"Devil Song" Performance & Tab
Added 2024-09-15 15:00:02 +0000 UTCI learned "The Devil Song" (Old Lady and the Devil, Devil and the Farmer's Wife) from recordings of Bobby McMillon and Bill & Belle Reed. My instrument is an early 2000s Terry Bell minstrel banjo tuned ~ eAEG♯B.
I'm using Aquila "New Nylgut" 1892 strings and a homemade white oak bridge. The tab I've provided is a simplified version played in fBbFBbC (gCGCD). It's very simple to play in either tuning.
Download 8.5" x 11" Tablature PDF file 👇
Comments
You might be confused because the tab is in double C but I'm pretty sure he's in minstrel tuning (gCGBD). Overhand and two-finger tabs are very similar and if you're aching to play this in the meantime you can transpose the tab yourself. It's not hard! Most songs follow the 1/8th note gallop, so start with identifying the, "thumb lead" notes. Replace lead notes with finger strike tab profile, use the rest of the notes to understand the chord. Then you've got your basic frailing tab. The trick is understanding where you break from the 1/8th note bum-diddy with the root melody, which you figure out by listening. A dead-simple tune like this is a good exercise. You'll only need to do this once or twice before your brain starts seeing the frail in a two-finger tab immediately. Tabs just give you a general lay of the land though, most cases you should only use tab to understand the timing and root notes of a melody. Layering in all the drop-thumbing, delays, drags, triplets, alternating pulls-offs, and whatever else makes it sound dope. Cool thing about old-time music is a lot of the OGs actually encourage you to, "learn it wrong", and do all that, "banjoey" shit where you feel like it fits. Just make sure it fits into a jam and do weird stuff, idk, it's hard to describe.
Zachary Brackett
2024-09-16 16:42:03 +0000 UTCHi Clifton. I know your not a massive fan of tab but for some of us with no contact with other players it really is helpful in giving us an idea of the "bare bones" of a tune. The thing is I struggle with two finger and prefer overhand. You used to tab for both but seem to have concentrated on two finger. Any chance of going back to including tab for us overhanders again? Cheers.
Colin Rocke-Wharin
2024-09-16 11:39:21 +0000 UTC
