Chords for Cripple Creek Instructional for Clawhammer Banjo

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_ _ _ Hey there everybody, I was asked by a few people to give a little instructional video
on Cripple Creek. _
So one of the first songs I think that I ever learned, I posted a video of it so there's
a full video with a lot of little embellishments and things that I do in it.
That's available to watch on my YouTube channel.
_ But I just wanted to give a little breakdown of the basic melody and the chords behind
the song and then I'll give you a few of the little embellishments that I like to put in there.
I do some drop thumb stuff, some, I don't really know what you call it but it's kind
of like a brush slide rake kind of thing that you do.
_ _ But this is a good song for a beginner claw hammer banjo player to learn too.
It's a pretty familiar melody and it's a quick melody.
It's one of those songs that you can definitely tell was designed to be an old time dance tune.
Very short A and B parts and it's very repetitive.
You can play it forever and ever and ever and ever.
But just a basic run down, I'm just going to play through the A part and the B part
once just to let you hear and I'm going to do kind of a scaled back version of it.
Just give me just a second.
_ So it's key of G, G tuning.
[G] _ _ _ So G, D, G, B, D, standard G.
The chords that are going to be involved in the song are going to be just a G chord, _ a
C chord, _ [C] _ _
and then a [D] D7 chord or you can play a D chord.
_ Either [D] way. _
[F] They're interchangeable [Gm] a lot of the time.
The [N] D7 voicing to me, sometimes the D7 voicing works, sometimes the regular D works better.
But kind of a stripped back way of doing this and I'm going to do some taters into it just
to set the timing for you.
So _ _ [B] that's [G] _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ all there is to it.
It's a pretty quick melody.
A lot of times you will be playing that song faster than that.
Chord structure wise, the A part is going to go as such.
So you just kind of hum the melody yourself or I'll sing the melody while we play.
You'll have to excuse my singing.
So it'll be_ _ _ _ _
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So the first part goes from G to C to G [D] to D.
_ [Cm] The second part you just hang out on that
G chord for a while until you do a quick D [C] at the end.
_ If you know the number system, the A part is 1-4-1-5, the B part is just one with a
quick 5 at the end.
_ [C] So just a couple of the little embellishments that I like to put in on the A part.
I do a drop thumb on the C chord.
But before that I do this_
You rake but you slide into it.
By rake I mean you [G] do like _ _ _ _ a_
[F#] Like you slowly, you know, you bring your_
whichever lead [G] finger you use. _
_ _ _ So without the slide it would be_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
But what I like to do is when I do that rake, start on say the second fret and as you rake
you slide in from second fret to fifth fret.
So it sounds something like this.
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_ _ And it's a cool little embellishment that I like to use.
It's the same principle, you know, you can slide into a lot of notes like that but that's
just a long one.
So what I'll do is I slide into it and when I go to the C chord I don't always even form
the entire C chord because I'm not using [E] this _ low E note, I don't need it.
[A#] And I'm not going to hit it, you have to be real selective about it.
So when I go to the C chord I just fret the top.
So first fret on second [C] string, second fret on your first string.
And I'll [G] drop thumb that.
So it'll _ go_ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ So that's _ string number [Am] wise, 1, 2, [C] 1, 5, [G] open G.
[Cm] 1, 2, [G] 1, 5, open G. _
_ _ After that it's just standard slides really.
_ _ _ _ It's hammer-ons and pull-offs.
So slide, pull-off, hammer, pull, open.
So slide, pull-off, hammer.
_ _ [B] _
[C] So there's that.
The B part, I don't really get crazy with it, just _ slides [G] mostly. _
_ _ _ Slide, pull-off, hammer, open.
Slide, pull-off, slide.
Slide, pull-off, hammer, open.
And [A] you can do a lot of different things with that but that's just a real basic version of it.
_ One thing that I like to do sometimes is just to add something different and I'll just put
a whole bunch of straight cluck rhythms in there.
So instead of doing slides, I will form this chord.
So it's going to be fourth fret on your third string, [D] third fret on your second string.
And [D#] you're just going to [G] hammer-on just _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ so [D] you can do that. _
_ That's just some basic little embellishments that I like to [N] put in it.
So a way that I would_
I'm going to play it through again with just some different embellishments for you to look
at and I hope this helps you along your way.
Cripple Creek is just such a great song and there's so many_
It's open to so many ideas.
_ So I'm going to play it for you again, add a [F#] couple of things to it, and you can take
it and do what you will with it.
So I'm going to play it faster this time too.
Kind of closer to what you do in a real life situation.
So I'll take it down.
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_ _ _ _ Tag was a little weak but you get the picture.
So I really hope that helps you out.
I really want to do some more of these instructional videos.
Please, if you have any comments, any ideas of songs that you would like for me to break
down some of my playing or just give you an idea of just new styles to do or new little
embellishments, you are welcome to leave a comment here or you can find me on Facebook,
Twitter, or on Instagram, all of which are attached to my YouTube site.
So thank you very much.
I hope you have a great day and remember, drop thumbs, not bombs.
Have a good one. _
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