Music Education

Learning Banjo - Basic Frailing or Clawhammer

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The TAB is telling you to:

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding a C Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding an F Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding a C Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding a G Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding a C Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the first string holding an F Chord.

* Play one bump dit-ty strum starting on the first string holding a C Chord.

* Play one bump dit-ty strum starting on the first string holding a G Chord.

* Play two bump dit-ty strums starting on the second string holding a C Chord.

That's not too hard to do. Getting the rhythm smooth might be tricky at first but there isn't all that much going on with this song. The tricky part comes when you start to sing along.

Playing and singing is a great thing to do because it makes even the most simple banjo tune sound pretty impressive. It can fell a little awkward at first- but that has more to do with being embarrassed about singing in public than anything going on with the banjo. My advice here is to just ask yourself something like, if I can't stand having people look at me, why the hell am I playing the banjo? and then throw back your head and sing your heart out.

In order to play and sing Boil Them Cabbage Down you will want to break the lyrics up to fit the measures of the tune. That's pretty hard to lay out in HTML without flooding the code with non-breaking-space symbols so we're going to do this without using TAB .

I can hear you asking yourself, Without the TAB ? Surely, you must be joking.

No I'm not, and don't call me Shirley.

Let's take a look at the lyrics for Boil Them Cabbage Down .

Went up on a mountain to give my horn a blow

Thought I hear my true love say, "Yonder comes my beau!"

Now let's break up the lyrics into measures.

Went up on a | mountain | to give my horn a | blow

Thought I heard my | true love say | yonder - comes my | beau!

So as you are playing your two bump dit-ty strums for the first measure you sing, Went up on a and sing, mountain as you are going into the F chord.

Take another look at the tab and see if you can work out the rest of the tune on your own.

Boil Them cabbage Down