Alternate tunings?

[Ethan Schwartz]

I did a search and not much came up. I am curious how many examples in the classic banjo repertoire there are of scordatura AKA alternate open-string tunings. To date, I don't recall having come across any. I don't consider elevated bass (gDGBD) to be a scordatura as it is too common, really more like a second standard tuning. 

[Jody Stecher]

There are two schools of thought about notation for non-standard tunings on various string instruments. One, which I believe makes more sense, is that the staff notation is a map of the melody. The other, which may be what you are seeing in Lon Morris's Jig is the idea that the notation is a guide to fingering.  Here the long strings have the same intervals as G minor tuning but tuned town 3 half steps. The short string at a half step below the octave of the 3rd string is peculiar but in context probably makes sense.  My brain naturally views staff notation as a mentally heard melody and so it is disconcerting to see this kind of notation. Others have no trouble. 

Ethan Schwartz said:

Great info, Joel. I'm having a hell of time trying to figure out Lon Morris's Jig. It gives the tuning d# B E G B but the notation looks like a typical piece for e A E G# B tuning in E major, including the double-stemmed notehead on e. Are they really asking you play it as if it were e A E G# B but with d# B E G B tuning? I don't have my banjo on hand so I'll have to try it out later. 

[Trapdoor2]

Ethan,

I dug out my old workings on "Lon Morris's Jig". After a bit of studying my hen scratchings...

I had keyed it into TablEdit as written (which I transferred to Musescore)...but many notes are non-musical. The A bass isn't right...but if you move the notes up a whole step to B, they sound fine. Having altered the bass notes, I tried moving all the flagged E notes to D#...which works out well for most of them... There is one slur, so I modified it to work out by moving the flagged note in that measure to D# and the slurred note to E (snapped to B on the 1st string)...which makes a reasonably musical arpeggio and decent snap/slur in that measure.

Basically, I was able to make such minor modifications and still use the goofy d#BEGB tuning effectively. Brought up a minor third, the tuning is f#DGA#D and it puts the tune in the key of G...and it looks like it would be comfortable to play.

Rhythmically, the B part is suffering from a bad pickup measure. I think it just needs to be re-written to make more sense.

===Marc

edit: and I'm in the group who seem to recall other scordatura in the classic repertoire. I swear I saw one last month in a pile of dusty sheet music...

Ethan Schwartz said:

Great info, Joel. I'm having a hell of time trying to figure out Lon Morris's Jig. It gives the tuning d# B E G B but the notation looks like a typical piece for e A E G# B tuning in E major, including the double-stemmed notehead on e. Are they really asking you play it as if it were e A E G# B but with d# B E G B tuning? I don't have my banjo on hand so I'll have to try it out later. 

[Ethan Schwartz]

Marc - Following the score literally, the first line (including the pickup measure) looks like

G Ab | B A B C# B G E . | B F# G# B d# . . . | B F# G# B d# B G# F# | E . d# . d# B G Ab

...which cannot possibly be right. But if we ignore the instructions and leave the second string as-is (meaning at G# rather than G natural), we get

G# A | B A B C# B G# E . | B F# A B d# . . . | B F# A B d# B A F# | E . d# . d# B G# A

Transposed up to concert pitch, that becomes

B C | D C D E D B G . | D A C D f# . . . | D A C D f# D C A | G . f# . f# D B C

So yes, it's a G major melody with the high f# used in the context of D7, but the tuning must be f#DGBD, not f#DGA#D. Something must have been lost in translation between the editor and publisher because the tuning instructions are not correct. 

[Ethan Schwartz]

Just to recap what we have so far:

American Jig - gDGBbD, key of Gm (dorian)/Eb
Bagpipe Patrol - gAGBD, key of Am/A
Jumbo Jig - gCGBbD, (original: eAEGB), key of Eb/Cm
Lon Morris's Jig - f#DGBD (original: d#BEG#B), key of G
Converse's "Morceaux" - gCGCD (original: eAEAB), key of C

[Richard William Ineson]

You are right, memory fade at work, it must be another one which will come to me when I am not thinking about it, meanwhile cancel 'Journey into Bass.

Ethan Schwartz said:

Richard - Journey Into Bass appears to be in standard tuning (at least in the version available here; https://www.classic-banjo.com/?downloadpdf=93)

Richard William Ineson said:

Frank Lawes' 'Journey Into Bass' requires the bass string to be tuned to Bb, Morley's 'Bagpipe Patrol' has the bass string tuned to A, one of Weston's tunes, possibly 'Weston's Minor Jig',  has the 2nd string tuned to Bb, there will be more but these are all that I can remember off hand.

[Richard William Ineson]

Joel Hooks said:

Sorry, Jumbo does not raise the 4th.  Does anyone have an earlier copy of the Bohee piece?  The only one here was one of the George Morris versions. 

[Richard William Ineson]

[Richard William Ineson]

[Trapdoor2]

This is indeed a confusing piece and I do agree that there must have been some kind of disconnect between the composer/transcriber and the printer.

I simply kept the original tuning (d#BEGB) and mapped/modified the tune to suit. When I transposed it all to C notation, the tuning came up a minor third to (f#DGA#D) but it is a bit more easily played with the A# raised to B.

Since it is written in 4 sharps (Emaj, F#,C#,G#,D#), the pickup measure would read | G# A | not | G Ab |.

Just for fun, I've attached my modified versions (the mp3 is the Gmaj version) in both the original and transposed to Gmaj. I should fix that B part...it just doesn't work!

Lon%20Morris%27s%20Jig_modified.pdf

Lon%20Morris%27s%20Jig_modified_C.pdf

Lon%20Morris%27s%20Jig_modified_C.mp3

Ethan Schwartz said:

Marc - Following the score literally, the first line (including the pickup measure) looks like

G Ab | B A B C# B G E . | B F# G# B d# . . . | B F# G# B d# B G# F# | E . d# . d# B G Ab

...which cannot possibly be right. But if we ignore the instructions and leave the second string as-is (meaning at G# rather than G natural), we get

G# A | B A B C# B G# E . | B F# A B d# . . . | B F# A B d# B A F# | E . d# . d# B G# A

Transposed up to concert pitch, that becomes

B C | D C D E D B G . | D A C D f# . . . | D A C D f# D C A | G . f# . f# D B C

So yes, it's a G major melody with the high f# used in the context of D7, but the tuning must be f#DGBD, not f#DGA#D. Something must have been lost in translation between the editor and publisher because the tuning instructions are not correct. 

[Joel Hooks]

My interpretation of Lon Morris' was to play the flagged E on the 5th string and the unflagged E on the first string stopped on the 5th fret.

I transposed it to C here:

https://archive.org/details/abf-5-stringer-219/page/16/mode/1up

Now, with all of these examples of scordatura, let us compare the ratio to the classic banjo (and early banjo) body of work as a whole, then figure the percentage. 

I think that these exceptions prove that they were just novelty exceptions. 

[Trapdoor2]

LOL, I always enjoy how you demonize something as simple as scordatura. I do agree it was mostly just for the novelty. However, in the Bohee piece, simply dropping the B to Bb makes perfect sense in the chosen keys. Far simpler to play.

Since I play other forms (trad Clawhammer), retuning is simply a way of life for me...esp. at a jam, where I'm usually forced to retune for every piece (despite my pitiful pleas to at least play a couple consecutively in the same key or modality).

And lately, (I've been working on my Irish Tenor banjo stuff) I've found that Irish Tenor Banjo players often tune the low G (GDAE tuning) to A in order to get some nice effects when playing in D...

I imagine Classic era banjo players sneered at those who used capotasti when backing singers!

===Marc

Joel Hooks said:

My interpretation of Lon Morris' was to play the flagged E on the 5th string and the unflagged E on the first string stopped on the 5th fret.

I transposed it to C here:

https://archive.org/details/abf-5-stringer-219/page/16/mode/1up

Now, with all of these examples of scordatura, let us compare the ratio to the classic banjo (and early banjo) body of work as a whole, then figure the percentage. 

I think that these exceptions prove that they were just novelty exceptions. 

[Jody Stecher]

Marc, the solution is simple. Just bring 6 banjos to every old time session, each in a different tuning. I know, it's preposterous but it reminds me of an even more preposterous joke my dad told me 60 or more years ago back in the days before there were many (or any) computers.  There was a feller who had to travel by airplane frequently for business. There had been some bombs on airplanes and as he was flying often he started to get scared. He went to a company of statisticians and asked them to predict the likelihood that he would be on an airplane that had a bomb aboard. They asked him for frequency of flying, which airports, what days, etc.  They said it would take 3 days to do the calculations so he should return to their office in 4 days. So he did. They told him that the chances of him being on a plane with a bomb was 1 in seven hundred thousand four hundred and fifty three.   He was alarmed.  That's too dangerous he said.  But wait, said the chief statistician. We have more news. The chances of you being on an airplane with TWO bombs on it was 1 in 40 billion. "So every time you fly", he said "....bring a bomb with you"

Trapdoor2 said:

Since I play other forms (trad Clawhammer), retuning is simply a way of life for me...esp. at a jam, where I'm usually forced to retune for every piece (despite my pitiful pleas to at least play a couple consecutively in the same key or modality).