L.W. Konigsberg’s Clawhammer Banjo Tabs
The tabs were written in Tabledit. If you don’t have said software you can download a free viewer/printer from http://www.tabledit.com/tefview/. The tabs are also available as *.pdf files (see http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html to download Adobe Acrobat Reader).
Organization and
Links
Tunes are organized by tunings. If the tune name has a link then that will take you to the high bitrate recording at: http://www.ezFolk.com. Some tunes are in medleys, so that’s usually noted after the tune name. Admission of guilt (7/11/2009) – I’ve fallen way behind as far as posting recordings of these tunes. I used to post recordings primarily to be sure that the tabs I was posting were actually playable. With the exception of “Bobbing for Eels” (which I NEVER could play), most of the tabs do represent tunes that I could, at some point, play, or that there’s some hope of being able to play in the future. Many tunes are admittedly now gone both from my “muscle memory” and from any other form of memory. A large reason for why I write tabs is to archive tunes for when I forget them. Along these lines, I try not to write tabs for tunes that have published tablature or are readily available elsewhere, unless what I’m doing is terribly (played?) unique. The world probably has enough tabs of Spotted Pony at this point.
A (eC#EAE)
A (aEAC#E)
Dew Drop Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Bobbing for Eels (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Lardner’s Reel (*.tef) (*.pdf)
A modal (aEADE)
Chicago Reel (Congress Reel first) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Paddy on the Turnpike (*.tef) (*.pdf)
B-flat (fA#FA#D)
Democratic Rage Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Hopkin’s Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Oklahoma Red Bird (*.tef) (*.pdf)
President Garfield’s Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
President Grant’s Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
B (f#F#BD#F#)
Oh My Little Darlin’ (*.tef) (*.pdf)
C (gCGCE)
D (aDADE)
Bob Walter's Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Briar-picker Brown (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Camp Meeting on the Fourth of July (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Corkonian Reel (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Dreydel (& Maoz Tsur) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Five Miles from Town (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Goodbye, My Honey, I'm Gone (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Indian Ate a Woodchuck (& Texas Quickstep) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
John Sharp's Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Maoz Tsur (& Dreydel) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Mississippi Sadder (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Mississippi Sawyer (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Peter Francisco (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Rachel (Texas Quickstep) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Raven Schottische (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Red Hills Polka (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Rose in the Mountain (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Sal's Got Mud Between Her Toes (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Sentinel Hornpipe (& St. Anne’s Reel) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Soldier’s Joy (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Soldier’s Sorrow (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Straw Bonnet (*.tef)
Zack Wheat's Piece (*.tef) (*.pdf)
D (aADAD)
Goodbye, My Honey, I'm Gone (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Missouri Mud (low version) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Missouri Mud (high version) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
D (f#ADAD)
Bonaparte's Retreat (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Washington's March (*.tef not available yet) (*.pdf)
D (f#BEAD)
Earl's Chair, The (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Golden Keyboard, The (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Rose in the Mountain (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Tinker's Daughter, The (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Open D (f#DF#AD)
Drunken Hiccups (*.tef) (*.pdf), Over-ornamented (*.tef) (*.pdf)
E (g#EBEF#)
First Night in Leadville (Western Gem first) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Western Gem (& First Night in Leadville) (*.tef) (*.pdf) - this tune actually modulates, starting in “A” and then going to “E.”
F (aFCFG)
Crapshooter’s Rag (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Ned Kendall’s Hornpipe (then Miss Barker’s, then Fisher’s) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
G (gDGBD)
Blackberry Blossom (duet) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Dance All Night (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Flop-Eared Mule (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Garfield’s Blackberry Blossom (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Off to California (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Old G (gDGDE)
Ladies in the Ballroom (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Last of Harris (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Shoes and Stockings (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Another G (gEADE)
Bull Run Picnic (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Captain Kelley’s Reel (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Charlie's Hornpipe (Stack of Barley) (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Fort Smith Breakdown (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Hooker’s Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Jolly Seven Reel (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Magic Slipper Reel (*.tef)
(*.pdf)
Sheep and Hogs Walking Through the Pasture (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Silver Star Hornpipe (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Wild Horse at Stony Point (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Melodic Three-Finger
Jack Danielson’s Reel (*.tef) (*.pdf)
Some conventions:
Time signatures:
With some notable exceptions (jigs and maybe some waltzes to come) I’ve used “cut-time” for the tablatures. This is 2/2 time, so there are two beats per measure and each beat is equal to a half note. There’s a lot of variation out there as to what time signatures are used by other people (2/2, 2/4, or 4/4), but I can’t bring myself to say that there are four beats per measure (as in 4/4), because I don’t tap my foot that many times per measure. If the 2/2 symbol makes you uncomfortable the simplest thing to do is ignore it and live in a 4/4 world (just remember to tap your foot twice as fast as I would). And just to be noncommittal, I've started dropping the time signatures from the printed versions of the tabs.
Left and Right hands:
By and large I’ve not entered much as far as the right hand
is concerned. Once you get “comfortable”
with clawhammer you’ll find you will know whether to be picking with your thumb
or your index finger (sorry middle finger pickers). I always try to mark hammers and pull-offs,
but Tabledit doesn’t have specific symbols for “alternate string pull-off”
(a.k.a., “off-string pull-off”) or “hammers” for strings that haven’t been hit
with the thumb or index finger. I’ve
entered these occurrences as “grace-notes” so they sound a bit funky in the
The pick-up notes are played with the index finger and then a hammer, as are the first two eighth notes in the first measure. The next two eighth notes are played with the index (0 on the 3rd string) and thumb (5 on the 4th string), then the index finger is used to play a double grace-note on the 4th string and a pull-off to get the open 4th string. Now we have the last two eighth notes to play. The penultimate (that means next to last) note is played with the index, which means that the very last eighth note has to be played either by following through with the index finger or by plucking the open 3rd string with a left hand finger. In minstrel banjo following through with the index finger would be a pretty common approach, but in clawhammer most would use an “alternate string pull-off.”
Here’s an example of an “alternate string hammer” from the fourth measure of “Western Gem”:
The first eighth is played with the index, but then the second is a hammer onto the 1st string at the third fret (without having previously “plucked” the string). The fingering for the last four eighth notes is shown because that pattern is a bit unusual.
Tied Notes:
Tabledit has a rather particular way of showing tied notes, which is to show the “stem and flag” for the note but not the note itself, as in this example from the beginning of “Gray Cat on a Tennessee Farm”:
This time I’ve marked the right hand. Note that there’s no “drop-thumbing” here in that the thumb only plucks the 5th string. The rhythm in the first measure is basically a classic “bum-ditty” followed by a “bum--ty” (the “dit” isn’t played, and in any event the first “dit” is none too classic because it is a single string instead of a brush, and the last "ty" in the first measure is played with the index finger on the first string instead of the thumb on the fifth…but, oh well).
And now for something completely different: An Excel© spreadsheet for calculating fret locations
And the decimal coordinates for Camp Washington-Carver, WV
are 38.01, -80.970556