Welcome to WORLD BANJO on the Web! Saz Creek is based on the tune
Salt Creek (Salt River). A saz is a Turkish long-necked lute played with a
plectrum.
        Those who have Pete Wernick's BLUEGRASS BANJO instructional book
(Oak Publications) will notice the rolls in the first A section of Saz
Creek generally correspond to those found on p.104 in the Bill Keith
version of Salt Creek.  The two "Creek" arrangements subtly differ in the
left-hand fingering, as the melody of Salt Creek is slightly altered to
produce a distinctive "middle eastern" sound in Saz Creek.

Saz Creek was designed to be inserted into an arrangement of Salt Creek as
follows:

SALT CREEK (2X) ------  SAZ CREEK (2x) -----  SALT CREEK (2x)

Hearing Salt Creek first makes Saz Creek all the more effective and
suprising to your unsuspecting listeners, and the return to Salt Creek
after your global detour is a refreshing relief of sorts from the "wierd"
Eastern sound of SAZ.

You may just want to play Saz Creek by itself, which is why I put the
cliche intro at the head of the tune to fool the listener into thinking a
standard bluegrass tune was being kicked off.

Technical notes:
        Observe the accents.  They are there to enhance the middle-eastern

feel. (More on this laterin the text)
        With regards to the prominent two-string pinches in the B section,

the open first string is acting as a drone and should receive less
emphasis/volume than the other string which is the melody note. Use of the
Thumb or Index of the right-hand on the melody string of the two-string
pinches is up to you. The thumb will probably provide the most satisfactory
tone.

        I'd like to provide some music theory background on Saz Creek for
those who apply theory to their banjo playing, improvising and composing.
Let's assume we're in the key of G (the people's key!). The chords and
melody of Saz Creek are derived from the following scale:

        G Ab B C D Eb F G

I have a list of exotic scales from around the world. This scale surfaces
twice as:
 1.  a Spanish Gypsy scale
 2.  a Hebrew scale called AHAVOH RABBOH

This, in itself, is of interest as it cites this unusual sound as native to
a broad geographical area which spans from Southeastern Europe to the
Middle East.

What makes Saz Creek so wierd and different, so non-bluegrass sounding and
so distinctly "eastern" and not "western" in sound? A closer look at the
above scale provides answers.  Any musical scale derives its character from
the distances between the adjacent pitches of the scale,  this is the
unchanging blueprint or fingerprint unique to that set of pitches. In a
MAJOR scale, one used so much in bluegrass, two types of distances between
adjacent notes of the scale -  half-steps and whole-steps - appear in a
prescribed order as follows.

        G  A   B   C  D  E   F#  (G)
         1   1  1/2  1  1  1   1/2

 Two whole steps followed by a half-step followed by three whole-steps and
a final half-step produces the familiar sound of the major scale, sung in
music schools and the Sound of Music as :  DO RE MI FA SOL LA TI DO.

        With the scale used in Saz Creek, a different string of intervals
(distance between pitches) exists.  In terms of the building blocks of
whole and half-steps it looks like this:

        G   Ab      B   C   D   Eb   F   (G)
         1/2  1&1/2  1/2  1  1/2   1   1

    What defines its character is the big leap of 1&1/2 steps (3
half-steps) at the beginning of the scale, and in contrast, the relatively
large number of half-steps G/Ab  B/C  and D/Eb.  So, bigger leaps and more
of the small intervals than in the western MAJOR SCALE, produces the exotic
effect when hearing the Spanish/Hebrew scale, especially right after
hearing one of the two scales used in  Salt Creek.  Play the scale on the
banjo as provided in the tab, then play a G majorscale and compare the
sound.
        Notice the strange chord progression in SAZ CREEK G - Fminor - G.
This progression comes directly out of the scale. (Composers of concert
music often create synthetic scales to produce bizzare chord progressions).
If we extend the Spanish/Hebrew scale beyond the octave we can see how it
generates the above chord progression:

        G Ab B C D Eb F (G Ab B C D)

        G    B   D /  F    Ab   C   here are the two three-note chords
(triads) - G and Fminor pulled down from the scale. Notice also the
standard three-chord progression in a major key in bluegrass which, in the
key of G, would be G - C - D, all major triads, becomes G  - c minor - d
diminished triad (d-f-a flat) when using the Spanish/Hebrew scale, a very
different sound indeed.

        In the B section of Saz Creek and in the single-string A section
that follows it, the basic beat or feel of the music changes to reflect a
typical rhythmic pattern found in Eastern European and Middle Eastern
music. Using a string of eighth notes with "x" as an eighth-note rest and
"o" as a sounded eighth-note you get the following rhythm:  o x x o x x o x
, a pattern which is eight equal time values in length that subdivides as
3+3+2 beats, accenting the first beat of each sub-group. o x x / o x x / o
x. In standard musical notation, the rhythm might be represented as a
dotted quarter-note followed by an eighth-note and then two staccato
quarter-notes.
     In performance, your guitarist or band should play the above rhythm
over and over in conjunction with the chord changes while you play the B
section and the single-string A section which follows. Note: When you go
back to Salt Creek, either abruptly shift back to the straight ahead
bluegrass feel at that time or, better yet, start the feel early by
beginning it the second time through the last half of the B section.

        I hope some of this information proves useful. Have fun with it and
feel free to contact me via e-mail with questions, comments, etc. I think
the banjo is entering its most popular era, do you?

Jerell