Play these notes ascending -- A, B, D, E F#, A -- and you'll see that it only uses five notes. This is a pentatonic tunes.
There are others. You know how you'll sometimes meet someone new, and suddenly, they're everywhere you go? Learn a new word, and it pops up in everything you're about to read? You can now expect to stumble on pentatonic scales a few times over the next few weeks. Sandy River Belle, Sail Away Ladies, Brad Leftwich's version of Shortnin' Bread. Smokey Robinson's My Girl.
The others, because they're in different keys or a different range, make you use a third finger, but
Angeline's layout is nice because it just uses those two. You can play it while, simultaneously, using your middle finger to communicate with your fellow band-members. You can, for example, tell them there's only one more time through.
You can also try out all sorts of tricks with your right hand without much worrying about what to do with your left. It's a useful tune to fall back on when working through rhythmic conundra.
And, even though both parts start and end on A, the tune's clearly in D. The scale's really D, E, F#, A, B, D. The chords really are D, G, and A. Go figure.
The tune's a stripped-down version of Angelina Baker, a beautiful, Stephen Foster melody. The original is slower, more complex, and a fine addition to your repertoire. You can pull it out and dust it off the next time you play a concert or a minstrel show.
Our lyrics are stripped-down, too. Here are Stephen Foster's:
Way down on de old plantation,
Dah's where I was born,I used to beat de whole creation Hoein' in de corn;
Oh, den I work and den I sing, So happy all de day,'Til Angelina Baker came And stole my heart away.
Angelina Baker.The one I play?
Angelina Baker's gone.She left me here to weep a tearAnd beat on de old jawbone.
Angeline the Baker,Angeline the Baker.Angeline the Ba-ay-ker,Angeline the Baker.One suspects Foster, were he alive today, would, on hearing my version, quickly use his middle finger to signal me, "Last time."
Oh, and that guy you met recently that you keep seeing? He's stalking you.
