Chords for Little Birdie - Traditional Banjo Lesson (Up-Stroke, Up-Picking, Seeger Style) eCGAD

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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Dm] _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
Little birdie, little birdie, _ what makes you fly so high?
_ Don't you know, little birdie, _ life will pass you by. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [D]
Little birdie.
Let's jump right into it, y'all.
So playing Morphine for you guys and showing you that repetitive open string pull-off.
What I like to refer to as the Knott County lick, East Kentucky lick, which I learned
from George Gibson.
That repetitive droning sound.
[Bb] _ _ _ _
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In Little Birdie it's a little bit different than in Morphine, but it's awesome, it sounds great.
So [Eb] let's jump right into it.
Let's talk about the tuning that I'm in.
I'm with my 1888 Fluscombe Standard banjo here with nylon strings.
And my tuning that I'm in is D, _ [Bb] D, _ Bb, F, G, _ [C] C.
[A] That's the tuning that I'm in _ [G] for Little Birdie.
That's where I'm basically, I'm one whole step down from standard pitch.
If you want to play up to standard pitch, the normal tuning for Little Birdie is ECGAD.
_ [G] _ ECGAD.
And the way that you start out playing Little Birdie, most of it's out of this little chord.
You're going to take your ring finger and your index finger, put your ring finger on
the first string at the third fret.
[Gm]
I'm [Bb] sorry.
Put your ring finger on the second string at the third fret.
You put your index finger on the first string at the second fret.
Make you that little chord there.
F chord, I guess.
And your open [C] string pull-off is basically you're hitting, and you can do this straight overhand style.
[Bb] _ _
_ _ You're hitting the third string.
_ Your open string pull-off [Fm] is your ring finger.
[Bb] _ _ _ [G] _
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_ And then you, every once in a while, you'll switch over and you'll note that second string.
[Bb] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _
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Little Birdie. _ _ _ _
Little Birdie.
[Dm] Little Birdie. _
I'll make your head soar in.
_ On to the Little Birdie. _ _
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_ _ _ [Bb] _ You'll notice that for Little Birdie, I generally will use an up-picking style.
And for [D] a lot of the old-timers, and I try to do it too, a little added percussive emphasis
when you play Little Birdie.
Little Birdie is a dancing song.
It's a banjo dance song for sure.
George Gibson told me that some old-timer once told him that they wore out a new pair
of shoes dancing to Little Birdie one night.
_ [Dm] _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ So my up-stroke technique, basically, _ _ _ [F] like sometimes I'll do an up-stroke where I pick
up with the ball of my index finger, and then I brush down with these three fingers, [Gm] and
come off with the thumb.
[C] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
Chicka-boom, chicka-sap.
_ _ _ So on Little Birdie, I like to make it a prettier, softer, more percussive sound.
So I leave the brush out, and instead of brushing with these three fingers, I let them gently
slap the banjo head.
_ _ [Bb] _ [Fm] So what I'm doing is I'm hitting the string with [Bb] the ball of my index finger, and instead
of brushing down with these three fingers, I'm just brushing, I'm making sure to hit
the bass string, to drone that bass string.
I'm just brushing down on the bass string with my index, and letting my [G] three fingers
slap the head.
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
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I keep going back to that second string that I'm noting. _ _
The open string, but I'll note it in periodic.
[Dm] _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ Used to be a play, little boy.
I played down in the sand.
Now I am a great big boy.
Lord, it's hard to be a man. _
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_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
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_ Well, I guess that's enough for now, y'all.
I'll try to maybe [Eb] do a close-up of that.
We'll talk more about upstroke, up picking in the future.
We can break down Little Birdie further.
That's an important _ East Kentucky dance number that y'all should know.
I don't want everything to be about East Kentucky, East Kentucky.
It's not like that.
That's where I learned most of my music from, mostly from George Gibson, who's from there.
_ _ That's very Kentucky, as far as I know.
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_ _ Thanks for watching.
You'll see me again shortly.
_ [N] _