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Comment by frank tennyson on September 15, 2012 at 4:25am

OK, chromanic - diatonic? 2 12 8 etc>  My head hurts. I haven't a clue what any of this is!  How does this relate to GDG, or EBE? 

And "Thank You" Night Owl for you instructional videos on YouTube and taking the time.

Comment by Ara on September 15, 2012 at 4:18am

@Gary Williams

Keni Lee Burgess has a bunch of stuff on youtube and some CD lessons for sale that I would recommend.

Let me dig around my place for some starting tab stuff.

Comment by Gary Williams on September 15, 2012 at 12:25am

How can I learn Delta Blues style are there Tabs for it on three string 

Comment by TwoShoes on August 1, 2012 at 8:20am

Anyone ever heard of John Fahey?  If you have, then you already know he is an accomplished 6-six string acoustic instrumentalist.

Well, his tabs are here (yeppers, fer free):

http://www.johnfahey.com/Tablatures.htm

WOW!

Comment by Habanera Hal on May 1, 2012 at 1:08pm

Can anyone please post tabs or transposed chords for Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel".  Would prefer for a 4 string tuned eBGD but will adjust tuning for any EASY fingering.  Thanks!!

Comment by Rand Moore on January 30, 2012 at 9:48pm

Regarding my previous comment: I'm a bit troubled by the end of the third verse where the lyrics say "Be-lieve me." and the notes are "D-E D-E D" in the original score. I think that maybe the second D-E is just an error. "Be-lieve me." sounds fine when matched with notes "D E D". So, the last line of verse 3 should beNow I'm wondering if "wait -" should be "8" (or "14") rather than "7-8" (or "12-14"). Well I guess we're free to simplify the song if we so choose.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on January 30, 2012 at 4:38pm

Thanks Habanera Hal.

I'll have to see if I can find more simple music scores of Leo Redbone songs so I can do the tabs and learn to play them. I already have Polly-Wolly Doodle, which I guess I can post here sometime soon. In the mean time, for all the chromatic CBG players, here's Ain't Misbehavin' renumbered for chromatic instruments:

I'd also like to point out that on the diatonic version, the "6" frets should actually be "6+" (fret 6 and a half). For some reason I missed that in two places.

Also, in both version of the tabs, I'm a bit troubled by the end of the third verse where the lyrics say "Be-lieve me." and the notes are "D-E D-E D" in the original score. Maybe someone can tell me how to better match the notes to the lyrics. If I still had a recording I might be able to figure it out (and Youtube is blocked in China :-( Suggestions are welcome.

-Rand.

Comment by Habanera Hal on January 30, 2012 at 12:59am

Great post, Rand!  I've always enjoyed Leon Redbone, too.  Thanks!

Comment by Rand Moore on January 29, 2012 at 8:45pm

Hi All.

I did a set of diatonic tabs today for a song called Ain't Misbehavin', a song I first heard on a Leon Redbone album some 20 or 30 years ago, and which I thought might sound good on CBGs and rough scraggly voices like my own. Turns out the song was written by a trio of guys back in 1929, probably making it a copyrighted song. The writers' names are Thomas "Fats" Waller,
Harry Brooks (music) and Andy Razaf (lyrics). Fats Waller claimed
the song was written while "lodging" in alimony prison, and that is
why he was not "misbehaving." Well, here it is:

There you have it.  Enjoy.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on January 25, 2012 at 7:33pm

Hi All.

Back again for another mind dump intended for beginner level players of diatonic mountain- and stick dulcimers as well as diatonic canjos and similar instruments. However, these tabs can be re-numbered to work with chromatic 3-string CBGs and similar instruments using the chromatic <==> diatonic fret mapping diagram that is included below. The rest of this posting will describe how to use another on-line source for older traditional songs (and which includes a dulcimer tabs generator tool). This site is called "Yet Another Digital Tradition Page" (http://sniff.numachi.com), which is  somehow related to "The Mudcat Cafe" (http://www.mudcat.org/) -- another great site for researching songs. I know I have mentioned this sight before on CBN, but I thought this place would be a better place to describe it in further detail. So, here goes...

The "Yet Another Digital Tradition" ("YADT") page has tons of old public domain songs arranged in alphabetical order by song title. Pick a letter from their alphabetic navagation tool and a list of all the songs that begin with that letter will appear. To find a song, scroll down this list until you see its title and click on it. The song page will appear, showing a graphic of its default musical score. Below that, you'll see this line that includes eight links:

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

If you click on the "Dulcimer tab" link, it will take you to their "Experimental Mountain Dulcimer Tab" which detects the apparent key of the song and offers a number of buttons labeled with suggested tunings in deifferent modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian). Since I play in either Myxolydian mode or Ionian mode, I'll try these suggested arrangements first, or enter my own tuning in the three drop down selection boxes titled "Melody", "Middle" and "Bass" located toward the bottom of the page. Which ever way you go, another graphic will be shown with the tabs arranged as you selected.

Now you must decide if this is a good arrangement. First, scan the tabs for three "X"s arranged vertically. These correspond to notes not found on the diatonic fretboard (most accidentals). If more than one or two appear in the whole song, then I'd reject the arrangement. [With 1 or 2 off sounding notes, you can sometimes fake the note by "bending", which is to bend the string sideways as you fret (stop) it, which sharpens the note, making it sound closer to the note originally called for in the tabs.] The other thing I look for is ease of playing. If it calls for say note "3/6", which is the sixth fret of the third string, I consider the note "out of range" and go back to try other arrangements. "In range" notes are 2/0, 2/1, 2/2 and all the notes on string 1. I dislike playing melody notes on string 3 as it is a wire wound string that causes a lot of fret noise as I drag my fingers over them when fretting. I also prefer arrangements where the whole tune falls on the melody string (string 1), as this allows the arrangement to be played on one-string canjos. However, if the arrangement sounds too high, I may go back and select another arrangement that is effectively transposed down 3 notes, so that the song's lowest note is played on "2/0" (string 2, fret 0). This means I generally have to look at 6 or 8 tab arrangements before I find my ideal set of tabs.

The diatonic fretboard used on mountain- and stick-dulcimers implements "in hardware" (as I like to say), the Myxolydian mode scale intervals. So, if you can come up with a "1-5-8" (sometimes called "1-5-1") tuning arrangement for your tabs in, say A-E-A', you can still play it on your D-A-D' tuned dulcimer. But instead of being in the "Key of A", it will be in the "Key of D". This means for solo performers, no need for further transposing (retuning or capoing) unless they want to better match their singing voice. If you need to match voice, or play in the key used by other players (instruments), then you may have to revisit the "YADT" page, or experiment with retuning your instrument and/or using a capo.

Anyway, the "YADT" page, with its "Experimental Mountain Dulcimer Tab" tool, provides a lot of song tabs usable by beginner and intermediate level dulcimer players. If you are a chromatic 3-string CBG player, these diatonic tabs will either have to be renumbered, or you will have to mark which frets on your chromatic fretboard are the diatonic ones -- and of course tune your instrument accordingly. One guitar teacher-player in Australia (Jef was his name, he's a CBN member) suggests using an indelible black ink marker to black-out the frets for the accidentals (sharp and flat notes). The only accidental notes that will appear on the diatonic fret boards are the ones that map out to diatonic fret 6 (chromatic fret 10) and possibly diatonic fret 13 (chromatic fret 22) if your fret board is long enough to contain a full two octaves worth of notes on a single string. The notes on diatonic frets 6 and 13  correspond to the flattened seventh that makes the major scale turn into Myxolydian mode. Also, be sure not to skip diatonic frets 6½ and 13½ (chromatic frets 11 and 23) as these frets are the one that allow you to play major scale (Ionian mode) songs on your dulcimer.

As there is a difference between how chromatic frets are numbered and how diatonic frets are numbered, I've included this information in the following table. This table is not only useful for a diatonic fretboard maker, but also to chromatic fretted instrument players who want to renumber diatonic tabs into chromatic ones. The table may also help diatonic players to renumber chromatic tabs to diatonic, if they aren't afraid of encountering occasional accidentals not covered on their diatonic fretboard (try "bending" the notes). So here's that table:

Also, with regards to tuning a diatonic instrument like a dulcimer to play both Ionian mode and Myxolydian mode music, I typically choose one of the tunings included in the 1-5-8 tuning family of tunings, usually D-A-D' or G-D-G'. However other tunings (keys) are possible. Here is a list of the seven most commonly used ones:

Key of A:  A-E-A'  

Key of B:  B-F-B'

Key of C:  C-G-C'

Key of D:  D-A-D'

Key of E:  E-B-E'

Key of F:  F-C-F'

Key of G:  G-D-G'

So, you can use these 7 tunings with the "Experimental Mountain Dulcimer Tab" tool to come up with different tab arrangements in hopes of finding one with no "triple Xs" (unsupported notes) and which will be easier to play.

Any questions or comments, you can post 'em here and I'll respond next chance I get.

-Rand.

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