A fun little bluegrass banjo song: Sally Ann
Banjo Paul says: This is part six of a long blog series where I take apart the iconic bluegrass banjo album Foggy Mountain Banjo by Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. Along the way we’re looking at each song and learning the in’s and out’s of picking the banjo numbers successfully, including playing backup to the numbers. If you would like to start at the beginning of the series, follow this link:
Link to part one of the series: series article one
Not the Sally Ann you expect?
Alright you Scruggs historians and roots music experts, here’s a chance for you to jump in at the bottom of this blog post and spread some knowledge around. As I was researching this blog post, I found many tablature sources for Sally Ann; many were just alike, but NONE were the Scruggs version. It would appear that Scruggs didn’t stay true to the folk, old-time, or Appalachian version of this tune. Scruggs didn’t play what many people refer to as Sally Ann it would seem. Are there simply several songs with this name, or is it more a case of there being a similarity to how vocal numbers get sung with different verses in different geographical regions? Enquiring minds want to know!
Moving along, I’ve loved this song (the Scruggs version from Foggy Mountain Banjo) since I took up the banjo. It flows nicely, it isn’t a super challenge to play, and it sounds great when played with fiddle accompaniment. Like I said, I’ve never found this one to be challenging, and because of that I struggled just a little bit to come up with some teaching points. But, in my usual long-winded and know-it-all style, I thought of a few things to point out.
It’s all forward rolls and pinkies!
Ah yes, the forward roll…the cornerstone of picking bluegrass banjo. The forward roll figures in to Sally Ann fairly prominently, which you’ll see as you try it out. You’ll also see that for the most part, you are going to hold several two-finger positions with the left hand, an occasional three-finger position, and man are you going to give that pinky a workout! First off, grab a copy of the sheet music and have it open. I think you’ll find that it’s almost note-for-note like Earl’s version. Here’s a link:
Click this link for the Sally Ann TablEdit file:
Song sheet music
How in the world do I keep that sheet music straight?!
When you open up the sheet music, the first thing you’ll see is that it’s really long. The second thing you’ll find is that it’s hard to follow my flow. The biggest way I can help with that is to have you flip over to "print preview" mode. That will line everything up the same way it would print out, and you can better observe my labels and the flow of the piece. It just looks better in this mode. Give that a try. Another big help I can try to give you is to "map out" the flow of the song for you right here. Ready? This is what’s going on with it:
- The song opens with Earl playing two leads in a row. Notice my label that says "two banjo leads back to back…"
- The leads are structured with an A part, or verse, and a B part, or chorus.
- Each time Earl does a lead, he goes twice through the A part then 3 times through the chorus
- Play this song starting at measure 1, and play all the way through measure 26, but then as the note in the song says, also play 3 more choruses (you just jump back up and repeat measures 11-17). So when you’ve played 1-26 and then repeated 11-17, you’ve played two full leads and it’s time for a fiddle break. Pay attention to the repeats in the chorus!
- Notice how in the second break you have a little variation to the A part. This is labeled.
- Once you’ve worked through the song up to the first fiddle break, you can either stop learning there, or focus on the nice variations that come next. As you can see, just once through the song isn’t really that long, but just like Cripple Creek, we play several passes of the song…because it’s so short and because we can!
Sally Ann variations
The rest of the sheet music just embellishes on what’s already been played, and adds some tasty variations. Go ahead! Jump in and give it a try!
- After the fiddle break, you’ll go into your third break, and for that you just loop back up to the top. When you do, if you want to be just like Earl, instead of just playing measures 3 through 8 again (boring!) you can substitute the part labeled "Var. #2 for meas. 3 thru 8, occurs during 3rd break". So yes, play measures 1 and 2, but then jump to the Variation #2.
- After you play the Variation #2, you don’t just go repeat the old chorus…no way! You instead play the chorus that’s written in measures 36-50. Instead of using repeats to cut down the length of the tab, I had to spell out all three repeats of the chorus because each is a little different.
- After this variated chorus comes a rehash of all of the parts you’ve already covered. To save space I simply leave it up to you to listen carefully to Earl’s playing and structure your last breaks (not written on the paper) the way he did. You’ve got all the parts and pieces; you just have to arrange them as he did.
- And last but not least is a great ending. Be sure and remember this ending for future use!
Let me give you the finger
Hey! Not like that, come on now! What I mean is, let me give you some pictures of the fingerings. For the most part, this song uses two main positions: first you see a two-finger chunk based off of a D-form C at the 12th fret (one usual note of the D-form C, one new note for the melody) and then a 3-point fingering at the 8th fret for the G section. There are a couple more miscellaneous moves too, but I can’t take away all the fun of figuring this out for yourself now can I?!
Click to enlarge
The C position
The picture on the left shows the position you hold during the C-chord section of the song. Nice and easy, right? You’ll do a slide on the first string, followed by this two-finger position, then you’ll do a slide down to the 3-point G position I referenced earlier.
Do you recognize this as just a little chunk of the D-form C chord that starts at the 12th fret? No? Could be because we’re only holding one note of the 4 notes that usually make up the D-form C. We’re adding an extra note on the second string so as to help bring out the melody. Just know that you are more-or-less working in and around the D-form C chord at the 12th fret.
Click to enlarge
The G position
The picture that you see at the right shows a very very common, very very Scruggsy playing position that he gets a ton of use out of in many songs. You’ll see it in Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Sally Goodin’, among others, and you’ll come to rely heavily on this position. Trivial Pursuit moment: did you know that this position also fits an Em chord context? It has what I call a chameleon-like attribute; it fits more than one chord context!
Click to enlarge
It’s all in the pinky!
Time to exercise that pinky! There is a crucial choke that you must become proficient at to make this song work. It’s the 11th fret bend that you see referenced in the music. The way you accomplish this is to keep that 3-point fingering in place, but add the pinky at the 11th fret for the chokes. Take a look at this picture to the left: this is living proof that it can be done. The picture hasn’t been altered our retouched; it’s my actual hand doing the actual technique, and I’m actually removing any excuses you have for not being able to do it! If I can do it, you can do it. Like the Nike slogan says: just do it!
Give Sally Ann a try!
I managed to say quite a bit here, but you almost don’t need any coaching on this song. It uses 3 main positions, and mostly only 3 fingers at a time except when we have to add the pinky on those chokes. The challenge comes in playing it with good tone and timing and smoothness. Perhaps the bigger discussion is going to be when I get into backup for the song! I hear lots of fun stuff going on in Earl’s backup work.
Discuss this song in the comments below
Do you have any struggles with this song? Is there anything I can address to help you learn it better? Does the song flow alright for you when you try to play it? Do you have fingering issues? Who made that long distance call to Denver on my phone? Oh, wait, sorry…skip that last question.
Let me know how I can best help you, and please leave any comments or questions below. And, stay tuned for the blog post all about playing backup to Sally Ann! It’ll be a good one. As I always say, pick ‘em if ya got ‘em! Banjo Paul out.
Hey Paul,
Sally Ann is a fun little tune. Your point about the triangle chord at the 8th and 9th fret is well taken. The G portion(1st & 2nd string) sounds remarkably similar to the E minor triangle. Us northerners tend to hold the full triangle for the G sections up the neck. Southern pickers tend to only fret the third string when it’s picked. This gives a subtle difference in sound, and does raise the level of difficulty some. Check out Sean Ray’s YouTube video for Sally Goodin, and you’ll see what I mean.
I agree this is a fairly simple tune to learn, buuuuut, difficult to get the timing correct. This song, like Sally Goodin, can be learned note for note like Earl played them. That is the deceptively easy part. Getting the subtle timing right is what makes these songs pop.
Tim
Hey Tim,
Thanks for the comments! I’m always very appreciative when you chime in. Your insights are always first rate, and your competence and understanding of many nuances have amazed me. I did want to point out a couple things in your comments this time though: when you said “the G portion on first and second string sound remarkably similar to the Em triangle”, well that’s because it IS the Em triangle. It’s not similar to it, it is it. But in it’s chameleon like ability, it also blends with G. Also, I looked at the YouTube video you referenced, and while I haven’t talked to that picker in person so as to ask him about his methods, I don’t believe he is raising his middle finger off of the triangle position for any other reason than it’s his habit. I have habits like that too, but lifting that middle finger is a wasted motion that doesn’t add anything to the song. That’s not a criticism of that picker by any means, because clearly he’s fantastic and knows what he is doing (maybe I could get some lessons from him!) but technically, leaving that finger down would serve a beginner better. Beginners have a hard enough time mastering this without fighting the habits that we experienced pickers have managed to work into our playing. Does that make sense? He’s an experienced picker who would be able to do many other finger dance moves that while not adding to the song are still able to be pulled off by him, because he can. Even us teachers, if we were to scrutinize our own playing, can find lots of little areas where we can clean up our technique. The thing is though that we can function at a high level the way we do it and so we don’t always do the work of correcting every little nit-picky thing. I also watched Earl Scruggs with the Chieftains on YouTube playing Sally Goodin’ (you can’t get any better than the master, right? The rest of us are just imitations of him) and he mostly leaves it down. There are moments it comes up for him too, and you can see that it’s just his own idiosyncrasies kicking in. Just his habit. He isn’t consistent; sometimes it comes up, other times when repeating the same pattern it stays down. I always come back to the phrase: he does it because he can. That’s a huge factor in the way someone goes about picking and what they do on their instrument, and sometimes it’s the only reason I do something. Because I can. It might not be needed or necessary, but I do it because I can.
Thanks so much Tim and I hope to hear from you again! Keep up the good work.
Hey Paul,
Good stuff and very helpful with your explanations. I do have a question regarding measure 12. This G chord fingering is indeed simple but what finger do I use to jump from the 3rd string 9th fret to the 3rd string 7th fret? I encounter this in many songs and struggle with it all the time. Appreciate any help you can impart.
Regards,
Vic in Montana
Hi Vic! Thanks a ton for commenting and thanks for the question! I’m glad to help if I can. Let’s see if I can make this make sense: As you come into measure 12, you’ll be holding that 3 point position, and you’ve just used the pinky to do the 11th fret choke at measure 11. So you can probably roll the first 4 note roll in measure 12 just fine. For the second four note roll, you’ll play the first two notes of the roll while still holding the 3 point position, then you’ll reach back to the 7th fret with your index finger while holding the ring finger right where it is. The middle finger can just come off and hang in the air. So the first 2 notes in that last roll get played while holding the 3 point position, and for the last two notes of the roll you flip to a 2 finger stance: index finger on 3rd string 7th fret, and ring finger right where it was (1st string, 9th fret.) Of course, that flip has to be done smoothly and in rhythm, and as Shakespeare would say: therein lies the rub! Contact me privately if you need further hope Vic. Thanks so much!
Thanks Paul,
I had it mapped out in my head a couple diff ways and am glad to see one way is as you described. BTW was raised in West MI (Grant) and worked in GR for many years. Am now livin in NE Montana where nobody plays the 5 but me. Would very much like getting together during my next trip back. Hopefully this summer some time.
Thanks again,
Vic
Hey again Vic!
I’d like that very much. Be sure and look me up when you come to town.
Paul thanks for all the hard work you are putting in on this unit.
Hope I can tackle it before the years end.
Ken N.
Hey Ken, good to hear from you! I’m glad to be doing this blog series and I’m glad you appreciate it. Now get that banjo out and dig in! You can do it.
Nice work Paul,
I’ll start limbering up this spastic pinky of mine and find out if its up to the challenge. I’ve been listening to Sally Ann for the past 10 minutes,and it sounds fun to play. George
Hey George, good to hear from you. If you can tackle the likes of Ground Speed and Deck The Halls then you can certainly handle Sally Ann. Dig in and I’d love to get a recording!