Red River Valley - Key of F

Playing around in the key of F and ended up with this mess.

A few observations about playing in F using standard G tuning....

1)  The 5th string is no longer the tonic of the I chord but now contributes a colourful 9th sound.  It's different and can be real purdy.

2)   The  IV chord will be the Bb and works nicely letting go of the full barre occasionally.

3)  As opposed to playing key of G in open G your open strings now serve to lead you to chord tones for the most part rather than being the chord tones you want to sit on.  Sometimes this is nice and for better or worse you will get sounds you wouldn't be getting otherwise.

Here's a rough clip....




Here's the tab....

Adventures in Solo Banjo Part 1 - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Fooling around with an old 'Songs of the Sixties' book and came up with this arrangement of Hal David and Burt Bacharach's 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head'.  This tune was used as the theme for the Newman/ Redford classic 'Buth Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and was a huge hit for B.J. Thomas in 1969.

My arrangement is in the original key of F and there are a few things to watch out for.

For the strumming in the intro I use my ring finger and thumb nail (not the thumb pick) to get a softer tone.

The syncopation may require a little effort to nail.  If it seems difficult in places try counting out the rhythm for those measures at a slower speed before integrating it back in.

For a warmer sound I pick closer to neck position than I do for most bluegrass playing although I encourage you to experiment and see what works best for you on your instrument.

Here is the video...



Here is the tablature (click to enlarge)...

Old Joe Clark - Key of F

Here's a little stab of Old Joe Clark rooted down in the mighty key of F.  Tempo is kind of slow and loping, more of a low down feel.  I like alot of the licks that seem to present themselves in the key of F and the high G string adding the 9th adds a certain ethereal quality at times.

Here's the video...



And here's the tablature (click to enlarge)