Song · Chords
Angeline the Baker banjo
Angeline the Baker is one of those old-time tunes that sounds far harder than it is. The melody is pretty and singable, yet under it sits a simple two-chord tune that clawhammer players adore. Here are the two chords, how the tune is built, your capo and tuning options, and how to practise it up to speed.
A pretty tune that’s easier than it sounds
Angeline the Baker grew out of Stephen Foster’s “Angelina Baker” and long ago slipped into the old-time tradition, where it became a beloved clawhammer tune (all of it firmly in the public domain). It has a lovely, singable melody that makes people assume it is an advanced piece — but the secret is that it is really a two-chord tune. Most of it leans on the home chord, with a move to the IV to answer each phrase. That gap between how it sounds and how simply it is built is exactly what makes it so satisfying to learn.
The two chords you need
Angeline the Baker is a I–IV tune: you spend most of it on the home chord and move to the IV to answer each line. Shown here in open G that is G and C — the only two chords in the whole tune. The numbers are frets, 0 means play the string open, and the top line is your 1st string:
The progression itself is simple and repeats. Each phrase leans on the home chord and touches the IV before falling back home:
How the tune is built
Angeline the Baker is an AABB tune: two phrases, each played twice. In clawhammer you frail the melody with the classic bum-ditty motion — the melody notes are simply the ones your striking finger lands on as the rhythm rolls past them, with the thumb catching the fifth string to drive it along. Because it only ever asks for two chords, your left hand is free to concentrate on shaping the melody, which is why it is such a rewarding tune to grow your phrasing on.
You will most often hear Angeline the Baker in D. On banjo the two usual routes are to capo 2 up from open G, or to use an alternate “double” tuning that puts you in D. The chord shapes above are written in open G because they are the easiest to read — capo them up and everything moves the same way. Our guide to how to play the banjo walks through both right hands so you can pick the sound you love.
How to learn it
How you practise matters more than how long. These four steps are the difference between a tune you can nearly play and one you actually own.
Before you touch the melody, play a plain bum-ditty on the open strings until it is even and automatic. Angeline the Baker lives inside that rhythm, so a shaky stroke is a shaky tune. Two minutes of clean frailing beats ten minutes of fumbling the whole song.
It is an AABB tune: two phrases, each played twice. Do not try to swallow it whole. Get the A part clean and memorised on its own, then the B part, then join them. Most people can hold half a tune in their hands long before the whole thing.
Play it slow enough that you never trip — even if that is painfully slow — with a metronome ticking. Speed is a by-product of clean repetition, not something you chase. Nudge the tempo up only once the current speed feels effortless.
There is almost always a single spot — often the move to the IV chord and back — that catches you. Isolate that one bar, play it ten times cleanly, then stitch it back into the phrase. Running the whole tune to fix one bad bar wastes most of your practice.
A couple of small things smooth the whole process. A set of finger & thumb picks give you a clean, bright tone to shape the melody with, and a clip-on tuner on the headstock means every run at the tune starts in tune — handy when you are capoing up to D, because an out-of-tune banjo trains your ear the wrong way.
Getting the full arrangement
This page gives you the chords, the shape of the tune and how to practise it — everything you need to start playing Angeline the Baker by ear. For a written, note-for-note arrangement to read alongside it, a good banjo tab & chord book is the most reliable source — and the chords and shape you have learned here will make that arrangement far quicker to read.