Angeline the Baker

About this piece

A gentle, singing old-time tune, a favorite at jams because the melody is plain and lovely. It sits well in double C tuning (g C G C D): most notes are open strings or the 2nd fret. Every finger stroke falls on a beat; the eighth notes between come from the thumb (on the 5th string, or dropped onto the 3rd string) or from a hammer-on with the left hand. Fiddlers play it in D: put a capo at the 2nd fret (and raise the 5th string to A) to play along with them.

What it practices

• double C tuning
• strikes on the beat
• drop-thumb
• hammer-ons and a pull-off
• C and F chords

Chords in this song

C · F

Each link opens the chord finder with more ways to play that chord.

Where the notes come from

Melody checked note by note against an ABC transcription of “Angeline the Baker” (in D) in John Chambers’s tune collection at MIT (trillian.mit.edu), moved down a step to C and an octave lower. We leave out the pickup notes and start on the downbeat. Every melody note of that version is in our tab at its time (one high G is played on the 5th string, an octave up). Chords are ours. History of the title from Wikipedia.

How to practice with it

1. Listen first. Press Play and follow along. The note being played lights up in the tab, in the notation and on the fretboard, and the chord being played lights up in the row of chord diagrams.
2. Learn the chords. Press each diagram to hear it, then practice changing between them slowly.
3. Slow it down. Use − and + to set the tempo. 60% is a good place to start; the notes keep their pitch.
4. Loop the hard part. Under More…, turn on Loop, pick the bars, and play them a few times in a row. Count-in gives you a bar of clicks before it starts.

Click a bar in the music to start from there. Space plays and pauses. Left-handed? Turn on the left-handed view: the chord diagrams and the fretboard are mirrored to match your instrument. Tab reads the same either way: the top line is always the first (highest) string.