OLD TIME COUNTRY GUITAR BACKUP BASICS, Joseph Weidlich.
Based on commercial recordings of the 1920's & early 1930's. TABLATURE
Old Time Country Guitar Backup Basics
Series: Guitar
Publisher: Centerstream Publications
Author: Joseph Weidlich
This instructional book uses commercial recordings from 70 different “sides” from the 1920s and early 1930s as its basis to learn the principal guitar backup techniques commonly used in old-time country music. Topics covered include: boom-chick patterns • bass runs • uses of the pentatonic scale • rhythmic variations • minor chromatic nuances • the use of chromatic passing tones • licks based on chords or chord progressions • and more.
Inventory #HL 00000389
ISBN: 9781574241488
UPC: 073999501247
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
84 pages
In the rural setting of the South the singing of old songs was often unaccompanied. When music was played away from the home it tended to be for dancing or some kind of contest. The" core" instruments used were usually the fiddle and banjo, where the banjo "seconded" the fiddle. This style goes back to the early 19th century minstrel show [ca. 1843] whose standard instrumentation were the fiddle, banjo, bones and tambourine.
Fiddle. The principal instrument of the old-time music genre was the fiddle, seemingly always the lead instrument. The fiddle served several functions: to provide dance music, to provide accompaniment to the voice, or solo fiddle music without a particular social function, e.g., for their own enjoyment. The fiddle was particularly important in accompanying vocal music as it could be used to imitate, i.e., "double" the vocal line, thereby reinforcing the primary contours of the melody or to provide ornamentation, based on the melodic line. As the melodies of the songs became simpler, in the sense of using less vocal ornamentation, the fiddle style likewise became simpler. This transition was aided by the addition of the banjo and guitar, which provided additional decorative elements, thus freeing the fiddle to focus primarily on lead melodic functions.
Banjo. Besides the fiddle, the mountain banjo was the most important ensemble instrument, as it was used to reinforce the main notes of the melodies played by the fiddle. The banjo introduced a steady, strong rhythm to maintain the beat, so important when playing for dances. In fact, the clawhammer banjo style, in particular, was, and still is, highly regarded for this role. While the 19th century minstrel banjoists traditionally used two basic tunings (what today would be equivalent to the natural C tuning and open G tuning) an interesting feature of the Southern mountain banjo was the development of several additional tunings to suit the modal character of the traditional melodies being sung and played. Scholars seem to think that these systems of altered tunings HLP 8005 may have been worked out by the turn of the 19th century, perhaps influenced by open guitar tunings needed for playing certain parlor guitar songs (e.g., the Spanish fandango) and the beginning of the African-American blues guitar styles. These modal melodies would then be accompanied on the banjo so that the principal melodic notes could be played without the need to play harmonic chords or shift up and down the fingerboard, whose chord voicings would not be practical most of the time playing in these altered tunings (the newly introduced guitar would now supply this harmonic accompaniment). Occasionally, the banjo was used as a solo instrument on early commercial recordings (e.g., by Charlie Poole using fingerstyle techniques); however, its usual role was to support the fiddler. Guitar. While guitars had been available in the United States for most of the 19th century, principally in urban industrialized areas, e.g., by c.P. Martin, Ashborn, 55. Stewart, and Washburn, by the end of that century guitars were beginning to become available in even greater numbers, aided in part by a much improved mass transportation system, the advent of the industrial revolution, and mail-order houses like Sears Roebuck. In the last decade of that century the guitar was gaining rapidly in mass popularity due to its usage in mandolin bands, glee clubs, and university banjo bands, thus not just for use in its traditional 19th century environment, the parlor.
String Bands. From the 1920s, with the introduction of the guitar into the string band ensemble, the emphasis, at least in terms of recording, shifted from providing music for dances to the accompaniment of vocal songs and fiddle tunes. That necessarily changed the function of the string band instruments, freeing up the ensemble for various duties. The guitar was now used to mark out the...
Joseph Weidlich [b. 1945] began his formal musical studies on the classic guitar. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1972, from his native St. Louis, to teach classic guitar. He performed in several classic guitar master classes conducted by notable students of Andres Segovia (i.e., Sr. Jose Tomas [Spain], Oscar Ghiglia [Italy] and Michael Lorimer [U.s.]). He has also played renaissance guitar, renaissance lute, and baroque guitar.
In 1978,he completed research on and writing of an article on Battuto Performance Practice in Early
Italian Guitar Music (1606-1637), for the Journal of the Lute Society of America, 1978 (Volume XI). This
article outlines the various strumming practices, with numerous examples, found in early guitar
methods published in Italy and Spain in the early 17th century. In the late 1970she published a series
of renaissance lute transcriptions for classic guitar, published by DeCamera Publishing Company,
Washington, D.C., which were distributed by G. Schirmer, New York/London. The American Banjo
Fraternity published an article Joe wrote on James Buckley's New Banjo Book [1860]in their newsletter,
the Five-Stringer, #185, Double Issue, Fall-Winter 2000-01.
The banjo has also been no stranger in Joe's musical life. He began learning folk styles in the early
1960s during the folk music boom, later playing plectrum and classic banjo styles as well. His extensive
research in the history of minstrel banjo demonstrates how that style formed the foundation of
clawhammer banjo. Alan Jabbour, noted old-time fiddler, musicologist and former long-time director
of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center, has said of Joe's book, The Early Minstrel Banjo:
Its Technique and Repertoire, that "our understanding of the minstrel banjo in the 19th century is greatly enhanced by the long labors you have devoted to the subject and the fine understanding you have brought to it."
Joe has collaborated with banjo builder Mike Ramsey (Chanterelle Workshop, Appomattox,
Virginia) in designing two prototype minstrel banjos based on the dimensions described in Phil Rice's
Correct Method [1858], as well as similar instruments made by William Boucher in Baltimore in the 1840s.
Also published by Centerstream Publishing are Joe's editions of a flatpicking guitar edition of
George Knauff's Virginia Reels [1839],believed to be the only substantial extant compilation of nineteenth-
century Southern fiddle tunes published prior to the Civil War (which includes songs later featured
in the early minstrel shows), Minstrel Banjo-Brigg's Banjo Instructor [1855],More Minstrel Banjo-
Frank Converse's Banjo Instructor, Without A Master [1865], Guitar Backup Styles of Southern String
Bands from the Golden Age of Phonograph Recordings, which features the guitar backup styles of Ernest
Stoneman's Dixie Mountaineers, the Carter Family, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers,
Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, and Jimmie Rodgers, often acknowledged as lithe father of country
music" and Painless Arranging for Old-Time Country Guitar.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Biography .
A Brief Introduction To "Old-Time Music" .
Introduction to Old-Time Country Guitar Backup Basics .
PART ONE: BACKUP BASICS .
Lesson 1 Boom-Chick Patterns .
Lesson 2 Alternating Between Root and Fifth of a Chord .
Lesson 3 6-7-8 Bass Run Connectors .
Lesson 4 Golden Age Lick ,
Lesson 5 Third of the Chord in Back-Ups .
Lesson 6 3-2-1 Bass Run Connector .
Lesson 7 Pentatonic Scale .
Lesson 8 Ascending and Descending Triad Usage .
Lesson 9 Reinforce Melodic Line .
Lesson 10 Scales .
Lesson 11 Chord Progression Lick .
Lesson 12 5-6-7-8Bass Run Connector .
Lesson 13 Varied Golden Age Lick .
Lesson 14 Leading Tone Usage .
Lesson 15 Concluding Thoughts .
PART TWO: .
Variations On Backup Basics
Transcribed from Commercial Recordings of the 1920s and Early 1930s
Epilogue.
Song Reference List
Italiano
English
