Background
Cripple Creek is often one of the first tunes introduced in a banjo lesson, and a standard in repertoire. The melody is well defined, and has likely been around much longer than the sometimes added lyrics. Cripple Creek is played on many instruments; on the banjo, Scrugg’s and melodic styles as well as clawhammer versions are common
Arrangement
This video and tab below show the development of an arrangement starting with a single note melody. The second pass through adds some basic clawhammer rhythm with the right hand thumb on the 2 and 4 beat, the ditty bit of the (n) famous bum – ditty rhythm clawhammer rhythm. Slides, pull-offs and drop thumbing are incorporated into the final tabbed version. Generally speaking, the trick to building up an arrangement is to fit the melody around the rhythm. This essentially means placing the melody notes within your right hand pattern when playing clawhammer banjo
Drop thumbing can be used as a rhythmic or melodic device where the thumb drops to play a string other than the high G. Melody notes can then be added on the off beats or slight swing created in the right hand pattern. In this example, I’ve mostly used drop thumbing to pad out the rhythm, but also used this technique to create a little chromatic run in the second section towards the end of the tune.
The video below shows 5 passes through the tune, where the fourth and fifth times take a few more liberties with the melody. I played these variations in the B section as there felt s a little more space for interpretation there. If I was to play it again another day it would probably come out differently again. Have a go applying some of ideas in this short banjo lesson to another tune, maybe ‘Bile Dem Cabbage Down’ or ‘Cluck Old Hen’