Jed Marum’s banjo and guitar picking is beautiful, intricate, and captivating. Every time I listen and see Jed, I learn something new. Go to his website (here) to hear some samples of his guitar work. But if you’ve ever wondered about how to best tune your guitar, I think Jed explains it well. This is an excerpt from his book, TIGERS AND RIVER SONGBOOK, Jed Marum’s Civil War Music 2006. (Used by permission). If you’re a guitar picker, I would highly recommend you add this book to your library.
CHORDS AND TUNINGS

You will notice that I list the chord forms I use, and not the exact chords for a given key. That is, if I capo at 2 and play C, F and G chords, I list C, F and G, even though technically I am playing D, G and A. I do this because this is the way most players talk about how they are playing. At large jam sessions, you’ll frequently hear someone ask “What key?” and the answer comes, “I’m in 2 and playing C.”

I have also written the chords for standard guitar tuning, though I often use VESATPOL on the recordings. I sometimes use Drop D and I play one song in this collection in DADGAD. I have described these tunings in more detail below. Also, some songs from the albums I play on banjo or banjola. In those cases I’ve described the guitar chords in standard tuning.

You can try the songs in those tunings – or you can try modifying some of the standard chords – something I also do frequently when using standard tuning.

A few examples:

•    Play the F chord while leaving open the A on the third string and play a G note within the F chord.
•    Play a C Chord with the middle E open, leaving a D note within the C chord.
•    For G you can drop the high G note, and play it open and have an E note within your G chord and to further suspend it, add a high D note on the third fret of the second string.
•    For A, drop the C# from the second string and play it open (B)

Playing with these modified chords in your accompaniment; sometime using the full chord, sometime adding “color” to it by playing one of these modifications – can give you added movement to the chord patterns.

About the Tunings

VESTAPOL tuning is open D. I drop the 6th sting to a D, leave the 5th and 4th stings tuned to A and D. Then I drop the 3rd string to F#, the 2nd string to A and the 1st string to D. For a quick guide for using this tuning, locate a 5 string banjo chord chart and apply the chord forms to strings 5 through 2. You’ll find they work perfectly – but you’re tuned lower, so your banjo G chord (all open) is a D on your guitar. Your banjo chart’s G, C, D chords will actually be D G, A on your guitar.

Tune your strings:

6 to 5 at the 7th fret
5 to 4 at the 5th fret
4 to 3 at the 4th fret
3 to 2 at the 3rd fret
2 to 1 at the 5th fret

Also note that your banjo chords do not cover the 1st and the 6th strings. You can experiment to discover how to extend the full chords, but you’ll also find that playing them open frequently gives you a pleasant, droning effect. This tuning gives you a nice set of partial chords up the neck and of course, bar chords are full and easy to use at 5, 7 and sometimes 2 or 5.

Drop D

Tune your 6th string to 5 at the 7th fret. This is the simplest of the tunings I use and it is popular among guitar players already. It most commonly used for songs in the key of D and sometime G. Generally speaking, you play your standard tuning chord forms allowing for the lower tuned 6th string. This tuning gives a powerful low end to your D chord and adds some new color to your accompaniment.

DADGAD tuning is similar to VESTAPOL, except you do not move your 3rd string from standard tuning, you leave it at G.

Tune your strings:

6 to 5 at the 7th fret
5 to 4 at the 5th fret
4 to 3 at the 5th fret
3 to 2 at the 3rd fret
2 to 1 at the 5th fret

This is a rich tuning and there are chord charts available but you’ll find that normal rules do not apply. I have simply developed the few chords I use for this tuning on my own through experimentation. I use a more rhythmic approach to accompaniment in this tuning, rather then harmonic. A few key chord comments can help you get started:

Playing all strings open with a finger on the second fret of the third string gives you something close to a D chord. Fret the 5th string at the 3rd fret and the 4th string at the 2nd fret, blunt the 6th string, play all others open and you have something like an A. Fret the 5th string a the 2nd fret and play all others open, you have a G.

I want to thank Chauston and Whitney for allowing me to post their art. Both of them were great students in my ENG 102 class.

Whitney Trisler: Art Education Major

One of the great aspects of working at a college is seeing great artists created. In my 102 class, Whitney Trisler is such an artist. She is an art education major, and this semester I’ve seen at least five of her charcoal pieces featured on the walls of Delta’s Eastgate campus. Here is a charcoal portrait Whitney created of one of my favorite artists–Bob Dylan, songwriter, musician, poet, and American icon. She is an excellent writer as well as an artist. This tells me she has her eyes and mind open to the world, as devoted artists tend to do.

Chauston Mason: Writer, Artist, and Student

Chauston is not an art major, he just likes to create good art. I found him to be a diligent and interesting student. Here is an image of a chair he painted. He managed to create wonderful depth in it. I am sure Chauston will do well at whatever he does.

Christmas decorations  (and sales) are now everywhere. One of my favorite Christmas songs and one I’ve included in my own little Christmas show is one I heard by the talented and beautiful Amy Grant. It’s entitled, “Christmas Lullaby.”  If you’ve heard one of her Christmas albums, you’ve heard it. Here are the lyrics, followed by the chords I figured out. Of course, my transcription of the words and my chords may be inaccurate. If so, please write me so I can correct them. I home this song blesses you this Christmas season as it did me. I did not include the key change as that is quite impractical for my acoustic program.  I couldn’t find a Youtube video of Grant doing this song, but if I do, I’ll post the link here.

“Christmas Lullaby” ( I Will Lead You Home)

Are you far away from home
This dark and lonely night
Tell me what best would help
To ease your mind
Someone to give
Direction for this unfamiliar road
Or one who says, "follow me and i
Will lead you home."

How beautiful
How precious
The savior of all
To love so
Completely
The loneliest soul
How gently
How tenderly
He says to one and all,
"child you can follow me an
I will lead you home
Trust me and follow me
And I will lead you home."

Be near me, lord jesus
I ask thee to stay
Close by me forever
And love me I pray
Bless all the dear children
In thy tender care
And take us to heaven
To live with thee there
Take us to heaven
To live with thee there

Chords: G C G D Em C D     G C B C G D Em C  G D G  (I capo on the third fret and it sounds like an Am7 can be substituted for the C chords I listed)

FREE CHILDREN’S BOOK: To help any aspiring children book illustrators or authors, I wanted to offer this gift. Thanks should go to the beautiful and talented Bonnie Barnes of Region XI for helping make this download possible.

TO DOWNLOAD A FREE SAMPLE OF MY NEW CHILDREN’S BOOK, THE SCOTTISH ALPHABET, GO HERE:

When I was in Little Rock as a speaker for the Arkansas Reading Association, the story of David O. Dodd was on my mind. I had intended to visit the school named after him, but my schedule prevented me. For today’s post, I wanted to share an excerpt from my story, “The Hanging of David O. Dodd” that is in my collection of short historical fiction–Stories of the Confederate South.  I’ve read everything I could find about Dodd, and constructed my story on the basis of the facts I found.  I hope to write a song about him some day.

The Hanging of David O. Dodd

Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! Make the rope of his destiny our cable . . .—The Tempest I.1.16
January 8, 1864 Little Rock, Arkansas

The Arkansas River had frozen as hard as a miser’s heart.  Mary, along with her mother and father, joined the stream of Little Rock citizens crossing the ice-bridge to the grounds of St. John’s academy. The snow crunched beneath brogan and boot-clad feet, and the ice-face of the river moaned and creaked beneath the load of melancholy Southerners who trudged toward the Tyburn tree nightmare.

With children in arms and in tow, the Arkansas pilgrims converged onto the grounds of St. John’s College. Outside the stone building, a line of cadets, former classmates of the boy they have come to honor, stand at attention, wordless and weaponless in their white and gray uniforms. The Federal officers had heard rumors of trouble, so, near the gallows, lines of Federal soldiers stood stiffly at shoulder arms, their bayonets fixed. Mary hoped there would be trouble—a riot, an insurrection, something to bring grief to Steele and the 15,000 Federals troops who had invaded Little Rock.

Directly ahead, she saw Minerva, a girlfriend, waving her hand. Mary returned the greeting and walked to her.  Minerva wore a heavy woolen black, hooded cape, and with her head bowed and hands stuffed inside a fur muff, Mary thought Minerva looked like a monk. The two girls, both sixteen, walked together to the line of large oaks that bordered the academy. They huddled together like the women who once gathered at the foot of the cross in the Gospels—another execution carried out by another brutal and powerful government. They spoke of David, of the holiday dances of recent weeks, of secret kisses, and walks. The north wind carried away their whispered words.

A woman’s voice called out, “Minerva! You need to join us now.”
Minerva coughed and touched her teary eyes with a white handkerchief embroidered along its edges with tiny red roses.  “I must return to my mother.  She is most upset by David’s troubles. She says it’s a sign of the end of the world.”
“Of our world perhaps.”
“How could this happen, Mary? How could they accuse David of being a spy?”
“I don’t know, Minerva. I don’t know.”
“I know you took a fancy to him too, Mary, but it breaks my heart to think of the Yankees hanging David. You don’t think he was a spy, do you, Mary?”
“No, of course not.”
“Mother says you must go to Vermont.”
“Yes.  It seems I’ve been exiled from Little Rock.  General Steele practically accused me of being David’s accomplice.  Father and I will leave the day after tomorrow.”
Minerva embraced her and said, “I will miss you, Mary.”

When Minerva left, Mary circled the tree until she saw David’s initials carved on the tree next to her own. She removed a glove and placed her bare fingers on the letters and she shivered as if she had touched magical runes. “Oh, David,” she whispered. “If only you hadn’t been such a showoff, writing down everything you saw and thought in that strange Morse code.  If only you hadn’t copied down what we heard those Yankees saying in my house . . . .”  Mary looked again at the gibbet that the Yankees had built that morning.   It was constructed of two tall timbers joined at the top by a rough crossbeam.  Beneath the crossbeam dangled a thick hangman’s noose.
Near the crude gallows, Alderman Henry seemed to be engaged in somber conference with a group of Little Rock citizens. With him stood Mr. Walker and Mr. Fishback, the attorneys Henry had hired to represent David. Mary’s father now conversed with two Federal officers who billeted at their house.  His eyes met Mary’s, then turned away.  Mary could sense the hurt, disappointment, disgust, and anxiety that he felt. “Daddy,” she sobbed, and she leaned against the tree and buried her face in her arm.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Don’t you dare cry, Mary,” her mother whispered.  Her voice was bitter, with an edge sharp enough to cut a Yankee’s throat.  “David needs you to be strong.”
“Daddy betrayed David to the Yankees,” Mary said.  “And he as much as admitted to General Steele that I was guilty too.”
“No, your father’s just making sure they don’t hang you as a spy’s accomplice or send you to Rock Island.  The Yankees would just as soon hang a woman as man. You’ve heard what they’ve done to women in Alabama and Georgia.”  Her mother handed her a handkerchief. “Now, wipe your face.”

*   *    *

*I hope you enjoyed this excerpt. If you have any questions about David O. Dodd, please send them my way. rickeyp@bayou.com.

Exam Week

This week is exam week at ULM and at Delta. VA College is after that, so time will be a priceless commodity for a while.

Though I may make another post later today, today’s post is the lyrics of “Angeline,” another song by Mickey Newbury.

ANGELINE

Yesterday’s newspaper
Forecast no rain for today
But yesterday’s news is old news,
The skies are all grey
Winter’s in labor
And soon will give birth to the spring
Sprinkled  the meadow
With flowers for my Angeline

Heartache and sorrow
And sadness unendingly find
Wings on her memory
And with them she flies to my mind
She stretched her arms for a moment
Then went back to sleep
While morning stood watching me
Ever so silently weep

She opened her eyes Lord
The minute my feet touched the floor
The cold hardwood creaks
With each step that I make to the door
There I turned to her gently and said,
“Hon, just look, it’s spring”
Knowing outside the window
The winter looked for Angeline
But yesterday’s newspaper
Forecast no rain for today.

Jewel Kilcher

The January issue of Cowboy & Indians features an article and interview with Jewel. This glossy, high quality magazine features an individual each month. I knew a few things about Jewel: that she lived in Stephenville, Texas with her now husband, Ty Murray, a seven-time World All-Around Rodeo Champion, that her song and poetry writing abilities are extraordinary, and that she was a decent actress (Ride with the Devil, a fine Civil War movie). She is one artist who paid her dues in life, made her music and made it her way. Joe Leydon’s article points out that Jewel lived in her car for the better part of a year. She played small clubs coffeehouses and “anywhere else she could pass the hat, or, when she was really lucky, receive payment based on the size of the crowd she attracted.” She said she began writing her own songs to have enough material for an act. The article continues, “Then she made the rounds of the venues open to eager nobodies . . . Jewel slowly accumulated a small but enthusiastic following in San Diego.”  Then through local broadcasts of a bootlegged tape, record company executives found her.

About herself, Jewel says, “I wasn’t doing popular music . . . I was a songwriter, I was a storyteller. I was a throwback to the types of music I like, which are–I don’t think serious is the right word, but just lyric driven. Nobody thought I had a chance in heck. Including me” (110).

Her artistic standards and individuality is why there’s always been a classification problem with her. Does she belong in pop or country genres? The article says, “Despite her absence on Country radio playlists, Country music fans gravitated to her concerts. ‘They woud hear my music because I was on . . . Leno or Letterman . . . So they’d find their way to me and I would find my way to them.’ ”

Pick up an issue  of Cowboy & Indians and read this article yourself. There are also some fine photos of Jewel inside.

Musicians News:

Jim Crowley – Dec. 11 Enoch’s. You should go experience the music of this Irish legend.

Jed Marum – Dec. 20 at Enoch’s. This Internationally known Celtic and Civil War musician is making history. You mark my words.

Here is a photo of me, along Louisiana Highway 165. When I took this, I was thinking of the epigraph in Fahrenheit 451 by Juan Ramon Jiminez, which says, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”

Book Business News:

Here is a new video/interview of me at the Arkansas Reading Association in Little Rock. On the same page is another taken at the Texas Library Association.

Here’s another song by Mickey Newbury from his CD, Winter Winds.

Poison Red Berries

You know I don’t think much about her no more

Seldom if ever does she cross my mind

Yesterday’s gone Lord, it’s better forgotten

Like a poison red berry to die on the vine.

This morning at dawn Lord I pulled into town

Had some coffee and talked

With some old friends of mine

Laughing at all the good times they remembered

I remembered a time.

Lord I can see the bright lights back in Dallas

As Yesterday moves like a dream through my mind

I didn’t suppose I would ever forget her

And you know it took such a long time.

But I don’t think much about her no more

Seldom if ever does she cross my mind

Yesterday’s gone and better gortotten

Like a poison red berry it clings to my mind.

Black Friday: It’s raining. I’m sure the deluge will ruin shopping in our area, but maybe not. On the news I saw footage of shoppers shoving their way into stores. Some had a crazed look in their eyes. I’m locking myself up in the house to work on my writing and music business.

MASON: Here are three photos of my grandson. First, as Spiderman (his Halloween costume), and then two of an afternoon together in Forsythe Park in Monroe. He is riding the dragonfly in the first, then he wanted me to take a picture of him in my hat.

DUBACH:

On Nov. 7, I presented programs at Dubach High School.  The beautiful Amanda Cauley, a champion of literacy, arranged it.  Here are a couple of photos from that event. Part of my Civil War program involves teaching about Civil War Reenacting (Living History). I take both of my uniforms (Federal and Confederate, or if you prefer, Yankee & Rebel). The kids love to be dressed up. As I had on my Confederate uniform, this student had to make do with the Yankee getup. The second photo is of Amanda Cauley and a fellow teacher.  They wanted their picture taken with the Welsh flag I take to my presentations.

Dubach High School Reenactor

In addition to the usual holiday chores and festivities of feasting and TV, Thanksgiving Day this year looks like it will be a day of music practice for me.  There’s so many songs I want to learn. Thoughts of music made me think of this article I’m posting today. I sought and was granted permission to print this article that will be printed Ceili Magazine. The insightful and thought provoking piece is written by a man I consider to be the penultimate artist–Jed Marum. I hope you enjoy it. If you’d like to know more about Jed’s music and his busy schedule, his website is here:

“The Songs We Sing” by Jed Marum (Used by Permission)

I play a mix of pubs, concert rooms and festivals around the country but in the last year or so, I’ve settled into working fairly close to home as much as possible and work a semi-regular circuit of venues around Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Louisiana. One of my regulars is a pub I play in Shreveport Louisiana called the Noble Savage. It’s a fine old drinking establishment and dinner place with pool tables and darts in the back room and a large room in front with a stage, a full bar and lots of tables and chairs. They host live music there almost every night of the week and they’ve posted a sign on the stage, with letters so big even a musician can’t miss that reads, “NO BOBBY MAGEE!”

It makes me chuckle every time I see it. Being a Louisiana pub with local and traveling musicians working that stage night after night, year after year, I suspect they’ve heard more then their fair share of Bobby Magee! The funny thing is; I like that song! I am happy to sing it anytime someone asks for it.

There is a whole class of songs like that – songs the pub owners and musicians alike have heard or played over and over and have to put up with, or come to terms with in some way – songs that people request night after night, year after, generation after generation.

Every year I play the pubs it always amazes me as a new crop of Irish Pubsters hits the scene. They learn the songs and they discover the stouts, ales and whiskeys, along with their Irish roots – and every year, some young pub-goer will come to me and ask with a glint in his or he eye, “Hey, have you ever heard that great song that goes ‘No, nay, never’ and then everybody claps their hands?”

“Oh, you mean everyone claps four times, two times and one time?” I might respond?

“Yeah that’s the one!” they’d say, barely containing their enthusiasm.  “Sure I’ll play that in the next set,” I’d tell them, “but you might have to remind me. I’m apt to forget,” is probably how I’d end the conversation.

I ask them to remind me for two reasons, the first is that I really might forget (but that’s another story). The second and more important reason is that it is their enthusiasm for the song that makes it fun for me to sing. I want to be sure they’re ready to participate, if I’m going to sing the song.

It’s easy to get jaded when you work the music world a lot and have the same songs asked for over and over – but songs like the Wild Rover are fun to sing because people love them! Audiences enjoy singing and participating in the Wild Rover. It’s their pleasure that keeps me singing (and enjoying) these songs.

I was playing at another of my favorite and regular pubs a few weeks ago, a place up near Kansas City called O’Malley’s. The pub was packed. People were jamming, drinking, listening to the music with one ear and just having a time! A wild hair got a hold of me and before I could think better of it, I was off and singing with gusto, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, comin’ for to carry me home, swing low sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home.”

As I sang these first few bars of the song, you could almost feel the temperature of the room change. And when I got to the first line of the verse, “Now if you get there before I do,” there were a bunch of singers along joining me, but when the next line came, “comin’ for to carry me home” and for rest of the song, I had a good 150, variously alcohol impaired singers helping me raise the roof of the pub. It was a site to see and a joy to hear! Who would have guessed? The truth is; that song works. Everybody loves that song. Everybody wants to sing along when they hear it. The O’Malley’s crowd sang so beautifully and so lustfully (well maybe that’s the wrong word) that I told them they were certainly absolved of their hang-overs for the next day!

Sometimes I believe I have the best job in the whole world – not when I’m scouring the web and working the phones looking for work so I can stay ahead of the mortgage. I hate that part of the job – but when I get to sing songs for people and with people who love to sing them! Wow, that is a real treat! That really makes it all worthwhile.

My Dad used to sing. Every day of my life when I lived under his care as a child, even on those days when I visited years later as an adult, I heard my father sing. It just came out of him, sometimes at the oddest of moments. He’d be in the backyard raking leaves or in the driveway replacing the spark plugs of the old Ford and you’d hear him, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,” he’d be singing out loud to himself, as if he were alone in shower, “nobody knows my sorrow.” Or he might sing,

Have ya ever been in love me lads and do ya know the pain?
I’d rather be in jail meself then be in love again.
The girl I loved was beautiful, I’d have all to know
And I met her in the garden where the praities grow

Looking back, I realize those were teaching moments for my father. He chose to sing songs he loved, songs that had a message or a bit of humor, songs that started conversations, “You know my mother’s father taught me that song,” he’d say to me about Praities – and then tell me all about my great-grandfather from Galway and my father’s relationship with him.

Dad sang the Irish songs he learned from his parents, grandparents, uncles and cousins. He sang spirituals. He sang pop songs and big band era songs. He really sang any song that pleased him in some way – or had a message he wanted to pass on.

I caught that song-fever from my Dad. I sing at the drop of hat now and I love to do it. There are all kinds of reasons for singing the songs we sing. In the pub or in the pew, singing just comes naturally to us all. Culture, humor and love shine through our music and the songs we sing. And if we’re singing at church or in the shower, at the graveside or in the pub; the life and the light of generations is passed through the songs we sing.

Facts About Willie Nelson:

Here are some interesting facts I gleaned about Willie Nelson from Cowboys & Indians Magazine, Sept. 2008.  The article is written by Willie’s biographer, Joe Nick Patoski. (I hope to own Patoski’s book about Willie someday) There are several great photos of Willie in this issue. Speaking of that:  I’ve got a signed photo of Willie somewhere. There are several books written by and about him.  I remember watching Willie every Saturday night in Dallas on the Porter Wagoner show. I also remember many people not liking him or his singing. Boy, has that perspective changed!  There’s no shortage of Willie information on the Webb, but I found these points interesting.

1. Willie’s still on the road at 75. (I hope I can do that well!)

2. He is an actor, author, songwriter, former disc jockey.

3. He is an active supporter of American Indian and American farmer, animal, and rancher causes.

4. He sometimes lives in a tipi.

5. He plays a 30-year-old Martin nylon stringed, beat-up guitar that he calls Trigger. You can read more about the history of Martin guitars here:

6. The first Willie Nelson song I learned to play was “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” I do several of Willie’s songs in my Americana show.

ULM Tailgate Party , Nov. 1

Here I am at the ULM Chili Cook-off. I performed as Chili-Nelson.

ULM Chili Nelson

Here is the whole Chili-Nelson Crew!  We didn’t win the competition, but we should have!