Click for Banjo: Number Nine

Cabin In Caroline: A Tab for Mandolin
Arranged by John Baldry

John Baldry

When you start playing a bluegrass instrument you have everything to learn - how to hold the thing, how to tune it, how to fret with the left hand and pick with the right. It's natural that you should concentrate on the fundamentals, and be guided by your teacher or manual as to what you actually try to play. Most of us plunge into Cripple Creek and say howdy to Old Joe Clark in these early stages.

For some players, the vast number of published tablatures available nowadays, both on paper and on the Internet, provide a lifetime's musical challenge. However, you come up against reality when you are in a jam session and have to play something which you haven't previously learned from tab. "You mean, I've got to make it up?" says the student, incredulously. Well, yes - that's what it's all about.

In the old days (I'm talking of 20-30 years ago), there wasn't nearly so much tab, and the necessity of working out your own stuff was that much more obvious. One solution was to slow down records and tapes, to copy other people's breaks, and this is still an essential part of learning. But if the record didn't have a break for your instrument you had to make one up.

A case in point is the 1948 Flatt and Scruggs recording of My Cabin In Caroline. Chris Moreton used to sing this one, and has always admired F & S's arrangement of the song. There was no mandolin break on the recording, but I did notice the way the fiddle played some scale patterns in the intro and tried to do something similar for a mandolin break. The resulting solo was not exactly a masterpiece of originality, but it solved a problem for me, as I now had something to play which fitted the chords. I've tabbed this break in the hope that it will give other beginners something to work on.

My Cabin In Caroline is a medium pace song (not too fast!). Play with bounce/swing, crotchet (half note) beat = 108. The first three bars (counting from the double bar line) utilise some common scale patterns which can be adapted to many other songs, so they are worth having in your bag of tricks. These licks are unashamedly repeated in bars 9-11. (Homework assignment: find something different to play for these bars!) Bars 15-16 feature a Bill Monroe tag lick involving a quick hammer-on and pull-off. (Sorry, but the MIDI playback will not reproduce the sound very convincingly here.) Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Special features a version of this hammer-on/pull-off lick in the opening phrases - listen to either the original recording for Columbia,or Ricky Skaggs' version on the bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza double CD.

A good source for the Flatt and Scruggs recording of My Cabin In Caroline is the Mercury CD Flatt and Scruggs - The Complete Mercury Sessions. This has all 28 of the 1948-1950 Mercury recordings. Quite a steal, and a lot cheaper than the Bear Family boxed set covering the early years of Flatt and Scruggs. My Cabin In Caroline was recorded at the first Foggy Mountain Boys recording session in the summer of 1948, in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Flatt and Scruggs had left Bill Monroe earlier that year.)

An interesting feature of these recordings becomes apparent when you check the pitch. My Cabin In Caroline is actually in the key of G sharp, because the band were tuned a semitone sharp. According to Earl this was to suit the singers' voices. This also puts the 1950 recording of Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms (capo 2 on the banjo) in the key of B flat, and the song acquires added brilliance in this key. Musicians have always been aware of the importance of absolute pitch. Simon Mayor plays The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba on the mandolin in the 'physical' key of A, to get maximum sustain from the open strings. However, he says that the tune only comes alive for him when he capos the mandolin at the first fret, to play in the actual key of B flat. You can hear Simon playing an amazing version of The Queen of Sheba in front of a 'live' audience, on the double CD The CoMando Sessions Volume 2 - great value at only $20 including air mail postage anywhere in the world. This 41-track recording features a tremendous range of mandolin playing to a very high standard, by members of the Internet CoMando mandolin players list. For further info, go to www.brinet.com/~ridgrunr/CoMando/CDCoMando.htm, or you can order the CD direct by sending a US $20 bill to Sean Grexa, 1106 Warwick Rd., Haddonfield, NJ 08033, USA.

CoMando also have a great new website at www.co-mando.com  There is a huge collection of tablature, including a lot of bluegrass - but don't become so immersed in the tab archive that you don't get round to creating your own breaks!

John Baldry, Crawley, Sussex read about John

Top of this page

Bill Cheatham: A Tab for Banjo
Arranged by Chris Athey

Chris and daughter (8) playing Bile 'em Cabbage Down

Though I have never heard a UK version of Soldier's Joy, I am told over the course of the 300 or so years since it's penning, it has evolved into two very distinctly different tunes - one in the U.K. and the other in the U.S. I've been curious to know if the same is true with Bill Cheatham. After you work up this version, please send me some feedback regarding the differences the Atlantic Ocean has brought to this song (Write to is below).

It's a tune that we play fairly regular at our gigs and it is considered a standard at jam sessions in the States. Though I have offered variations for both the 'A' and 'B' parts, I typically will play the first 'A' part and then the variation of the 'B' part in my break on stage. The only reason I do this, is that I am only given one break and I happen to enjoy playing the variation on the B part! But that's what it's all about, right? Mixing it up and hoping it works? And having fun? Boy, it sure is!

Chris Athey, Ashburn, Virginia, USA.

Chris  really welcomes your comments  - Write to him
Click for RealAudio and MP3's of his band, Vintage Blend .

Top of this page

21st Sept 2000