13 Days of Halloween (part II)

This second Halloween piece is really short. So short in fact that some might find it downright lame.

On the upside it is very easy to play, very unsettling and instantly recognisable.

It is the main motif of the Psycho theme played on the 1st and 5th strings.

I've used this one at Halloween gigs before and it is guaranteed to get a reaction (that reaction may be a chuckle) and can be used as an impromptu intro to another song or as colour commentary wheile another band member addresses the audience.

The video will be up soon but for now here's the tab...


More tomorrow...

13 Days of Halloween (part I)

Greetings all and sorry it's been so long since my last post.

Anyways I figured in the spirit of the season I would put together a string of posts, each containing a large or small bit of frighting ghoolish banjo. I call it the 13 days of Halloween.

Alot of these posts will be short and feature only a measure or two of terrifying music but for the first post I am going a little long. This is The Funeral March for a Marrionette AKA the theme song for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

I won't go into too much detail on the ins and outs of playing this one but will answer any questions anyone has.

Without further adieu; here is the video...



And here is the tablature...



Be sure to come back tomorrow same bat time, same bat station for part II of the Halloween banjo bunch.

Cheers.

Tennessee Waltz in D tuning

Thought I might do a post on D tuning.

For those unfamilliar with D tuning it is when your banjo is tuned to an open D chord (standard tuning, g D G B D, is an open G chord).

There are 2 common open D tunings: a D F# A D and f# D F# A D The two D tunings are actually the same for all strings except the 5th. The 5th can be tuned up (or capoed) to an A or tuned down to an F#. For this particular arrangement I tune the 5th string to A.

I like D tuning for alot of reasons. Having the root note of the chord on the lowest note of the lowest string is somehow very satisfying to me and certain melodies come out easier/ nicer in the D tuning.

On the downside if you are more familliar with G tuning (almost all bluegrass players are) the D tuning can feel counterintuitive and cumbersome. I find that in some ways the lack of easy familliarity with D tuning can act as a catylyst for creative playing--the old standby licks aren't as readily available so you are put in a position where you are forced to develop a modified toolkit and/or modified vocabulary.

The arrangement I'll show in this post is 'Tennesse Waltz'. I find the melody fits well in D tuning and overall the song possesses a certain timeless beauty.

Here's the tab...



And here's a video...



Hope that is helpful to some.

Adios.