woodland park waltz

[nick stephens]

apart from Clarke Buehling playing this lovely tune on Youtube I can not find any mention of it anywhere and, I have searched, anybody know anything about this tune please ?

[Joel Hooks]

[Joel Hooks]

One of the more interesting aspects of classic banjo is the large number of compositions that were published.  Most of those have not been recorded.  In fact, I’d say there are countless solos that have not been played in 100 years all waiting to be discovered.

At our ABF rallies we will pick themes.  Could be a composer or type of music, or anything really.  The idea is that people will search out forgotten gems and play them during the round robin.  Sometimes those forgotten pieces become new favorites.  These themes are not enforced and are recommendations to add a bit of fun to getting together.  Some of us will plan ahead to play together.  I’m always up for playing second banjo with people.

Clarke has always been good at this.  He has a good ear for digging out pieces.  But more importantly he has the skill and expression to make them musical.  Clarke also started exploring A notation when very few people could read it.  

Since “early” banjo has become a thing, A notation is not so taboo as it was.  I think that is a good thing as there is a lot of unexplored music published in A.

[Trapdoor2]

Thank you Joel and Clarke! I'll transcribe it tomorrow morning. Once I get it keyed in, I'll produce a C notation version (and tab, of course).
I do love exploring. Rather than themes, I tend to accidentally "discover" a composer and then run thru whatever I have of theirs.

[Pär Engstrand]

Thanks alot for this topic.

I find it difficult, timewise, to be fluent in all notations;C notation, A notation and D notation (are there more??).

Up until now, all the things I have looked at in A and D notation have been fairly simple, meaning the amount of notes and accidentals, so I have been able to sort of translate it in my head to C notation while playing. To be really fluent in one notation, just like languages, I think it is important to not translate from one notation to the other, if you know what I mean.

There is so so many interesting topics concerning the banjo and so little time! I wish I had started playing the banjo 25 years ago, or more...

The question after the piece is funny, I think:

"Is it an expensive thing to get into, playing banjo?"

"No...uhm.."

Well, I guess that depends :-)

[Jody Stecher]

Very early there was G notation, lower than A. What/where/when is "D notation?" 

Pär Engstrand said:

Thanks alot for this topic.

I find it difficult, timewise, to be fluent in all notations;C notation, A notation and D notation (are there more??).

Up until now, all the things I have looked at in A and D notation have been fairly simple, meaning the amount of notes and accidentals, so I have been able to sort of translate it in my head to C notation while playing. To be really fluent in one notation, just like languages, I think it is important to not translate from one notation to the other, if you know what I mean.

There is so so many interesting topics concerning the banjo and so little time! I wish I had started playing the banjo 25 years ago, or more...

The question after the piece is funny, I think:

"Is it an expensive thing to get into, playing banjo?"

"No...uhm.."

Well, I guess that depends :-)

[Trapdoor2]

The modern minstrel players often refer to "G" notation as "D" tuning...or "D notation". This is a confusing misnomer simply because they didn't understand the nomenclature of the later period (based on the bass string note). Briggs tuning is in D but technically it is written in "G notation" (I've never seen it actually called that in print. Briggs didn't mention the notational system. I think that naming the notational systems was a later thing. Maybe somebody knows when this came about?

The earliest (Howe's Preceptor) uses "F notation" and Briggs' G is somewhat of an anomaly as just about everything else from the early period is in A.

Jody Stecher said:

Very early there was G notation, lower than A. What/where/when is "D notation?" 

Pär Engstrand said:

Thanks alot for this topic.

I find it difficult, timewise, to be fluent in all notations;C notation, A notation and D notation (are there more??).

Up until now, all the things I have looked at in A and D notation have been fairly simple, meaning the amount of notes and accidentals, so I have been able to sort of translate it in my head to C notation while playing. To be really fluent in one notation, just like languages, I think it is important to not translate from one notation to the other, if you know what I mean.

There is so so many interesting topics concerning the banjo and so little time! I wish I had started playing the banjo 25 years ago, or more...

The question after the piece is funny, I think:

"Is it an expensive thing to get into, playing banjo?"

"No...uhm.."

Well, I guess that depends :-)

[nick stephens]

A very sweet sounding banjo Clarke is playing in that clip, Joel do you know if he is using the ultra thin strings you and John speak so highly of ? as far as can be seen they look quite heavy to me, difficult to see though, great sounding banjo just the same.

Jody Stecher said:

Very early there was G notation, lower than A. What/where/when is "D notation?" 

Pär Engstrand said:

Thanks alot for this topic.

I find it difficult, timewise, to be fluent in all notations;C notation, A notation and D notation (are there more??).

Up until now, all the things I have looked at in A and D notation have been fairly simple, meaning the amount of notes and accidentals, so I have been able to sort of translate it in my head to C notation while playing. To be really fluent in one notation, just like languages, I think it is important to not translate from one notation to the other, if you know what I mean.

There is so so many interesting topics concerning the banjo and so little time! I wish I had started playing the banjo 25 years ago, or more...

The question after the piece is funny, I think:

"Is it an expensive thing to get into, playing banjo?"

"No...uhm.."

Well, I guess that depends :-)

[Joel Hooks]

I explored this in the recent issue of the 5 stringer.  I don't recall a "D notation", though there were some professionals that pitched their banjos up to D starting in the 1890s.  There was also some concern during the Guild of BMG discussions to transition from A to C that as soon as they made the change over people would start using D (which did not happen).

So we have "G" which was used in Briggs and some other clone books, then A, then C. 

The Howe book was and is considered to not be a real banjo instruction book or collection of banjo music but rather a product to answer a new demand using recycled music from guitar or violin books.  The book does not follow any logic given that the 4th is pitched to F (as a natural key) but there is not one piece of music in the book in F.

https://archive.org/details/imslp-complete-preceptor-for-the-banjo-...

As far as reading, A is just one ledger line lower than C.  Once you get the hang of it there is not a lot of trouble switching.  That said, we do live in a time when one can plug in the notes into a computer and transpose to whatever key they want.  Likewise, I have transposed A to C for the 5 Stringer using the "whiteout" method on my iPad digitally.  It is not super fast but can be a relaxing activity.

Tim Twiss has made a transcription of Briggs in both A and C.  So there is really no need to read in the Briggs G, unless you are doing a deep dive research where you are only using primary material.

It is a confusing topic and is usually one of the first questions people ask when they start to explore classic banjo (which is why I wrote the article).  

I have no doubt that the A/C problem attributed to the demise of the popularity of the regular banjo.

[Trapdoor2]

Here's the mp3 of the 1st banjo part. I tried to match Clarke's tempo (by ear, my metrognome is hiding in a box somewhere).

I'm currently adding the 2nd banjo part. I'll then add the position markers and post it in C notation.

Does anyone care that I truncate it to two pages? It returns to the A part with an ending attached. I typically convert these to a Da Capo/Coda format.

[Joel Hooks]

Good question Marc, RE names of notation.  I did touch on this but did not fully explore the timeline of the vernacular. 

As best as I can tell, it was "banjo music" for the US that was in A and transposed-- not really a name for it.  I had some trouble narrowing down the date on British use of C but as close as I can currently get it came from J. E. Brewster's 1885 tutor which lines up with the change in pitch to C.

So, prior to 1885 it seems to all be A for "banjo music".  With Brewster's influence England goes to C.  I did not look for when it started to be called "A notation" and "C notation" but I suspect it was shortly after Brewster's book.

Approaching 1900 it becomes a huge deal in the US.  Suddenly this is a big concern. The Guild forms and this is a priority for them. 

The back and forth was ridiculous.  Same arguments and logic for both sides were used over and over for nearly 40 years. When researching I kept notes on any article I found on the subject.  There was just too much.  I could fill 16 pages of footnotes.

 It is about 1900 that we see "Universal Notation", "English System" and "American System" used. 

[Trapdoor2]

OK, here's the C notation version...with all the bells and whistles. I will produce separate 1st and 2nd sheets as well as tab for each...gotta get some lunch.

[Pär Engstrand]

Duh! Brain melt-down. I of course meant the G tuning, as in Briggs tutor.

Jody Stecher said:

Very early there was G notation, lower than A. What/where/when is "D notation?" 

Pär Engstrand said:

Thanks alot for this topic.

I find it difficult, timewise, to be fluent in all notations;C notation, A notation and D notation (are there more??).

Up until now, all the things I have looked at in A and D notation have been fairly simple, meaning the amount of notes and accidentals, so I have been able to sort of translate it in my head to C notation while playing. To be really fluent in one notation, just like languages, I think it is important to not translate from one notation to the other, if you know what I mean.

There is so so many interesting topics concerning the banjo and so little time! I wish I had started playing the banjo 25 years ago, or more...

The question after the piece is funny, I think:

"Is it an expensive thing to get into, playing banjo?"

"No...uhm.."

Well, I guess that depends :-)