Puff, the Magic Dragon

An instrumental introduction sets the tempo, establishes the rhythm, and anticipates the starting note of the melody for a song. Here’s my attempt to capture Peter, Paul and Mary’s version of “Puff, the Magic Dragon” in a key I can sing comfortably in. Transposing it for the ukulele, the process is what I call “authentic replication.”

I coined the term “authentic replication” to refer to replicating what one hears in the playing. When we play with others, we tend to simplify the accompaniment and ignore the intricacies of deliberately placed accents, walk-downs, hammer-ons, transitory riffs, and other detail. We may capture the 80% that sounds like the song, but we miss the 20% that feels like the real thing.

These details bring out the uniqueness of a song, often the very characteristics that make it famous and well-loved. In my Pluck & Strum Series of classes, I listen and write down what I hear and share with my students.

For “Puff, the Magic Dragon” it’s tempting to jump right into the song (as shown above). What is the starting note of the melody? Luckily it’s C. There’s no pick-up. You can start at count 1.

Peter, Paul, and Mary’s version of “Puff, the Magic Dragon” begins with a four-note descending scale, individually picked on the folk guitar. Then follows the Travis Picked chord progression with a swing.

To truly authentically replicate the song, I’d revert to their original key of A major and use a folk guitar. To be able to sing it in my vocal range, I transposed the song to the key of C.

How do I communicate all this in a song sheet?

In Music Theory, we refer to the notes in a scale as degrees. Instead of saying “C, D, E, F, G, A, B” for an ascending major scale, we say “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7” or “do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti.” By using arabic numbers, we can easily transpose it to another key, whereas “C, D, E, F, G, A, B” refers to the C major scale only. Using scale degrees (arabic numbers) is like musical algebra. It becomes relative and formulaic rather than absolute.

In “Puff, the Magic Dragon” the walkdown scale degrees of 7, 6, 5, 4 refer to the notes “B, A, G, F” in the C major scale. These are the 2nd fret of A-string, open A string, open G-string (for high G ukulele) or else 3rd fret E-string, and 1st fret E-string, respectively. Each note is a count.

Each of the dots below the red-colored chord names refer to a count. Thus there are four dots under the first five chords but two dots under C and two under Am because they share one measure (also known as bar). Count 1, 2, 3, 4 to begin. Fingerpick the four “walk-down” notes of the descending C-scale.

Travis Pick or Travis Picking Pattern is a popular accompaniment pattern with many variations on a theme of “outside, inside.” In the simplest case, you can fingerpick with just two fingers: your thumb and index finger. Start with your thumb on the G-string, then your index finger on the A-string. That’s the “outside.” When you fingerpick with your straight right thumb on the G-string, it should “land” or “rest” on the next adjacent string of C-string. This is called a “rest stroke.” Similarly, your index finger (after up-plucking the A-string) would have landed on the E-string. Fingerpick the inside strings of C-string with your thumb and E-string with your index finger.

You can hear my Travis Picking accompaniment in my Ukulele Playalong Video below.

It’s also possible to play this song using the Pachelbel canon chord progression, which I used for the 7-song Pachelbel Medley in a recent workshop.