Andy Chase

Since getting my gourd banjo the other week, I’ve been exploring some old minstrel tunes, played in the so-called “stroke style.” The Banjo Factory’s scans of Briggs’ Banjo Instructor from 1855 are an amazing resource, and I’ve already plugged a few into Tabledit.

If you’re not familiar with the tune, here’s Tim Twiss’ fine rendition on YouTube:

This tune was on my must-learn list a few years ago, and then slipped out of consciousness until I got obsessed with it a few days ago. It’s a crooked tune; the A part has six measures, the B part has 7 measures, and it’s typically played in an ABB pattern instead of the usual AABB. Download in TablEdit or PDF format below.

Ship in the Clouds: Clawhammer Banjo Tablature by Andy Chase is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

This is a pretty simple arrangement, but this tune lends itself to lots of hammer-on/pull-off/double-thumb variations and really, it's all about the slightly dissonant tuning and rhythm.

I started fooling around with this Irish reel in the key of A on mandolin tonight, and decided to see how well it might transpose to clawhammer banjo. This is a fairly literal arrangement and not actually very clawhammer-y, but on the other hand it's not terribly tricky as far as "melodic clawhammer" arrangements go. That's not to say I can play it very well yet myself - but now I have something to work from. PDF and TablEdit versions are available below.

The Mason's Apron: Tablature for Clawhammer Banjo by Andy Chase is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.