Lonesome Pine - Melody

Lonesome Pine is a bluegrass standard with a beautiful melody that sounds wonderful on banjo, even without the typical adornment of Scruggs style banjo playing. For your pick hand you can use the suggested fingerings in the banjo tablature or you can pick all the notes with your thumb. Learning the melody is about learning the heart of the song, not about perfect technique, although you can use this as an opportunity to work on pick hand posture, tone production and timing.

Learning the basic melody for any tune is crucial for all players. It will help you learn, understand and internalize so many musical elements at once, especially if you hum, sing or speak the words. Practice listening. Notice the different patterns. There's often several "small" or short notes that lead up to "big" notes that are held out for longer. The short ones are often referred to as pickup or lead-in notes. For example in the start of the song the melody notes for the words, "There's a" are the pickup notes before the big and important melody note that happens with the word "path". This is an important concept and common to almost all melodies, especially ones that have lyrics

There are some other patterns to notice. The melody has certain notes that repeat, but also certain rhythms. The rhythm or beat is as much a part of the identity of a melody as the pitch changes. Also, notice how chords coincide with changes in the melody. That's why the chords are there, to support and reinforce changes in the melody. The chord changes will usually follow the "big" notes in the melody. This one can be a bit tricky, because some of the measures start with small notes but have the big important ones in the middle of the measure. For a more clear look at the important pitch changes, check out the melody outline for this tune.

The capo 4 here is a suggestion for where this tune is commonly played in jam and band settings. If you are learning on your own you can learn, play and practice without a capo. Some people might also play this capo 2. If you learn it without the capo the fretting hand positions will all be the same when the capo is considered the new open or zero fret.

Explore more Lonesome Pine Banjo Tabs:

Scruggs Style, Melody Outline