The MIDI and TabRite files for these are available free for use on
Multi-Media PCs - see Instrumental Workshops: Click here

Trad - Arranged by David Cotton

This tune nicely complements the theme in one of the articles in this issue. Previously called Sutter’s Fort, Sacramento is capital of California and known to its residents as “The Big Tomato”. Gold was discovered at nearby Sutter Creek in 1848 and for some time the city was a driving force behind the development of California.

The tune comes from an old time song. Play it with lots of bounce. In the 4th full bar, you need to cross over your thumb and index finger, bringing the index down on to the fourth string. Tuck the index under the thumb, and you’ll find it comes across quite easily.

If you find the stretch from the 8th fret, second string to 5th fret, first string too much in bar 10, change the fingering to alternate between the open fifth string and the first string, 5th fret.

The tune has a nice abrupt attending, with the final G chord on the second, rather than first, beat of the bar.

David has a Tab Sales service.

By John Baldry

In your development as a bluegrass musician, there comes a point when you are expected to play a break to a fiddle tune. You have a number of choices:

1. Smile politely and opt out.
2. Play the tune. This may seem the obvious solution but playing all the notes of the melody in your break can also be the most demanding option.
3. Play licks which follow the chord sequence of the tune.
4. Work out a break using licks and scales melodically and harmonically related to the tune.

An experienced player will have used all of these approaches at one time or another. Discretion may be the better part of valour in some situations, hence Option 1, but it will not further your development as a musician. Option 2 requires you to go away and work out where to get all those notes on your fretboard. Melodic style and clawhammer banjo players are the classic examples, sometimes resorting to unorthodox right hand fingering patterns to get the exact sequence of notes. You discover that what works fine for the fiddle is often more difficult on other instruments - even the mandolin, because you play with a pick, not a bow. Moreover, the bowing patterns of the fiddle, including the various shuffles, impart a specific rhythm and flow to a tune which it may be hard to duplicate.

Option 3 is the preferred solution in a jam session when you get the nod and you have to play something! Again, banjo players show the way, by playing Scruggs rolls which fit the sequence. And listen to all those pre-Keith banjo players taking breaks on Bill Monroe’s instrumental tracks, like Panhandle Country, Big Mon and Roanoke. It’s not the tune, but it sure sounds good.

Option 4 covers everything else – arranged breaks which in some way follow the basis of the tune but which provide extra points of interest, often arising from licks which work well on the musician’s particular instrument. Dan Crary used to write about this approach in his articles in Frets magazine. A lot of his arrangements of fiddle tunes are really guitar-ised versions of the melody. A good example is Fisher’s Hornpipe on the LP BCH, Sugar Hill 3755. Doc Watson’s fine version of Fisher’s, on Red Rocking Chair, Flying Fish 252, also comes to mind . And ask Chris Moreton to play you Fisher’s Hornpipe some time!

It is logical that you have to explore the possibilities of your chosen instrument before you can do this sort of thing. Sometimes the variation played by one of the other instruments will equal or even surpass the opening statement of the tune. Alan Munde’s creative banjo break on the Country Gazette recording of Huckleberry Hornpipe (on Don’t Give Up Your Day Job, United Artists) is a good example. There is no doubt that he is playing Huckleberry, but the licks and melodic variations are his own. Vince Gill (yes, the Vince Gill) and John Hickman also play lovely breaks on Huckleberry Hornpipe, on Dan Crary’s Lady’s Fancy, Rounder 0099.

The banjo break on the original recording of Blue Grass Breakdown later became a different instrumental in its own right, with a little bit of tweaking by its originator. Rumour has it that Mr. Monroe was not pleased when Flatt and Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Breakdown hit the air waves and the record shops. Earl’s break (with Monroe) on the song Heavy Traffic Ahead likewise became a later instrumental with the Foggy Mountain Boys entitled Foggy Mountain Special. (OK, these didn’t start life as fiddle tunes, but the same principle applies.)

The purpose of these examples is to encourage you to work out your own breaks. If you want to employ Option 4 you’ve got to break away (horrible pun intended) and do your own thing. Many students of bluegrass instruments follow printed arrangements too closely. A classic example is Blackberry Blossom. It is true that there is a nice arrangement of the basic melody in Jack Tottle’s Bluegrass Mandolin manual. But Jack also shows a variation, and this should really be the jumping-off point for the student, not an end in itself. Try the following further variation of Blackberry Blossom, which again is something to think about, not to be copied slavishly. (It does have the advantage that you don’t have to use the 4th finger, useful when playing fast!) If you don’t like this variation, write something of your own – well, do that anyway!

As an afterthought, here is a rationale of what I was doing in the variation. I wanted a different pattern to open the break, yet one which was related to Blackberry Blossom. The key feature in Part A is the first note of each four-note cluster (arpeggio). If you play only the first note of every four in bars 1-3, you get a descending scale of B, A, G, F sharp, E, D, before you hit the pattern against the A chord, when things open up a bit. This kind of descending scale, surrounded by arpeggios, is a defining feature of the A Part of Blackberry Blossom. The descending pattern in the original melody is G, F sharp, E, D, C, B, and all I’ve done is to rearrange the four-note arpeggios to feature the next note up in each of the accompanying chords. This is a lot more difficult to explain than it is to demonstrate!

The B-Part is more of a stream of consciousness thing; licks and melodic sequences which fit against the chord sequence. I’m sure it contains things which have worked their way into my musical subconscious over the years. On a more elevated scale, this is what all the superpickers are doing, but the musical challenge is there for us amateurs too!

John Baldry, Crawley, Sussex. February 1999

Updated 1st March 1999