A Different Approach to Learning Bluegrass Banjo + Tab for ‘Katie Kline’

Kindle the dogThere are certainly as many ways to learn to play bluegrass style banjo as my dog has fleas, bless his heart. After playing and teaching banjo for many years, I came up with an approach that is different from any banjo books that I’ve seen. Let me explain.

The most common way to teach a beginner the fundamentals of playing bluegrass banjo is to sit them down and show them the basic rolls. Then the teacher often show the student a tune like “Cripple Creek” or “Bile Em Cabbage Down,” using those rolls. We’ll call this approach the “Roll Method.”

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How Hard Is It to Learn to Play the Guitar?

The quick answer to this question is “it’s pretty easy,” IF you have the right instructor or instructional materials (ie books or videos). After teaching guitar since 1962, I’ve had a wide variety of students walk through the door. The vast majority have learned to play and, as far as I know, have kept playing for years. The small number of people who didn’t get cozy with the guitar probably were missing one essential ingredient: determination. If you really want to play the guitar, neither hell nor high water can stop you.

As I indicated above, your success at learning

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‘Run Mountain’ – Music + Lyrics

Among the more bizarre songs in old-time and early country music is one called Run Mountain. The song is curious both for the melody and because some of the lyrics are rather mysterious. The melody is set in the key of G but it starts in the key of A. By the time the chorus comes around, it is in the key of G. Are you confused yet? If so, join the club!  As if the melody and the key changes are not strange enough, what really takes the cake are the words to the chorus. More on this

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New River Train

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

New River Train

I’m riding on the New River train
I’m riding on the New River train
It’s the same old train that brought me here
And it’s soon gonna carry me away

Darling you can’t love one (2X)
You can’t love one and have any fun
Oh Darling you can’t love one

Darling, you can’t love two (2X)
You can’t love two and still be true
Darling you can’t love two

Darling, you can’t love three (2X)
You can’t love three and still love me
Darling you can’t love three

Darling you can’t love four (2X)
You can’t love

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Old Blue

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

Old Blue

I had an old dog and his name was Blue
I had an old dog and his name was Blue
I had an old dog and his name was Blue
Betcha five dollars he’s a good dog too.

Here Blue
You good dog you.

I shouldered my gun and tooted my horn,
Gonna find a possum in the new ground corn,
Old Blue barked and I went to see,
He corned a possum up in a tree.

When old Blue died, he died so hard,
Shook the ground in my back yard,
Lowered him down with a golden

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Old Joe Clark

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

Old Joe Clark

Wished I had a nickel,
Wished I had a dime.
Wished I had a pretty girl
To kiss and call her mine.

Fare thee well, Old Joe Clark,
Fare thee well, I say.
Fare thee well, Old Joe Clark
I’m a goin’ away.

I will not marry an old maid
I’ll tell you the reason why.
Her neck is so long and stringy
I’m afraid she’ll never die.

I asked my girl to marry me
And what do you think she said.
Time enough to marry you
When all the rest are dead.

Old Joe Clark did

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Muley’s Daughter

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

Muley’s Daugher

by Wayne Erbsen © 1974

Gain’ down to the spring
Fetch a pail of water
Goin’ to old Muley’s house
Gonna marry his daughter
Gonna marry his daughter

Throw a stone out in the pond
Let the ripples show
When I find that girl of mine
Some flowers we will sow, love,
Flowers we will sow

Take my love by the hand
To the mountain far
Lay there on a summer’s night
Countin’ all the stars, love,
Countin’ all the stars

Way up on the mountain there
Gonna build a house so fine
Look down over the valley

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Sweet Sunny South

Clawhammer banjo for the complete ignoramus cover

Sweet Sunny South

Take me home to the place where I first saw the light,
To the sweet, sunny south take me home,
Where the mockingbird sung me to rest every night,
Ah! Why was I tempted to roam!

Take me home to the place where my little ones sleep,
Poor massa lies buried close by.
O’er the graves of the loved ones I long to weep,
Among them to rest when I die.

I think with regret of the dear ones I left,
Of the warm hearts that sheltered me there.
Of the wife and dear ones of whom

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Old Molly Hare

Old Molly Hare

Old Molly Hare what you doin’ there?
Sittin’ by the fireplace smokin’ my cigar.

Jump back, jump back, daddy shot a bear
Shot him in the eye and he never touched a hair.

Old Molly Hard what you doin’ there?
Runnin’ through the cotton patch as fast as I can tear.

Old Molly Hare what you doin’ there?
Sittin’ in the butter dish pickin’ out a hair.

I’d rather be here than to be over there
A whole mess of cockleberries tangled in my hair.

The following collected by Robert Gordon from W.E. Bird
Cullowhee, NC October

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