More of that Buckin' Rice stuff

[Tim Twiss]

I am posting a lot of Rice stuff lately, mostly material I skipped over and never played. Tonight's stop brought me to "Hannah, Hannah, where's you going." I sure would be glad to talk about this one...but you oughta try playing it. Decide on that tempo. Too slow, and the quarter notes seem to take forever. Too fast, and that B section is unmanageable. Obviously shades of "Corn-husking Jig" were on the horizon. In my opinion, this is a poorly fingered tune, and I did not stick to this one. Buckley..whaddaya thinkin'? On the other hand, I am going to try "Green Corn" next, and I can't imagine changing ANYTHING. I really feel something from this tune, as though it really transcends time when playing it. Makes me wonder about the statement Dan'l quoted the other day about music in the tutors only being a sketch or basic templete of what was actually performed...stuff like that and others in this Rice Book are an exception if this is true. I mean, just play them yourself and decide!

[Tim Twiss]

So, poking around a little more in Rice brought up "Hear Him, Johnny hear Him!". I learned this from the Flesher Book. It was one of my first tunes. Notice this version has no fingerings. Also, the "E" chord in Flesher's M2, M5, and M10 never resolve to "A" (but that is another issue altogether). I also found this tune unlabeled in the Buckley Banjo Guide of 1868 page 12. One point being, there were no fingerings. I can do the nail glide okay, but "Rice"style playing also suggests that 2 thumb strokes will work just fine. I think it is a little slow to get a good nail glide. There is value in examining the source, and puts questions to tab fingerings that are not original. It is, however, quoted "As played by Bob Flesher".

[Rob MacKillop]

Coming from the lute world, where all we have is the tablature - very few right-hand fingerings and almost no dynamics - I'm overwhelmed when I look at Converse's Analytical. Every note seems to have directions on how it should be played. He also discusses in great detail, with the help of excercises, the techniques he uses. This is very exciting! We have a top-class player/composer of the period, doing his utmost to relay to us exactly how he played things. I can't tell you how unique that is, and what a treasure. The earlier books are not so generous in their detail, but each seems to reveal a different voice. It is interesting to see Tim talk of a 'Rice style'. There is a Briggs style as well, and a Buckley too, etc, etc. Despite that, there are obvious connections between them all. At first I thought I just had to learn to play strokes with my index finger and I would be playing stroke style - but that is just the start. I'm seeing Converse as supplying the foundation, then each composer revealing little twists and turns, technically, melodically and rhythmically. So, it is an absolute 'must' to study the original publications, not just for the notes, but for all the other pointers as to what makes this style so rich.


Ah...must go...dinner is ready!

[Tim Twiss]

Tim Twiss said:

So, poking around a little more in Rice brought up "Hear Him, Johnny hear Him!". I learned this from the Flesher Book. It was one of my first tunes. Notice this version has no fingerings. Also, the "E" chord in Flesher's M2, M5, and M10 never resolve to "A" (but that is another issue altogether). I also found this tune unlabeled in the Buckley Banjo Guide of 1868 page 12. One point being, there were no fingerings. I can do the nail glide okay, but "Rice"style playing also suggests that 2 thumb strokes will work just fine. I think it is a little slow to get a good nail glide. There is value in examining the source, and puts questions to tab fingerings that are not original. It is, however, quoted "As played by Bob Flesher".

[Rob MacKillop]

Wow. Big difference!

[Trapdoor2]

Yeah, the original is very straightforward and easy to understand "as is". I did have some discussion about this with Bob. He acknowledges that there are differences in some of his stuff vs the originals. Some things he did because he was trying to simplify them for beginners, some because that's the way he liked it and some just fell thru the cracks! Smart to 'caveat' them. ;-)

When I'm Tabbing out from the original, I try to get it as accurate as possible. When playing, I usually only find out that I'm using the wrong fingering after I've gotten it up to speed. Sometimes (Green Corn is a good example), I find that the original fingering is a lot better than what my R/H told me to try!