Song Help Request Appalachian Tabs and Chords

Lalz

Lalz

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Hi all!
Does anyone have tabs or chords for old-time appalachian blues songs, such as:
"Oh Death" and "Country Blues" by Dock Boggs
"The Coo-Coo Song" and "Little Sadie" by Clarence Ashley?
Actually, any info on how to play in this style are warmly welcome! :)
Thanks!

UPDATE: this thread has gotten lots of really great contributions from lots of great people (thanks!!). A regularly updated summary is available on page 15!
#143: Tabs, Chords, Scores and Play-Along Tracks
#144: Tricks and Techniques
#145: Traditional Chord Progressions, Historical Background and Music Theory
#146: Song Videos, YT Channels and Related Threads on UU
 
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Try a google search for bluegrass tab for ukulele. There is a ton of old time and bluegrass stuff on the internet for ukulele. This is mostly what I play and would suggest looking up clawhammer, which is a banjo style of playing or hitting the "G" string with your thumb and strumming the rest of the strings on the second beat. It would go "thumb, strum, thumb, strum". Another thing you could try is travis picking. Search for that on youtube.
 
This Jumpin' Jim's Bluegrass Ukulele book is great - really nice arrangements and very clearly explained, in notation and tab, comes with a CD.....

As artoode2 said, there are lots of good resources online if you dig around, but this book has a nice selection of tunes and is a good introduction to a couple of different picking styles.... definitely worth the money to get you started. It will help you get more out of the less structured online sources.....
 
23skidoo said:
This Jumpin' Jim's Bluegrass Ukulele book is great - really nice arrangements and very clearly explained, in notation and tab, comes with a CD.....

As artoode2 said, there are lots of good resources online if you dig around, but this book has a nice selection of tunes and is a good introduction to a couple of different picking styles.... definitely worth the money to get you started. It will help you get more out of the less structured online sources.....
Click to expand...

That is my favorite uke book :)
 
Fab! Thanks everyone! I bought the book, am browsing through all the links and learning more about the travis picking. So exciting!
I didn't realise back when I started playing the ukulele that it would be such a source of endless fun :)
Hugs!
 
I was looking at that book just the other day. There is an e-book called "The Tao and Why of Clawhammer Banjo" that is great to learn how to play. Just replace the banjo chords with ukulele chords.

Good Luck
 
Just got that e-book too following your suggestion. Thanks! :)
 
It seems many of these songs (at least the ones I like the most) use some sort of I-VII(flat)-IV(minor) chord progressions? Like A-G-Em or G-F-Dm (sorry about the inaccurate notation).
Oh, I also found this list of old american folk songs today if you're interested: http://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/OldSongs.html
:)
 
Lalou-

There are certainly exceptions, but most of the traditional music that I've encountered has a pretty straightforward structure - I IV V (all major) and ii vi (minor). The ii and vi minors are called relative minors, I believe. Like I said, not every song fits this pattern, but most do. The examples you posted above look to me like they do, as well.

A-G-Em would be in the key of D. A-V, G, IV, Em-ii
G-F-Dm would be in C. G-V, F-IV, Dm-ii

I may be completely wrong about the examples you posted, but this is the rule of thumb, I think.

Post some specific songs if you have questions - I'd love to learn new tunes and I'm kind of geeking out trying to learn music theory myself lately - it would be a fun topic for discussion here on the forum.

Great link you posted, by the way - there are some great old songs there. Looking around a bit there, I really like the introductory information for each tune.... that's a great resource. Thanks for sharing it.
 
A lot of the old time songs are done that way. Also you may notice they are done in an "a-b" style. You play the A part twice then the B part.
 
Lalou said:
It seems many of these songs (at least the ones I like the most) use some sort of I-VII(flat)-IV(minor) chord progressions? Like A-G-Em or G-F-Dm (sorry about the inaccurate notation).
:)
Click to expand...

Learn something new everyday..... this is from Wikipedia.....

Folk and blues tunes frequently use the Mixolydian scale, which has a flat seventh degree, altering the position of the three major chords to I - Flat VII-IV. For example, if the major scale of C, which gives the three chords C, F and G on the first, fourth and fifth degrees, is played with G as the tonic, then the same chords will now appear on the first, fourth and seventh degrees. These "Mixolydian" harmonies also appeared in the pop music of the 1960s, notably with The Beatles' album Help! and The Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet.
Click to expand...

Same chords, different way of looking at it. This stuff is interesting......
 
Wow, this is so interesting! Thanks for the info!

Here's one of my favourite songs at the moment, Dark Holler by Clarence Ashley:



I try to clawhammer along a bit and for that I use A-G-Em. Works quite alright (if you disregard the fact that my playing technique is rather basic lol)
Apparently the song is also known as East Virginia Blues, and is quite similar to another one called Little Maggie. And searching for Little Maggie I found this page that talks about characteristic mountain sound in this song and also names the mixolydian scale: http://banjosessions.com/?p=100

Little Maggie has an interesting chord progression that is different from the more common bluegrass progression that uses the I, IV and V chords (G-C-D, for example). The chords in Little Maggie are G, F and D. The I chord, G, goes to the VII chord flatted, which is F# flatted to F. This produces a characteristic “mountain” type of sound. Songs like Little Maggie, Old Joe Clark and Salt Creek are based on the Mixolydian scale, which is a major scale with a flatted 7th note.
Click to expand...

But then when I try G-F-D, in my ears it sounds more like D should be Dm? Don't know, probably just me trying to put minor chords everywhere!

Btw, it's amazing how different the country version sat the bottom the page sound compared to Ashley's version!
 
Hm, Dm definitely does sound better in my ears. Maybe there's variations
 
This is interesting...... and I think the minor iv sounds good as well, depending on the tune. Looking around yesterday, I was amazed at how many songs I know had this progression - especially surprising were all the Beatles' and classic rock tunes. Playing by ear, most of the time, I never made the leap that the root of the I IV V wasn't in there - that the root was actually the V, making it mixolydian. The old hill music is usually so simple, the songs I know, that I don't even really think about structure with just two or three chords.

Thanks for posting the links and the info - good to know.....
 
Chords in the description!

D- A7 D- D-
D- D- A7 A7
D- F G G-
D- A7 D- D-

(D- = Dm)
 
Thanks for the links, Lalou...... I'd seen Aaron Keim's channel, but oostulele's is pretty great - really nice clawhammer on the uke.

I started this insane 'original song a week' thread a couple of months ago - this week's tune is inspired by the songs I've been looking at from this thread..... tried to write an old-school murder ballad. Here's the link if you want to check it out.

Been working on the clawhammer thing the last few days - something I'm definitely going to continue to pursue.....
 
I have been working on clawhammer for awhile now. Sometimes it sounds great..then I realize that it sounds good and start messing it up. lol
Aaron Keim has the best how to clawhammer video on you tube.

Hre is another good site if you had not seen it yet http://www.ezfolk.com/uke/index.html covers ukulele, mandolin and banjo.

Found this also http://fiddletunes.nl/the-tunes/backuptunes when you search just use the first two boxes.
 
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