The Mug of Brown Ale This is our first jig in a minor and features the open A string a lot, which sounds very effective. The second part is more difficult as we must go to the seventh fret to play the high B on the E string. Here is another technique used by banjo players to lessen the need-due to the lack of sustain- for repeating notes. It involves playing the note below the note of the tune before playing the actual note itself. So, in the first bar of the second part, instead of playing three A’s (or one long A followed by a short A) I play G# first thus misplacing the A by one beat. This occurs again in a similar way in the third bar when I play an F# before playing the note G of the tune. Both of these are also chromatic in nature thus adding colour to the tune and sound. It would for example have been possible to play G-instead of the G#- in the first bar