Whiskey Before Breakfast for Classic Banjo

[Joel Hooks]

Let's give this its own discussion.

There are several "versions" floating around the web.  By "versions" I mean in notation for various treble clef instruments.  I have not looked at banjo versions as none seem to be available in scordatura free standard notation.  

Here is the "original" I found today:

https://archive.org/details/P011467/page/n7/mode/2up

Last night I played around with this one for flute (link is to a PDF file):

https://www.flutetunes.com/tunes/whiskey-before-breakfast.pdf

I bounced around with various ways to play it and more or less settled on a combination of playing in position (2nd and 2B) and picking out notes.  I could not quite get it up to 184 but I was fairly smooth at 130 after about 20 mins of fussing with it.  This was playing the notation as is with no changes. 

I'll play with the "original" this weekend.  I might move everything up an octave as it might improve my velocity over running around the 4th, but it might be nice to play it both ways on repeats. 

[Jody Stecher]

The De Jarlis notation accords with mine 99%.   The flute version is marked as Irish but it has no Irish musical characteristics.  Also it reverses the diapason of the two parts. It would work as color or support if played along with another instrument playing a more typical version. 

On the banjo I tune the bass to D for WBB because the jump from fret 2 (D) to fret 6 (F#) is too large in the context of the melody. But it can be done and of course if played an octave higher there is no problem. If i was going to play this in gCGBD tuning I'd probably transpose to the key of C,.