I have a question for those of you who play clawhammer with the bluegrass folk . . .
I'm going to be playing some clawhammer with a bluegrass band later this summer. I'm fairly comfortable with doing lead breaks in G and A - they're nothing to write home about, but they fit in well enough and they involve at least a small degree of sponteneity. Basically I approach them the way I would bluegrass guitar (which I play badly, but can more or less fake), and use heaps and heaps of drop thumb to get all the off-beat stuff.
But tunes in C and D are a problem. Normally, I would play them in double C, but I don't think I'm going to get much opportunity to retune. Also, my clawhammer breaks in C and D don't sound especially bluegrassy to me yet, and I'm going to need to do some work anyway to figure out some bluegrassy licks etc. for those keys. I'm thinking I might as well try to do the C tunes in open G (cross harp, so to speak) like the bluegrassers would do - but this would involve re-learning tunes like Soldier's Joy and Liberty that I've been playing for 20 years in double C. It seems pretty awkward at this point.
I'm curious what other bluegrassing clawhammers do tuning-wise for C and D tunes. Also if anybody can point me toward recordings/videos of clawhammered bluegrass done 'cross harp' (i.e. C tunes in open G or D tunes in open A), I would much appreciate it.
Jeff