingly, yeah sure!  I suppose, John, you really do play these things haltingly when you are starting to learn them...
Without having made any exhaustive study of Peg Leg Howell's style, I have always assumed that he started on banjo.  The tunings, the right hand technique where he is brushing the strings, all reminds me of old time banjo.  Probably someone has already pointed this out.

John, I sure will miss having you be at Blues Week and hope that we connect somewhere else in the coming year!
Suzy

[Johnm]

Thanks, Suzy.  I will sure miss seeing you at Port Townsend as well.  I wish I could come in for a reprise of the Classic Blues workshop we did last summer, but I will be working elsewhere at that time.  Next year, I hope, and it will be good to reunite with other PT friends then, too.
Your point with regard to Peg Leg Howell and the banjo is an interesting one. Considering how many of the East Coast blues players a generation or two younger than Peg Leg Howell played the banjo--John Jackson, Libba Cotten, Algia Mae Hinton, Etta Baker, Frank Hovington and others--it would stand to reason that an even higher percentage of the blues players from Peg Leg's generation played banjo.  I believe Peg Leg Howell was born pre-1890, and in that period I think the guitar was much less frequently encountered in the rural South than in the 'teens and '20s of the 20th century.
All best,
Johnm   

[banjochris]

And that tuning, too, has the same intervals for the top 3 strings as open C on the banjo.
Chris

[frankie]

I was stuck on this tune about 8 months ago - couldn't make up my mind between this and Fairy Blues, but Low Down Rounder won out.  I didn't try to do it quite note for note, but I did listen to the tune obsessively before trying to play it...  my goal was to keep something of the texture & tone of the original, but keep it loose at the same time.