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Little Darlin' Pal of Mine banjo tabs

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  • Tablatures

    Scruggs Style

    Earl Scruggs

    Little Darlin' Pal of Mine is a great jam tune, and an example of a song that is in the key of G but starts on the IV chord - C. It's definitely worth it to check out Earl's version on Foggy Mountain Banjo.

    Learn
  • Melodic Style

    Earl Scruggs

    Due to this arrangement's "Adam Steffy-esque" stream of notes, it's pretty technical. For it to sound right, all of the notes need to be even. Practice slowly to achieve this.

    Learn
  • Backup

    Earl Scruggs

    This is a down-the-neck rolling backup arrangement of Little Darlin' Pal of Mine that sounds great behind vocalists or other instrumentalist's solos.

    Learn

More about Little Darlin' Pal of Mine

Bluegrass musicians have recorded and performed Little Darling Pal of Mine as instrumental many times. It is frequently used as a banjo-feature tune when played as an instrumental. Nevertheless, the initial recorded version of the song (by the Carter Family) that many of the bluegrass musicians of the first and second generation learned the melody was a sung version, and some bluegrass artists recorded sung versions of the song. I choose to sing the song at jams, instead of leading it as an instrumental. This music is from The Carter Family and features on The Carter Family Volume 1-1927-1934 (2002), it can also be found on the Carter Family Volume 2-1935-1941 (2003) compilation set.

Learn 3 different versions of Little Darlin' Pal of Mine, which are all shown on this page. We recommend that you get started with the Scruggs style version, where you’ll learn basic roll pattern and left hand articulations like slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. Next, move on to the Melodic arrangement to learn how to play the melody for Little Darlin' Pal of Mine using scales and up the next positions. Lastly, you can check out the Backup arrangement, which shows you how to play behind others while they are soloing.

There are many Scruggs, melodic and bluesy licks in these three banjo Little Darlin' Pal of Mine tablatures, which can be used to personalize each arrangement into your liking. To change measure into different arrangement, just click on the "Original Measure" text above the measure and select a different lick. You can also click the "Shuffle licks" button at the bottom of the page to randomly change all of the licks in the tablature and create a wholly unique arrangement of this song.

There are a number of fantastic learning tools in Tunefox to help you memorize, learn by ear, and improve your speed. These special features are found in the "Tools" menu at the bottom right of your screen. The "Hide Notes" tool will hide a number of the notes in the tab so you can use your ears to learn parts of the melody of the Little Darlin' Pal of Mine. Next, try out the "Memory Train" tool, which will hide more and more notes each time the song or measure loops. This will help get you off of the tab you’ve been working with so you can play it by memory. The "Speed Up" feature gradually speeds up the song so you can hone your technique and challenge yourself to go faster.

Using backing tracks for practice should be an essential part of every musician’s routine. With Tunefox, you can practice Little Darlin' Pal of Mine as fast or as slow as you want and mix the volume of the tracks with the instrument to your liking. There’s also a metronome so you can always feel the pulse of the song with or without the band track playing along.

Once you’ve settled on an arrangement of Little Darlin' Pal of Mine using the Lick Switcher, export your arrangement to a PDF file so you can print it out and take it with you. This is a member-only feature.