This page holds clawhammer banjo tabs done by the Banjo HangOut's Old Woodchuck. These tabs are provided by OWCB as an educational service to any and all banjo players who are interested in this style of music and playing. Tabs here are provided freely and can be copied, printed and/or given out, but please do not use them for personal profit (refer to the  Creative Commons License at the bottom of the page).

Here are five (5) different tabs by Old Woodchuck for the Old Time fiddle tune "Whiskey Before Breakfast", each presented in a different style:

Whiskey Before Breakfast in 5 styles:
  Bare Breakdown Style - TEF
  Breakdown Style - TEF
  Chord Style - TEF
  Contradance or Melodic - TEF
  Wade Ward/Kyle Creed Influenced - TEF

Next, Old Woodchuck has tabbed out 6 tunes in F tuning (f CFCD):
  Barlow Knife - TEF
  Flying Indian - TEF
  Last Chance - TEF
  Possum On A Rail - TEF
  Sandy River Belle - TEF
  Roustabout - TEF

and one in A modal:
   Twin Sisters - TEF

And, finally, he presents you with 5 exercises for the fretting hand's little (or Pinky) finger. Exercise 5 is sometimes referred to as "The Chord of Death" and presents a challenge.
(Old Woodchuck has discovered a discrepancy with the finger notation in several of the exercises he has developed. When indicating which left-hand finger to use, the 3rd finger (the Ring finger) has been indicated by either the letter R  (for Ring) or A (for Annulus). These notations are both correct, but might confuse anybody not aware that they are the same finger.)

  1. Introduction and Banjo-less (Tabletop) Exercises - PE-1
  2. Vertical Exercises (Working up and down the neck) - PE-2
  3. Horizontal Exercises (Working across the strings) - PE-3
  4. Finger Stretches (Increasing your reach) - PE-4
  5. The Chord of Death! And a 3-finger challenge - PE-5