A Sea Breeze - Joe Morley - Classic fingerstyle banjo

A medley of sea songs with a banjo twist, this is also one of Morley's trickiest solos to play at speed, in which Old Joe predates Bill Keith's performance of Sailor's Hornpipe by at least 50 years! Nothing new under the sun, eh?

The songs/melodies in this solo are:

1 - Intro (Joe Morley)
2 - Tom Bowling (Charles Dibdin)
3 - Rule, Britannia! (Thomas Arne)
4 - Jack's the Lad/Sailor's Hornpipe (Anonymous)
5 - Outro (Joe Morley)

Rating:
  • Currently 5/5 stars.

Views: 150

Comment by Jody Stecher on March 27, 2013 at 14:27

Re "nothing new", well yes and no. In the Sailor's HP score Morley indicates alternating thumb and index for the patterned descent which is as you played it here, and that involves successive strokes on the same string. Keith plays the tune with thumb, index, and middle finger, and each note is on a new string. But, as you say, at least 50 years before Keith, Morley indicates — in some of his scores—  right and left hand coordination that is identical to the so-called "melodic technique" associated with Bill Keith. " A Banjo Revel" is a good example of this.  But "A Sea Breeze" is not. To show what I mean I'll post a video of A Banjo Revel before too terribly long .

Comment by Trapdoor2 on March 27, 2013 at 15:54

This difference between "single string" and "melodic" styles of attacking a particular sequence of notes has gotten me cornfused more than once. Now that I have tablatures of classic-banjo pieces in the hundreds, I find that some of my earlier TABs lean towards the melodic (which was my training)...but now when I play them I see that the single-string sequence sometimes makes more sense.

I am still likely to assign certain sequences a melodic approach...but I am now also more likely to default to the original arrangement (if fingering is shewn). Much depends on if I'm just messing about with the piece or if I'm thinking about actually working it up. 

Comment by Jody Stecher on March 27, 2013 at 16:41

For those unfamiliar with the techniques being discussed,  "melodic" in this context is not in any way more melodic than the other approach. What it is is more legato and less staccato than the single string approach. As soon as a right hand finger plays another stroke on a string that has just been played, that earlier note ceases to be. If instead the next note is gotten on another string the sustain of the first note is extended. 

Comment by Jody Stecher on March 27, 2013 at 16:43

correction: the sustain of the first note is not extended but it is allowed to live its full natural life.

Comment by Mike Moss on March 27, 2013 at 16:48

Thank you for the insight, Jody. I must admit that I never really delved into the Melodic and Single String styles when I played bluegrass banjo as I mostly played "Orthodox Scruggs", but I have seen some advanced bluegrass players play a large number of notes from a single position rather than jumping around the fingerboard. I guess it must be easier in bass to D/Open G as it would allow using the 4th string for melody notes from a given position?

Comment by Jody Stecher on March 27, 2013 at 17:21

Yes, with this technique melodies can be played within any of several 3 fret grids or 2 fret grids. The technique involves mixing open strings with closed strings. Typically, to get a higher note than the one you just played, you find it on a lower string on a higher fret. It is counter-intuitve at first. The "elevated" bass does help keep the grid to only a few frets. So one way to play a G major scale would be open G, A on the 7th fret of the fourth string (which is tuned to D when open), B open, C at the 5th fret of the 3rd string, D on the open 1st string, E on the fifth fret of the 2nd string, F # on the 4th fret of the 1st string, and the octave G on the open 5th string. All the fingering is on frets 7, 5 and 4. For fret 4 a player may switch grids from 7 and 5 with fingers 3 and 1 to frets  5 and 4 with fingers 2 and 1. There are other fingering strategies as well.

The technique often involves fretting the fifth string when the range is higher than the scale I just described. If you watch the videos of Marc Dalmasso, you will see him using this legato technique at times.  In the few videos I have posted I mix the two techniques, according to whether I want the music more flowing or I want to hear a passage with shorter sustain. The "melodic" technique makes the sound more harp-like where each note is on a new string and each note can have (if the player wants it to) a longer life and each note will overlap the next one. There are many instances where this overlapping is undesirable so the single string technique, which is similar to the down-up of a plectrum (down with the thumb, up with the index) comes in very handy. But a player can release the pressure on the fretted strings and the string will stop vibrating, so one has options of sustain within the technique. It's useful and fun to have a variety of technical approaches handy. Sometimes I'll choose the "melodic" option not because I want more sustain but because in a particular passage the left hand is so convenient and, as you say, in a small contained area of the fretboard. And sometimes when I do want more sustain I'll use this melodic  technique even though the melody shape in a different passage demands inconvenient left hand fingering. Also the fingering can be adjusted to accommodate familiar right hand patterns. 

Comment by Trapdoor2 on March 27, 2013 at 17:22

I have seen it also referred to as "arpa" style (I think I might have seen this first from Pat Cloud, the great jazz banjo fingerstylist). The way I learned it, it had two defaults: "open strings as much as practical" and "never pick the same string twice in a row". Fanatics study scales endlessly and attack tunes by overlaying chunks of these scales over the chord structure of the tune. Like anything else, it can be overdone and it can be beautiful.

Comment by thereallyniceman on March 27, 2013 at 17:55

Very good again, Mike. You sure know how to pick a challenge.

The mic sounds different in this recording. What did you do? There sounds to be a bit more echo. I think I prefer the sound in your previous videos, but perhaps that is my speaker set up.

Jody, I fully agree about the legato of playing across the strings rather than single string where possible.

 

In the score of Swanee Echoes, for example, the printed notation indicates a “twi-de-ly-dee” with  two Gs repeated with the 4th finger on the fifth fret on the 1st string, but I find that playing across the strings gives a much better flow, speed and legato to the triplet.

Use the 4th finger on the second string at the 8th fret and the first finger at the 5th fret on the first string.

The triplet of Gs rolls easily across the strings as:

  + on the 5th string,

  .  on the 2nd string,

 ..  on the 1st string, and

 + (strong beat) on the 5th string

Then while the octave G is still ringing jump down to the:

F with the 3rd finger  ..

E   with the 2nd finger  .

D open   ..

 

This leaves all the fingers over the next chord and the thumb at the correct side of the fingerboard for the strong first beat of the next bar.

 

Comment by Mike Moss on March 27, 2013 at 18:06

Yes, the sound isn't all that great in this recording. This is mainly due to the fact that I attempted a more drastic noise removal to get rid of the static. It got rid of the static all right, but it also screwed up the banjo's sound in the process, so I'm back to square one.

Comment by Jody Stecher on March 27, 2013 at 18:20

Trapdoor: yes Pat Cloud has named it well. I've had the pleasure of hearing some of his concert sets where his creativity and musicality was very high. A true original. 

thereallyandtrulyveryveryniceman: whenever possible  I play G triplets just as you describe. It has all the advantages you describe and also increases the Boing Boing Factor.

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