cleaning up gold

This video illustrates one of my banjos fiddle tune arrangements featured in my upcoming article for the Banjo Newsletter, called Orville's Way, Finding a Bridge from Bluegrass to old Time. You can find the article on-line, here:

https://banjonews.com/index.html

Picking with my good friend Don Couchie, who came down from Ontario to stay at Banjo Hell for the duration. Cripple Creek is the tune that got me started, and it is still my favorite tune.

I first learned this tune from my Boston area fiddler friend Jerry Borne. It is in A Dorian. Note the quick use of the major third in the second time through the B part. I just found this video; I made several years ago, but apparently never got around to uploading it. Maybe I thought then that I could improve my performance; now I know better, my fingers are getting older, not younger. I am playing my semi-fretless Paramount with the banjo tuned in A Variant tuning (aEABE).

Jamming at Banjo Hell in the key of C. This elegant tune comes originally from the repertoire of Alabama fiddler Mack Blalock. It has been popularized by fiddler James Bryan, who came up with a playful variation to the A part which has morphed into a separate third part by most fiddlers today.