Next up: Home Sweet Home

I‘m taking on an aggressive…and long…blog series suggested by my reader George Preiss, where we take a look at one of the most pivotal and important albums of banjo instrumentals ever made: the Foggy Mountain Banjo Album by Flatt & Scruggs. Join me as we look at each song. We’ll take the songs apart and look at how to roll each one. We’ll focus on making the songs playable, avoiding the pitfalls, and picking up choice and tasty licks for use in other songs. I’ll answer the questions that you give me at the bottom of each blog post, and in the end we’ll all have a pretty good handle on this important album in the banjo lexicon. (To find links to the important tools that I mention in this blog post, refer back to my blog post where I introduce this series and provide links for getting your own copy of these tools by clicking here: introductory blog post.) If any of you knowledgeable historians can correct anything I say or add to the conversation, please do so by leaving your corrections or comments at the end of this blog post. I’d appreciate the help; I only want to put out factual information.

Drop the C!

Few songs sound more classically banjo than Home Sweet Home. There is something old-timey, classic, and, well…banjo-ey…about Earl’s work in this song. The tuning, in combination with the way Earl rolls this song off, creates quite a satisfying sound.

“But Banjo Paul…what did you mean by drop the C?!” Funny you should ask! Home Sweet Home is actually tuned differently than our usual open G tuning. We put the banjo into drop C tuning to play Home Sweet Home. What does this mean? Well, typically, for drop C tuning, you lower the 4th string (the D string) to a C note instead of a D note. Making that string sound extra-low creates an ambience and a super-traditional sound, more so than in open G tuning with the higher 4th string.

To accomplish drop C tuning, simply tune your banjo the same as always except for the 4th string. Here’s the name of each string note in drop C tuning: gCGBD.

Earl Scruggs is amazing!

I can’t say enough how amazed I am by Earl’s playing, especially as I try to imitate it. Trying to come close to his timing, his technique, his smoothness, just feels like a futile effort. There is just nothing like it. Even as I compare some of my banjo heroes of today to Earl Scruggs, I realize that he has no equal. I could probably name a half dozen banjo players who have gained national prominence that I love to listen to; pickers who would be called superstars and who are at the top of their field; pickers who I realize I’ll never be as good as. And yet…Earl has something special, something other-worldly over all of these pickers. Amazing.

Click me! Click me!

The sheet music

I spent the time going over the sheet music in Earl’s book and comparing it to the audio track, and it’s interesting to note that there are some minor differences in the sheet music as compared to what Earl plays on the record. I’ve always heard that Bill Keith did the transcribing of the tablature for this project and that he made several mistakes throughout the book. Indeed, I found some in this tablature.

To download the TablEdit sheet music file, click here

As with Ground Speed, I figured the best way to express some ideas and some instruction to you about Home Sweet Home is through a sound file. Open up your TablEdit sheet music and either print it or have it viewable on the screen, strap on your banjo, put your picks on, and then follow along in the sheet music as you listen to this sound file:

To listen to the Home Sweet Home sound file, click here

Remember that when you go to drop C tuning, you can play your chords the same way you always have…on strings 1 through 3. But the 4th string has to be interacted with differently. The shortest explanation is to say that you have to fret the 4th string 2 frets higher than you would normally if you were tuned to open G.

For instance, to strum a G on the banjo when you are tuned to drop C tuning, you would need to fret the 4th string at the 2nd fret…because you’ve tuned the 4th string down two frets when you tuned it to a C note. The rest of the strings haven’t changed, so you only have to fret the 4th string, second fret. To make any other chord you are after, you would fret the 1st three strings as you normally would, but then you’d need to somehow fret the 4th string two frets higher than normal.

Let me know how you are doing!

I‘m hoping to get lots of recordings from my blog readers as they follow along with me in this blog series. There is a place below for comments and questions and feedback, so I hope you’ll use it. And I hope you’ll send me your sound files of you playing the songs from the Foggy Mountain Banjo album! I plan to feature them on my main website at http://www.banjosrule.com

Thanks so much everyone. Good luck with Home Sweet Home and pick ‘em if ya got ‘em!

Banjo Paul
“Wunse, I coodn’t even spel bango pikker…now I are one!”
www.banjosrule.com (main site)
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