Undone In Sorrow Banjo Tab

The Smithsonian Folkways recording of Ola Belle Reed playing Undone In Sorrow starts with one of my favorite introductions ever. In part "It's a sad, sad, sad mournful song. And when I get done with it it'll be pitiful.". 

Originally recorded in 1975, Undone In Sorrow is a sad and beautiful song about regret and lost love. It's a great song to play and sing on the banjo and I've got an arrangement for you I hope you love. 

Here's a performance of our tab to check out, and then we'll get into how to play it:

Get Into Tune

We play Undone In Sorrow in standard, open G tuning. That's going to be g, D, G, B D. In the video above, I'm tuned down a whole step so I can sing it. That makes it f, C, F, A, C. 

It's a good idea to tune your banjo to your voice. if Ola sings too high for you, just tune your banjo down until you can sing it comfortably. 

Get The Tab

Clean and Syncopated Notes

We use a lot of double thumbing and m-skips in the song. And we only use a few brush strokes. So work on getting those single notes clean and loud. This is a fantastic song to work on your single note striking accuracy on those inner strings. A few measures are straight right-hand practice exercises! 

Keep the tempo slow

In my run through of the song, I noticed I'm playing a bit fast. Ola Belle Reed's version is around 85bpm, where I'm closer to 97. While this makes it a bit easier to sing as you're not holding those big notes quite as long, it does take away from the atmosphere of the song. So work on keeping the tempo down. 

Have fun!

Most importantly, this song is a lot of fun to play and sing. It's melancholy, but the banjo part is a bit of a challenge and the vocals take some work. So there's a lot to bit into here!