Misplaced Pages

#934065

26-481: Regular performers at the festival include Benton Flippen , the Carolina Chocolate Drops , and Ira Bernstein . 36°30′54″N 80°37′05″W  /  36.5151°N 80.6181°W  / 36.5151; -80.6181 This music festival-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Benton Flippen James Benton Flippen (July 18, 1920 – June 28, 2011)

52-492: A "D" chord on the neck with the index and ring finger, Flippen did it with index and middle finger. His bowing was described as smooth and heavily shuffled, having been perfected over many years of playing for square dances. As Paul Brown describes in the liner notes to Old Time, New Times , "It cries the blues, shouts a spiritual message, resounds with the celebration of a square dance or house party. It's full of syncopation and stretch, yet solidly down-to-earth." Flippen also had

78-467: A distinctive banjo playing style and a common component of American old-time music . The style likely descends from that of West African lutes, such as the akonting which are also the direct ancestors of the banjo. The principal difference between clawhammer style and other styles is the picking direction. Traditional picking styles ( classic banjo ), including those for folk , bluegrass , and classical guitar , consist of an up-picking motion by

104-434: A rhythmic accompaniment to other musicians. In particular, the duo of a fiddler playing melody alongside a driving clawhammer accompanist once served as a basic Appalachian dance band, as recalled by Ralph Stanley in his autobiography, Man of Constant Sorrow . A common characteristic of clawhammer patterns is the thumb does not pick on the downbeat, as one might in typical fingerpicking patterns for guitar. For example, this

130-434: A style in which the pinky finger or the pinky and ring fingers are used to brace the hand and the index finger, middle finger, and thumb are used to pluck the strings. The index and middle fingers are held in a claw shape and they do resemble the two prongs of a claw hammer , but this is an uncommon and arguably incorrect usage of the term "clawhammer". See fingerpicking . The clawhammer banjo technique works quite well on

156-399: A unique two-finger banjo style. He said he found it difficult to play clawhammer banjo, and though he liked hearing it, the three-finger bluegrass style wasn't quite for him, so he came up with his own heavily syncopated two-finger picking style that combined drive and charm. Clawhammer Clawhammer , sometimes called down-picking, overhand, or most commonly known as frailing , is

182-459: Is a common, basic 2/4 pattern: Here, the thumb plays the high drone on the second "and" of "one and two and ". This combined with the middle finger strumming provides a characteristic "bum-ditty bum-ditty" banjo sound, whether actually played on a banjo or on a guitar. The fretting hand also comes into play in this approach to playing banjo. The fretting hand can hammer, pull off, slide and bend individual and groups of strings. This can create

208-555: Is one exception to this rule: variations on a common clawhammer banjo lick (that you can hear on the climatic high notes of the second part of Polly Put the Kettle On, and the third part of Joke on the Puppy) when the thumb plays on beat. Fourth, for any piece, most of the notes are produced by the left hand, in combinations of slides, hammers, and pull-offs; slurs can occur on or off the beat. Fifth, I play in multiple tunings, and sometimes replace

234-466: Is produced either by the index finger or the thumb. Second, no note is ever plucked; each is played either with the thumb, or by striking down on a string with the nail of the index finger. Third, the index finger never plays off the beat, and the thumb never plays on the beat. This feature of clawhammer technique gives the music a heavier – and, to my ear, more natural – drive than it would have if it were played, say, as melody over an alternating bass. There

260-405: Is used for rhythmic downward brushing. In clawhammer, only downstrokes are used, and they are typically played with one fingernail as is the usual technique on the banjo. Alec Stone Sweet describes the clawhammer technique in the liner notes to "Tumblin' Gap: Clawhammer Guitar Solos": "There are five characteristics of the way I play clawhammer. First, every specific note played by the right hand

286-1198: The Festival of American Fiddle Tunes , the Smithsonian Institution , the Library of Congress , the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, Fayette County, West Virginia , and many more highly esteemed venues. In 2008, at the age of 88, he headlined the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention in California. In the late 1990s Flippen reorganized his Smokey Valley Boys with new and previous members. The later lineup of his band often included Frank Bode singing and playing guitar, William Flippen (Benton's grandson) on guitar, Kevin Fore playing banjo, Verlin Clifton on mandolin, and Andy Edmonds playing banjo and guitar. Flippen gained popularity among

SECTION 10

#1732852091935

312-468: The fingers and a down-picking motion by the thumb ; this is also the technique used in the Scruggs style for the banjo. Clawhammer picking, by contrast, is primarily a down-picking style. The hand assumes a claw-like shape and the strumming finger is kept fairly stiff, striking the strings by the motion of the hand at the wrist or elbow, rather than a flicking motion by the finger. In its most common form on

338-671: The Camp Creek Boys and the Smokey Valley Boys. Flippen was a recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1990. Flippen was raised on a farm in Surry County, North Carolina , where he first played the banjo during his childhood. His father was an accomplished old time banjo picker, as were his uncles and brothers. During his youth he visited his fiddling uncle John Flippen, quickly turned to playing

364-509: The Smokey Valley Boys, an outfit that preserved Flippen's unique musical abilities on recordings. The band also earned awards at numerous fiddling competitions, before disbanding in 1985. In 1990, the North Carolina Folk Heritage Awards honored Flippen, who was recognized for a unique style of string fingering. Flippen was also renowned for his original compositions, which include "Benton's Dream," "Fiddler's Reel," "Sally in

390-853: The Turnip Patch," and "Smokey Valley Breakdown." During his career, Flippen took first place numerous times in fiddle and band contests. He won seven times at the Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, Virginia ; three times at the Union Grove Old Time Fiddlers' Convention ; and at the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention , among many others. He also played at the Newport Folk Festival , the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee ,

416-414: The banjo was the folk instrument of African Americans before its wider spread, the clawhammer would thus be a descendant style of o’teck and related West African techniques. Although much traditional clawhammer banjo playing is highly rhythmic, it typically includes elements of melody, harmony, rhythm and percussion. The varied playing styles emphasize these elements to different degrees, sometimes changing

442-454: The banjo, only the thumb and middle or index finger are used and the finger always downpicks, hitting the string with the back of the fingernail . By contrast, the thumb rests on the fifth string with the downpick motion, and is often released in a lighter up-pick to create the distinctive clawhammer sound. This style of down-picking is also the traditional technique used to play the akonting , called o'teck (literally, "to stroke"). Given that

468-472: The emphasis during the performance of a single tune. The possibilities include sounding individual melodic notes, strumming harmonic chords, strumming and picking to produce rhythmic and percussive effects on the strings, as well as making percussive effects by brushing or thumping the thumb or fingers upon the banjo head or skin. This diverse range of musical sounds and effects gives clawhammer banjo its artistic solo potential in addition to its traditional role as

494-489: The fiddle and started playing with the area's noted bands and musicians, among them the Green Valley Boys led by Glenn McPeak, with Esker Hutchins and Leak Caudill. Esker became an important influence on Flippen's fiddling style, which included a heavy bow shuffle and bluesy notation. In the late 1960s he was asked to fiddle with the Camp Creek Boys, after Fred Cockerham's departure. From the 1970s on, Flippen belonged to

520-565: The fifth string after every beat rather than every other beat, while drop thumbing refers to dropping the thumb from the 5th drone string down to strike a melody note. Confusing the nomenclature further are the many older traditional terms which include "overhand," "knockdown", "hoedown," "down-picking," "rapping," "beating," "stroke style," and "clubbing." This is reflective of the informality of old-time music in general, as each player develops an idiomatic style. Although both "clawhammer" and "frailing" are primarily used to refer to banjo styles,

546-422: The illusion that the picking hand is doing something more than down-picking. While the terms "clawhammer" and " frailing " can be used interchangeably, some old-time players draw a distinction between the two. Some players further distinguish between "drop-thumb" and "clawhammer." The term "double-thumbing" is sometimes used interchangeably with "drop-thumbing," though double thumbing refers specifically to striking

SECTION 20

#1732852091935

572-443: The old-time music community for his unique approach to fiddling. Having rather large hands, he discovered the best way to get around the neck was to slide his index and middle fingers, rather than fingering up and down the scale with all four fingers as most people do — including his mentor, Esker Hutchins. On some tunes, he slid up the neck with one finger as he nearly simultaneously slid down with another. Where most fiddlers make

598-409: The sixth string bass with a high sixth string treble (of the same gauge employed for the first string). The banjo player will realize that I use my thumb on the bass strings to obtain drones, much as a clawhammer player uses the banjo’s high fifth string; indeed, when I string the guitar with a high treble in place of the sixth-string bass, it is partly to imitate the fifth string of the banjo. In many of

624-416: The terms do appear with reference to guitar. Jody Stecher was the first guitarist to record in the style, as accompaniment for the song "Red Rocking Chair" on his recording, A Song that Will Linger , with Kate Brislin. Fingerstyle guitarist Steve Baughman distinguishes between frailing and clawhammer as follows. In frailing, the index fingertip is used for up-picking melody, and the middle fingernail

650-651: The tunes, I keep multiple drones going, on different strings. To sum up, in my version of clawhammer guitar, the thumb plays off the beat, even when it plays harmony bass notes or bass lines; no strings are ever plucked; with respect to the right hand, only the index finger and the thumb sound notes, but never at the same time. What is incredible is how much full textured sound one finger, one thumb, and left hand slurs can generate." Players in this down-picking style include Jody Stecher , Barbecue Bob , Ola Belle Reed, Alec Stone Sweet , Steve Baughman, and Michael Stadler. Another usage of "clawhammer" in guitar circles refers to

676-549: Was an American old-time fiddler from Mount Airy, North Carolina . He was one of the last surviving members of a generation of performers born in the early 20th century playing in the Round Peak style centering on Surry County, North Carolina . His contemporaries included Tommy Jarrell , Fred Cockerham , Kyle Creed , and Earnest East . Flippen learned to play old-time music early in life from his father, uncles, and brothers. He composed several original tunes and performed with

#934065