Category: Video

Here’s a funky tune from my recent collaboration with fiddler, Esther Morgan-Ellis. We’ve been working for the last year on a group of new old-time tunes. We’ve performed them in a series of concerts beginning in Spring 2024, and we plan to release a recording of them soon. Here’s a performance of my tune “Smoot’s Good Foot” from our concert at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega.

Here’s the tablature for the banjo part and a representative melody line.

Notes About This Tune

• “Smoot’s Good Foot” is in D, played in Double D tuning (aDADE) using the clawhammer style.
• This is a deeply crooked tune that nonetheless has a great groove.
• I usually play the quieter, groovier, unpredictable A part as many times as I like, before signaling to move to the louder, straighter B part.
• Esther and I have been playing “Smoot’s Good Foot” as the closing tune for a set.
• The tune gets its name from MIT student Oliver R. Smoot, for whom the smoot unit of measure was named. See Robert Tavernor’s Smoot’s Ear: The Measure of Humanity for more.

Give the tune a try, and add a comment to let me know what you think!

This is a fun finger-picked tune from my recent collaboration with fiddler, Esther Morgan-Ellis. The video is of our performance at the University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, of my tune “Pale Blue Dot Blues.”

And here’s the banjo tablature:

Notes About This Tune

• “Pale Blue Dot Blues” is in C, played in an open C tuning (eCEGC) using the two-finger, thumb lead up picking style.
• I like the way this tune sounds on a fretless banjo with Nylgut strings–a low, mellow tone with some nice slides thrown in for color.
• The piece isn’t really a blues. It’s not in a blues style or blues form, though its ABABC structure could be a nod to the typical AAB phrases of a 12-bar blues.
• The title comes from the Pale Blue Dot photo (above) of earth taken by the Voyager I explorer.