J.R. Jenks' Blog

Santa Tracker: 75.4 percent

2011-12-24T10:56:00.001-06:00

It might not look like it but we're fine, really. We're not seeing a few people until after Christmas.

Also, we're done with Christmas shopping for our dog.

Don't tell her!

Santa Tracker: 66.2 percent

2011-12-21T14:01:00.000-06:00

So how is it that the Santa Tracker moves so fast?

Elves.

Santa Tracker: 52.5 percent

2011-12-19T10:50:00.000-06:00

Wauwatosa! That's where that one hard-to-find item was hiding. So we're having them ship it to us from Wisconsin and it should be here in time. Yay!

Santa Tracker: 24.4 percent

2011-12-17T23:44:00.002-06:00

Okay, our earlier Santa Tracker wasn't entirely accurate, but it's traditional for the first tracker to show 0%. Here's the real deal: We're at 24.4%, which isn't bad for a week before Christmas.

Santa Tracker 2011

2011-12-17T12:27:00.000-06:00

Just as we did in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (and as we would've done in 2010 if that wasn't such a freaky busy December), we are proud to present the Santa Tracker!

Set your DVR: Orange Blossom Special - The Story of a Bluegrass Anthem

2011-02-03T15:55:00.002-06:00

The Banjo versus TV project is over, but I still get automated reminders of TV programs that are of interest to banjo players. Here's one that my DVR will be recording tomorrow.

The program airs tomorrow (Friday, Feb 4) on Ovation.

That's it for the Banjo versus TV project!

2010-12-26T22:48:00.003-06:00

It's time, my loyal readers (Hi Mom!), to end the Banjo versus TV project and to start a new banjo(ish)-related project in its place.

"Why?" I hear you ask, because you're kind of loud when you cry out in surprise.

Because TWINS! That's why.

I've really enjoyed doing the Banjo versus TV project since I started it in 2008 as a new year's resolution. I have, since then and with only a short break, kept that resolution and have spent as much time on my banjo as I spent watching TV. It's been very, very good for my banjo playing.

But with the twins here, a few things are changing. For one, the redhead and I are determined not to have the TV on all the time as we're raising the twins. If I'm only going to watch a meager amount of TV, what's the point of matching that with a meager amount of banjo time?

Also, too: There's just not going to be a lot of time for blogging.

If I'm going to continue exploring the banjo — and I am — I'll need to try a different approach. An approach which will...

take into consideration the limited amount of time in a new father's schedule,
figure out how to integrate amateur banjodom and parenthood,
be a little more forgiving of delay than a track-my-time-really-carefully and blog-about-it-once-a-week project,
but still be fun.

So watch this space for my next project: New Daddy Banjo.

Zuni Elf on the Shelf

2010-12-19T18:00:00.000-06:00

The redhead and I were discussing how creepy Elf on the Shelf™ is, which led to me suggesting that we just get the Zuni doll from Trilogy of Terror and put an elf hat on it, which led to Photoshop, which led to this.

Halloween 2010: Stork with twins

2010-10-31T11:49:00.000-05:00

This year's addition to my gallery of Halloween costumes: Stork with twins.

Note that this is 100% costume. The actual twins will arrive soon, when the actual stork brings them.

I won the #bwayplot contest!

2010-10-29T07:28:00.000-05:00

The other day I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar on Ovation TV and I actually paid attention to the annoying lower third ad:

So I fired up my little-used Twitter account and tweeted a few plots. A few days later Ovation announced the winners and, whodathunkit, I won first place!

First prize was a pair of tickets to a Broadway show in the winner's area. I picked Hair, which is coming to Chicago in March.

Here's my winning tweet. Click on it to see what Broadway show I summarized. Float over it for a hint.

I summarized a bunch of others, too, like:

I have to admit that this one was my favorite:

After posting this one...

...I felt that I was being too wordy. So I summarized the same show in four words...

...then another in three..

...until I finally found one I could summarize in two words.

IMO, the best posts from my distinquished competitors were...

...and...

Steampunk keytar idea

2010-10-04T10:23:00.004-05:00

It's just occurred to me that the Hohner S32 Melodica...

...could be modded to make a steampunk keytar.

I mean, it runs on a stream of air so all you'd need to do is to connect up the steam! And it's only $38.99 at Amazon.

Yes, I know that other people have created so-called steampunk keytars...

...but those are electric instruments wrapped up in gadgetry. I'm talking about making music from actual steam heat!

Banjo versus TV week 129: My hideously deformed toenails

2010-10-02T23:49:00.004-05:00

(I'm going to do us all a favor and censor some of the nastier photos in this blog entry. Watch out for those external links, though. Yuck.)

My hideously deformed toenails will help me become a better banjo player.

Before I explain how this is good for my banjo playing, let's look at this timelapse of two months of growth of a human fingernail following an accident...

...and consider some educational bullet points about fingernails and toenails. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Nail growth occurs in the nail root (radix unguis) at the base of the nail, under the skin.
The visible part of the nail doesn't actually grow. It just gets pushed forward by the cells that are growing in the nail root.
Since they don't grow, when visible nail cells have been damaged or infected they're not going to get better. You've got to wait for natural nail growth in the nail root to push the damaged cells forward to the tip of the nail where they can be clipped off.
Completely regrowing a fingernail takes approximately 3 to 6 months. For toenails it's approximately 12 to 18 months.

When I started treating them several weeks ago, the nails of both of my big toes had been infected with a fungus. (Onychomycosis, probably.)

To treat them I'm following the advice in the wikiHow article How to Cure Toenail Fungus With Vinegar. Basically, you soak your toenails in vinegar once or twice each day for 10-15 minutes per soak. In such an acidic environment the fungus is unable to infect the newly-grown cells. Eventually the old, infected cells will be pushed forward to be clipped away and the fungus will be gone, leaving behind only nice, beautiful toenails. As you know from the above bullet points, that process will take 12 to 18 months.

I've decided to make the best of an ugly situation and use this toenail thing to my advantage. I've placed in The Fortress of Banjotude (which I described in last week's entry, remember?) a 9in x 13in baking dish with cover...

...that's just big enough for me to put my feet into. I keep it stocked with enough vinegar to cover my toes.

Once or twice a day I set a 15-minute timer, soak my feet in the vinegar and (on the good days when I'm not sidetracked by other stuff) practice my banjo.

Voila! Treatment and practice!

It's been working nicely so far. The last several weeks of new nail (approximately an eight of an inch) are pink and lovely, a severe contrast to the nastiness of the old nail material.

My banjo's sounding better, too.

Also in the last week:

I was on a trip out of town (kind of in the middle of nowhere, really) when my banjo developed a problem. The hole for the fifth string tuner had apparently widened and the tuner kept slipping out.

Fortunately there was a pile of wood chips nearby...

...and I always carry a pocket knife...

...so I was able to create a tiny shim that wedged the tuner into place until I could get back to civilization and effect the proper repairs.

Banjo versus TV week 128: The Fortress of Banjotude

2010-10-02T20:11:00.001-05:00

I mentioned a couple of updates ago that I've finally put the time into setting up The Fortress of Banjotude – the banjo practice area that I first described when I was making banjoversary plans last year. You remember those plans, right?

I will treat my banjo training like sports training
I will create a terrific banjo practice area
I will be deliberate about learning songs

No link for that last one because I never did get around to describing the plan.

But over the last few weeks I have finally gotten around to executing on that "terrific banjo practice area" plan and I think I've put together a top-notch practice area.

Here's what The Fortress of Banjotude has. And yes, I went cheap on almost all of these things. It also helped that I've spread these purchases out over more than a year.

The key ingredient is my newly-finished silent practice banjo. It's an Oscar Schmidt OB5 banjo that I've outfitted with Sam Farris' Silent Banjo System – a replacement mesh head that doesn't vibrate the air but that works fine with an electric pickup like the K&K Hot Spot.

Using this banjo I can slam on the strings as much as I like without worrying about the neighbors (or the redhead) being bothered by the noise.

"Then how can you hear yourself play?" I hear you ask, because I'm right there with you.

I can hear it because I connect the pickup from my silent banjo to the preamp on my Behringer Xenyx 502 mixer...

...which mixes everything together to feed either into my Audio Unlimited 900MHz Wireless Stereo Headphones...

...for quiet times or into my Logitech S220 2.1 Speaker System with Subwoofer...

...if I want to be loud.

"But why do you need a mixer if you've just got the one input from the banjo?" I hear you ask, because I'm still there.

That's because there are other cool things in The Fortress of Banjotude that make noise and which need to be mixed in to, er, the mix.

For instance, I picked up a used Radio Shack MD-1210 MIDI keyboard...

...which has the advantages of being cheap, having accelerated keys and hosting a library of 100 drum machine sounds. So instead of a boring tick-tock metronome I can practice to the rhythm of CLUB POP, BOSSA NOVA, TEX-MEX or whatever strikes my fancy.

I also mix in the audio output of a used IBM ThinkPad R40 laptop...

...on which I have installed:

Microsoft Windows XP Pro 32-bit because it supports the best variety of drivers and software for my needs
TablEdit Tablature Editor so I can practice with the many tabs available at the Banjo Hangout and elsewhere
Band-in-a-Box MegaPAK with RealBand so I can practice with a virtual band behind me
Roland's VSC-3 Virtual Sound Canvas software synthesizer because it sounds better than my MIDI keyboard

I connect the laptop to the MIDI keyboard with a E-MU Xmidi 1x1 USB-MIDI interface.

...which lets me use my MIDI keyboard as both input and output for my music software.

Take all of that and toss in the variety of utilitarian items (chairs, music stand, tuner, etc) that I described when I first conceived of The Fortress of Banjotude and I've got a practice area that I really, really love.

Also in the last week:

I've been using all of that stuff described above to practice Theme Time, the song that my banjo instructor David recommended the other week. I've been following the practice-no-faster-than-you-can-play-it-without-mistakes philosophy. I started at 45 bpm and gradually increased the tempo to 60 bpm. It's going to be a while before I can play it at 160 bpm like Jimmy Martin.

Banjo versus TV week 127: How To Listen To Music, Yale-style

2010-10-02T11:36:00.002-05:00

I've started watching Prof. Craig Wright's MUSI 112: Listening to Music, one of the Open Yale Courses. This week I watched Session 1: Introduction.

The course is available, free, as both video and audio. The video most shows Prof. Wright lecturing at the podium...

...but there are some occasionally slides...

...so I'll probably stick to the video.

I'm liking it and am tempted to purchase the textbook and 6-CD set. But for now I'm just stick with the free stuff.

Build-a-Hero Project

2010-10-02T11:21:00.001-05:00

I love, love, LOVE Norbert's Build-a-Hero Project.

Banjo versus TV week 126: Make an electric banjolele, maybe?

2010-10-01T20:21:00.004-05:00

I've been knocking around a few ideas for building banjo-like instruments. I'm not sure where or whether the Remo Practice Pad...

...will fit into my plans, but for $19.09 (at Amazon), I figured I'd order one up and see if I could do something with it. It's tunable. It takes a standard Remo timpani head. I'm sure I'll find something to do with it.

Maybe I'll combine it with a Mahalo Solid Top Banjo-shaped Ukulele...

($48.99 from Amazon) to make that uke into a more banjolele-like instrument. And who knows? Maybe I'll replace that Remo timpani head with a Muffle Head...

...from Pearl ($5.25 plus shipping from Steve Weiss Music) and a K&K Hot Spot Pickup...

...(which can be gotten on eBay for around $30) to give me an electric banjolele (for around $100).

That'd be cool.

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

David suggested that I could improve my chord inversion and chord change skills by learning the song Theme Time, which was written by Bill Emerson and became a big song for Jimmy Martin. Here's how Jimmy does it:

I found some good online resources for this song:

Theme Time tablature for it (in PDF form) and a sample MP3, courtesy of Janet Davis, at http://bluegrassbanjo.org/r-z.html
A good discussion of the song at http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/138053.
A video lesson, Theme Time As Played by Jim Mills by teakbridge101.
A video of Bill Knopf demonstrating his Theme Time arrangment.
That same arrangement (I think) in a video of Murphy's Flaw playing Theme Time.

Also in the last week:

I spent a chunk of time setting up my banjo practice area — The Fortress of Banjotude. This is a project I'd started more than a year ago and which is only now starting to come together. I should write a post about what I've done.
I heard a good song: The Money Doesn't Matter by Jimmy Hall from his CD Rendezvous with the Blues. I'm able to provide those details because I snapped this photo of my Sirius radio...

...when I heard the song.

I often hear a song that interests me, so I've developed a few ways of noting them for later review. Without getting into a big thing about my GTD approach, here are some of the ways I take notes on songs:
- I punch the speed dial on my iPhone and Jott myself a Toodledo To-Do item.
- If the song info is displayed on something I use my iPhone to snap a picture, like I did for The Money Doesn't Matter, above, or like I did when I heard Chick Willis sing 1,2,3,4,5 Shots of Whiskey on a music cable channel.
- I record myself a note with the Olympus WS-311M Digital Voice Recorder that I carry in my pocket. The WS-311M is a handy little recorder that snaps apart for easy USB access to your audio files.
  
  This technique has the added advantage of letting me record a snippet of the song for later identification.
- For songs that I don't recognized I'll see if my iPhone's MusicID app can identify the song. If it can, I snap a screen shot, like this one...
  
  ...that I snapped that time I heard Julia Lee singing I Didn't Like It The First Time from Snatch & Grab It: The Essential Julia Lee.

Banjo versus TV week 125: My second Costello's sandwich card

2010-10-01T19:12:00.001-05:00

I went to the Costello Bluegrass Jam, which is hosted by guitarist Howard Johnson twice each month at Costello Sandwich and Sides in Lincoln Square, Chicago.

I played the banjo a little with the group...

...and got started on my second free sandwich card.

9 more stamps to go!

My attendance at this jam has been spotty. My last 10-stamp card took me 62 weeks to complete at a rate of (approximately) one sandwich stamp per visit to the jam. If I had attended every one of the twice-a-month jams I'd have finished that card in about 20 weeks. Wonder how long it will take me this time?

Also in the last week:

I heard a good, bawdy, double entendre blues song: I Didn't Like It The First Time, sung by Julie Lee. Here it is on YouTube.

Banjo versus TV week 124: Chicago Folk & Roots Festival

2010-10-01T18:30:00.001-05:00

Deniece and Denephew were still in town this week so we took them to the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival in Welles Park, sponsored by Old Town School of Folk Music.

It's a great music festival for grown-ups but it's also very kid-friendly, with a water-spraying renewable energy booth...

...arts & crafts...

...a musical instrument "petting zoo"...

...Puppet Bike...

...and a musical performance by The Young Stracke All-Stars (some of whom we jammed with last week):

Also in the last week:

I finally got around to installing Band-In-A-Box, a software package that I'd purchased some time ago. More on that soon.
I heard a great Eric Heatherly song: Wrong Five O'Clock. You can find a bunch of performances on YouTube. The group I heard playing it was Freddy and the Screamers.

Banjo versus TV week 123: Deniece and Denephew at First Friday

2010-10-01T15:16:00.001-05:00

First Friday at the Old Town School of Folk Music is all about community playing, singing and dancing. This week I had a terrific time because I brought along the best thing you can bring to First Friday: kids!

I borrowed Deniece and Denephew for the evening and they played ukuleles that they'd just received a few days prior at Denephew's birthday. Deniece also played the violin that she's been practicing for a few years.

We played along with the Song Circle group through a whole bunch of songs. I helped Denephew out with the chords, but he did all the strumming. When their turn came they got up in front of the group and lead everybody in song. They both did a great job with their solos.

I was so proud of them both. I think this was the first time Deniece had participated in a song circle and she blended in very well. And how cool is it that Denephew played a solo on a ukulele that he'd only had for a few days?

Special thanks to session leaders Jason McInnes and Maria McCullough, who are both so good with kids.

Also in the last week:

Worked some more on setting up my silent banjo.
I needed to change some strings when I set up my silent practice banjo. I haven't been having a lot of luck with the create-an-S style of string winding that Tom Nechville advocates so I went looking for some new guidance. I found a good guide at frets.com and used that approach. I like the way they have you do a single loop-back. It made for some nice, neat winding.

I am easily amused: Revenge at 7-11

2010-09-24T10:46:00.001-05:00

Slaperone

2010-09-20T12:14:00.001-05:00

I've invented a new word.

The word is "slaperone".

It's a portmanteau of slap...

...and chaperone...

It's my word, so if anybody want's to use it, talk to me first about licensing.

Banjo versus TV week 122: Taj Mahal

2010-09-18T19:32:00.000-05:00

Do you recall from the other week that I'd been listening to B.B. King's Bluesville on Sirius radio? Of course you do. Just as you recall that I said there's not a lot of banjo there.

Well, I'm still listening and I've been hearing some great blues banjo from Taj Mahal. Here's a YouTube video of Taj Mahal playing Slow Drag to show you what I'm talking about

Also in the last week:

More work on setting up that Silent Banjo System that I keep promising to blog about in greater detail. Soon. Soon.

Banjo versus TV week 121: Banjoversary

2010-09-16T17:49:00.001-05:00

I've already mentioned the big news from this week: my 3rd banjoversary and the Irish tenor banjo that the redhead gave me.

Thanks again, the redhead!

Also in the last week:

I poked through Frank Nordberg's Irish Banjo site. It's been a while since it's been updated and some of the graphics don't display but there's a lot of interesting stuff there, even if you're not learning the Irish tenor banjo. He's got stuff for guitar, plectrum banjo, mandolin-banjo, five-string banjo and other instruments. His site map is a good place to start.
As a banjoversary treat, I dedicated some time to setting up the Silent Banjo System. I know I keep saying this every time I mention this project, but I'm still not done with it yet and I promise to post details when I've completed it.
I saw Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur perform at the Old Town School, with opening The Barehand Jug Band. What a great show!

The evening's MC was Todd Kwait, the writer and director of Chasin' Gus' Ghost.

The Olympus WS-311M that I use to take notes is acting up so I'm not 100% sure of this list, but here are my notes about the set list:

Bare Hand Jug Band's set:
1. Tear It Down
2. Charlie Stone
3. Cluck Old Hen
4. You Know It Don't Belong to You
5. Hotel Yorba
6. My Rifle, My Pony and Me
7. Wipe It Off

Blues In The Bottle
Jelly Roll (by Long John someone)
Morning Blues
Sweet to Mama (from the Texas Sheiks album)
Morning Blues
(some song by Rogers and Hart)
Morning Blues
going fishing too
Morning Blues
"can you tell that's Mary" Mary
Morning Blues
Mistreated Blues
Morning Blues
Frankie (Mississippi John Hurt)
Morning Blues
instrumental while Kweskin tunes banjo
Morning Blues
Down on Penny's Farm
Morning Blues
Chicken

Chasin' Gus' Ghost

Learn to Fingerpick with Jim Kweskin

Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)

Shiver Me Timbers!

Banjo versus TV week 120: Addicted to Love

2010-09-07T16:48:00.001-05:00

I heard a Florence + The Machine cover of Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love that made me think the song would make a good bluegrass cover, too.

The chord progression is I-VII-IV-I (repeated) for the verse and rel.minor-IV-I (repeated) for the chorus, so it's pretty bluegrassy right there.

I'm apparently not the first person to think of this, though. Banjoist Tom Hanway and Blue Horizon play Addicted to Love on the album "Tom Hanway & Blue Horizon".

Also in the last week:

I heard Patty Loveless singing Pretty Little Miss, her update to the old standby Shady Grove.
Spent a chunk of time installing the Silent Banjo System. More on that soon.

Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue

2010-09-01T12:25:00.001-05:00

Sorry to the folks whose comments have been languishing in waiting-to-be-moderated limbo. I didn't realize that Blogger had automatically switched me to moderate mode a while back.

I've just approved several comments for publication and have denied about 5 times that many comments because they were from spambots. Why, oh why, do spambots never have anything interesting to say?

Banjo versus TV week 119: Getting Sirius

2010-08-02T01:33:00.000-05:00

After letting it sit on a shelf for some time I've gotten back to listening to my Sirius radio.

I've got an older model Sportster Replay (with car kit) and a Sirius Replay Boombox.

The Replay can pause during playback, which is a great feature for playing along.

My favorite channels:

I'm finding myself listening mostly to B.B. King's Bluesville. There's not much banjo there but I did hear a gem from Catherine Russell. She covered Howlin’ Wolf’s Spoonful, arranging it for banjo, drums and tuba. It's got a jazzy sort of sound but, to my ear, the banjo player is finger picking a la bluegrass rather than strumming like a 4-string jazz banjo player.

This song is on Catherine Russell's album Inside This Heart of Mine...

...which is reviewed here and which is now going on my Amazon wish list.

Also in the last week:

Check out this handy pencil holder that Deniece uses on her music stand.

Wish I knew where she got it.

Banjo versus TV week 118: The nut that holds the picks

2010-07-31T12:57:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking for a while that I needed to put more energy toward improving my banjo fundamentals. This week I read something from the October 2008 Banjo Newsletter that clinched it.

A few of this issue's articles dealt with how to get the "pre-war sound" from a banjo. Various banjo luminaries were asked to opine on the topic. Some opined that various aspects of banjo composition were key to the pre-war sound; for example, Geoff Stelling said it's the age of the wood.

But I think the best answer, put forward by several people, was that the pre-war sound is mostly about the player.

Roger Siminoff described an experience with Earl Scruggs:

Bill Palmer puts it like this:

If I want my banjo to sound better, I've got to improve the quality of that nut. With my banjoversary approaching it's a good time to take stock of my banjo practice habits and to make some improvements. Stay tuned.

Also in the last week:

Worked a little on installing my newly-arrived Silent Banjo System. More on that in later posts.
I tried out some of the YouTube videos from FreeBanjoLessons, such as Cumberland Gap, but I didn't find them to be very helpful.
Every now and again I just have to watch the most-viewed video on YouTube: Evolution of Dance:

Sure, the lack of banjo means this puts 6 minutes of time on the TV side of the scale, but it's worth it.

Ties on a trash bin

2010-07-12T09:54:00.001-05:00

Another great thing about the alleys of Chicago is that you occasionally get free neckties.

Kodak EasyShare C913 repair

2010-06-24T14:03:00.003-05:00

I'm pretty hard on my digital cameras. It's been a while so I'm not sure what mistreatment caused my Kodak EasyShare C913's screen to go all fuzzy...

...but it probably has to do with my habit of just tossing the camera into a banjo gig bag or carrying it around in my hip pocket.

I thought of this busted camera, which has been sitting on a shelf for some time, when I ran across a YouTube video showing how easy it is to replace a broken digital camera screen.

So I took my camera apart with a plan to find the part number of the broken screen and ordering a replacement. (You can get replacement screens on eBay for $15-$20.)

But when I got it open I found that the screen's internal connector...

...was loose and just needed a little nudge to make things right again.

It's too bad I didn't know that before I purchased a replacement camera last year.

Speaking of which, my next repair task is to fix the replacement camera, which seems to have suffered an even worse fate than its predecessor.

Happy 3rd banjoversary to me!

2010-06-20T22:03:00.001-05:00

It's my third banjoversary! Three years since the redhead gave me a banjo for my birthday on that fateful day.

And how did she honor my banjoversary this year? Why, she gathered my family at that very same vegetarian diner (Try the Dagwood!) and gave me another banjo!!!

This one's a Gold Tone CC-IT, which stands for Cripple Creek Irish Tenor. It's tuned to G d a e', which is just like my recently-acquired (and not yet learned-to-play) mandolin-banjo's tuning of g d' a' e'', just one octave lower.

But my banjoversary is about more than receiving banjos. Although, don't get me wrong, that really helps the festive tone of the day.

My banjoversary is also about my annual introspective/retrospective look at my banjo skills, where I've been and what I plan to do.

So, like last year and the year before, I'll be spending the next few days (weeks?) looking backward, inward and forward. Stay tuned for some posts under the 3rd banjoversary label.

Banjo versus TV week 117: The Ballad of Bering Strait

2010-05-30T21:11:00.001-05:00

I watched the film The Ballad of Bering Strait (and you can watch it too, for free, on Hulu). This 2003 documentary follows the Russian "redgrass" band Bering Strait.

It's a little bittersweet watching this film about a group of kids trying to make it to the big time when I knew that the band would break up due to lack of sales only three years after this film was released.

But there are some great scenes, like this one of banjo player Ilya Toshinsky trying to explain his bluegrass set (Natchez Trace and Foggy Mountain Breakdown) to the faculty at a traditional Russian art academy.

Also in the last week:

I discovered Songsterr.com...

...a site that plays guitar tabs for you. It looks to be a useful practice tool.

And for extra geekiness, it's got its own Songsterr API!
The various mutes that I mentioned ordering have now all arrived. I hope to have a chance to try them out and compare them soon.

Tempos of four banjo practice DVDs

2010-05-30T20:03:00.002-05:00

Here's an analysis of the tempos of four banjo practice DVDs.

Why would I create such a thing? The other week I criticized The Ultimate Beginner Series by Alfred Music for having a play-along-with-the-band section that was "waaaaay too fast for a beginner to keep up with."

I'd wondered since if I'd been too harsh. So I pulled out my handy-dandy Korg MA-30 Metronome and used its tap function to find the tempo of the songs from that DVD.

Of course I needed to do the same with some other DVDs to compare. And I had to put them into a spreadsheet.

I color-coded each song, arbitrarily selecting these ranges:

(I treated most of these songs as being in 4/4 time so you might need to divide these tempos by two if you want to think in 2/4 terms.)

Then one thing led to another and soon I had...

...a chart of the songs and their tempos, in beats per minute. (Click on the chart for a better view.)

Let's run through the four DVDs that I compared, shall we? I've put together some slides to show how many slow, medium, fast and superfast songs are on each DVD.

Bluegrass Slow Jam for the Total Beginner is the beginner-friendliest of my four practice DVDs, tempo-wise. Most of its 14 songs are played at a nice, slow tempo and the rest at a medium.

Each song has its own DVD chapter but it's a little awkward to practice with since the play-along chapters are mixed with chapters of advice and instruction. I wish the DVDs creators had tacked on a DVD menu that would allow you to play song after song after song as you practice, which is how I like to do it.

Most of the songs are in G, a few are in D.

I just purchased Slow Jam With Murphy and Casey a couple of weeks ago but its quickly become my favorite play-along DVD. It's got more songs than the other DVDs and the key changes are few and far between. The DVD is dedicated to play-along sessions so there's very little of the advice and instruction that interrupts some other DVDs.

(Incidentally, they threw in that one superfast song just so you'd hear what one sounds like.)

Intermediate Bluegrass Jamming (which has apparently been repackaged as Intermediate Bluegrass Jam Session since I bought my copy a few years ago) is basically a faster version of Bluegrass Slow Jam for the Total Beginner. Its songs are pretty evenly divided between fast and superfast, with a token medium and a token slow song.

The songs are in a variety of keys: G, C, G, D, C, A, A, A, A, B, B, B, D, F, F, G, A, E, A, E, G, G, Bb, A.

I practice with this DVD occasionally. I'll admit that its higher speeds have scared me off, but this project has made me rethink that a little. I think I'll start using it more often. Besides, as the DVD's host Pete Wernick has pointed out, the tempos of these songs are pretty representative of what you'll encounter at a jam.

The fastest of my four practice DVDs, Bluegrass Banjo Basics And Beyond is part of The Ultimate Beginner Series. This DVD (and accompanying book) is also available in a mandolin or guitar.

You can read my critique of this series here. But, basically, the play-along sections of this DVD really are waaaaay too fast for beginners.

Sprint Mobile Broadband speed test

2010-05-30T13:39:00.002-05:00

Using my Sprint 3G/4G USB U301 Modem from my my home office in Rogers Park, Chicago.

4G speeds:

3G speeds:

For comparison sake here's the speed tests for my Comcast home service:

Banjo versus TV week 116: The question of the mandolin-banjo

2010-05-26T19:36:00.001-05:00

The Banjo versus TV project faces an existential question.

When I started this project I set out the rules that determine what counts as banjo time, what counts as TV time, what counts as both and what counts as neither.

But those rules didn't anticipate this question: What do I do about the time I spend on the Gold Tone Mandobanjo 850 that I just bought (for $267.77, cheap!) on eBay?

It's mandolin-banjo and isn't strictly a banjo. So should I count the time I spend on the mandolin-banjo as banjo time or not?

Arguments against counting mandolin-banjo time as banjo time

The mandolin-banjo...

...is really a mandolin...

...with a banjo head. It's got eight strings (four identically-tuned two-string courses) like a mandolin. It's got the same scale length as a mandolin. It's tuned in perfect fifths, g d' a' e'', like a mandolin (and like a fiddle).

And if it's a different instrument than the banjo then I shouldn't count time spent on it as banjo time, just as I haven't counted time spent on other instruments as banjo time. Since I started this project in 2008 I've played various jug band instruments: kazoo, washtub bass, washboard, spoons and bottles. I also took a couple of months of guitar lessons so I could learn to follow along with the guitar player at a jam. And I've never counted the time spent on those instruments as banjo time.

Arguments for counting mandolin-banjo time as banjo time

Consider the banjolin.

The banjolin is really just a Irish tenor banjo...

...with a shorter scale length. The banjolin is tuned to g d' a' e'', one octave higher than the Irish tenor banjo's tuning of G d a e'.

The mandolin-banjo is just like a banjolin except that the mandolin-banjo has four two-string courses of strings instead of four strings. Same scale length, same tuning.

So the banjolin is a shorter Irish tenor banjo and the mandolin-banjo is an eight-stringed banjolin.

If I were playing an Irish tenor banjo (which I don't own, yet) I'd certainly count the time as banjo time. If I were playing its shorter cousin the banjolin (which I also don't own, also yet) I'd count that as banjo time, too. After all, I've counted the time spent on my sawed-off banjo...

...as banjo time.

So I should treat time spent on the mandolin-banjo the same way I'd treat time spent on the Irish tenor banjo or the banjolin: as banjo time. The extra four strings shouldn't make a difference.

All things considered, I'm going to count mandolin-banjo time as banjo time. Welcome to the family, new mandolin-banjo!

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

I've been working on that play-the-melody-on-a-single-string Alan Munde technique but I haven't been able to figure out what to do with the other strings. So we worked on that.

I'd like to write up an explanation, but honestly I'm still processing it.
Also, of course, we talked about my new mandolin-banjo.

Also in the last week:

I've been thinking about that DrumDial that I saw demonstrated the other week and how it seems like a great way to verify even tension on a banjo head. So I bought one.

I noted with interest a thread at the Banjo Hangout about tension readings. The thread was mostly about the readings for a Neary Drum Torque Wrench but a few people discussed the settings for their Drumdial. The Drumdial settings were 89 for a Gold Tone, 94 for an OME and 90 for some other banjo.

I also found this advice (apparently from Tom at Janet Davis Music):
For most Mastertone style banjos using a Remo Weatherking head, setting the head around 89 will give you a nice bass response with a clear treble, and going up to 90 or 91 will brighten the tone considerably. Different heads, like the 5-Star and Ludwig heads are thicker material, and will have better clarity around 92-93. Personal preference does play a role, so you can start with the tension around 88 and tighten the head evenly until you find the tone you like best.
A few weeks ago I ordered the banjo, mandolin and guitar DVDs and books from The Ultimate Beginner Series by Alfred Music.

They've just arrived.

I dunno about this series. On the plus side the instructions seem to be pretty good and I really like the way that all of the books feature the same songs. If you and some buddies are learning the instruments at the same time I can see that it would be fun to learn using this series.

But the downside is it all seems kind of fast. The lessons don't have a lot of detail and they go through it very quickly. But the biggest speed problem is with the play-along-with-the-band portion of the DVD. Those guys are playing these songs waaaaay too fast for a beginner to keep up with.

I followed the first few chapters of the mandolin book and the first half hour of the mandolin DVD with my new mandolin-banjo and I felt that I learned some good stuff. Nonetheless I have the feeling these books and DVDs are going to gather dust on my shelves for a while.
I just found out that one of my favorite comics, The Walking Dead is being made into a TV show for AMC. Cool.
I had to do without my iPhone for a while because I dropped it in a toilet.

It made me aware of how much I use my iPhone for my banjo practice. I use a Metronome app...

...and the Omnituner app...

...a lot. But most often I use the included timer and camera to record my practice time.

Those two images tell me everything I need to know for my practice log: When I practiced, how much time I practice for and what I was doing. See, that's the floor of my laundry room, which reminds me that I was working on chord forms while I was waiting on laundry. And these two images...

...tell me that I spent 20 minutes playing along with the Slow Jam With Murphy and Casey DVD.

Agile adoption areas of concern

2010-05-25T13:04:00.001-05:00

I'm at the Agile Comes to You seminar in Chicago, sponsored by AnthillPro, Rally Software and AccuRev.

Our hosts asked each table of attendees to come up with a top "current challenge, obstacle or area of concern you have while planning or scaling your Agile adoption." Then the collected them, put them on a slide and had a panel discuss the concerns.

I thought the room's collected concerns are an interesting snapshot of where agile adoption currently stands, so I present them here:

Banjo versus TV week 115: Gotta get me some mutes

2010-05-20T11:06:00.001-05:00

I was in better health this week. I got in some actual practice and went to my first banjo lesson in a few weeks.

I also went a little mute-happy. I already own...

Gold Tone Ultimate Banjo Mute
Fielding-Cutler Banjo Mute (which is apparently no longer available)

...but I'm in an experimenting mood. So I've ordered up...

Mike's Banjo Mute (for a radiused bridge)
Wright Tone Enhancer and Mute
Silent Banjo System

I'll let you know how they compare.

Stuff from the May 2010 Banjo Newsletter:

Yes, that's Steve Martin on the cover, acting like he doesn't know which picks go on which fingers. Stop the false modesty schtick, Steve. It makes us actually mediocre banjo players feel worse about ourselves.
Loved Tony Trischka's interview of Steve Martin.
- Steve Martin mentioned that Steve Arkin suggests putting a mute between the bridge and the tailpiece, which is what got me thinking about mutes.
- When Tony and Steve described how a new student should learn Cripple Creek, I think it was a reference to Steve Martin's "I can't stand to play Cripple Creek" routine, which Tony has used in performance:
- I'm really tempted to try Tony Trischka's School of Banjo online.
Plugs work. After reading in the Callous Thumb column about the Grascal's new album, The Famous Lefty Flynn's I put the CD on my Amazon wish list.
Ads work. I ordered a copy of Slow Jam With Murphy and Casey to add to my collection of play-along DVDs.

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

David is in the middle of some heavy-duty dental stuff and had his jaw wired shut, which made for an interesting lesson. It made me realize how much of my lessons I spend chit-chatting instead of playing.

So we concentrated on Dueling Banjos, which allowed David to demonstrate a bunch of things to me without having to speak much.

Also in the last week:

NBC cancelled some shows this week that I used to watch (Lost, Scrubs and Heroes) and one that I wish I could keep watching (FlashForward).
I practiced that Alan Munde up-the-neck-solo technique that I'd previously described. I'm kinda okay when it comes to playing the melody on one string but I'm having some trouble figuring out how to play harmony or chords on the other strings at the same time.

I defeated the iTurd

2010-05-20T07:51:00.004-05:00

Yeah, so I dropped my iPhone in the toilet. Or as The iPod Toilet Trap calls it, I "pulled off an iTurd."

Naturally this messed up my iPhone, but it's back in action again. Here's how.

Packing the iPhone in rice for a couple of days (as the Toilet Trap recommends) fixed most of the resulting problems...

Phone kept powering up immediately after shutdown
Sleep/Wake button wouldn't work
Home button wouldn't work
Couldn't make calls because the SIM card was unrecognized

...but I kept getting this annoying message that popped up at seemingly random times:

Apparently the moisture messed up something in the docking connector, causing the iPhone to intermittently detect a new audio device.

I spoke with a genius at the Apple store about the problem but she told me that they wouldn't fix the phone because the moisture indicator had been tripped. She said I'd have to purchase a replacement phone.

Fortunately I didn't follow her advice. Instead I found a fix on YouTube that suppressed the popup. The fix (Cydia Popup Blocker) required me to jailbreak my iPhone, but since my warranty was shot because of the moisture indicator there was no reason not to.

Banjo versus TV week 114: Commitment

2010-05-19T15:08:00.003-05:00

That horrible viral sickness continued this week so I didn't do much, banjo-wise.

The only thing I've got to talk about this week from a comic book podcast I listened to. It's related to the banjo only because it reinforces a theme I've previously discussed from a banjo lesson. (Which means it doesn't tie together my banjo and comic interests as neatly as my superhero hoedown did, but I digress.)

The theme is one of commitment and repetition, which you remember, of course, from this snippet of an August 2008 banjo lesson.

I recalled that advice when listening to War Rocket Ajax podcast, Episode 21 – Megashark & Octopus w/ Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente. In this episode hosts Chris and Euge are interviewing Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak, the authors of Incredible Hercules.

The segment from 1:07:15 to 1:11:58 makes a point (using examples from Margaret Cho and Will Ferrel) about how, when performing, you need to commit to something, don't be afraid to repeat it and never let the audience see your doubt. Go ahead and listen to it, but I should warn you that the segment will make a lot more sense if you've read the "Thorcules" arc of the Incredible Hercules run.

That's all I've got. 'Cause, like I said: sickness.

Banjo versus TV week 113: Tom Nechville, street luthier

2010-05-18T19:27:00.001-05:00

It's been a sick week, mostly, as I've been down with some kind of cold-like viral infection. Blah.

But I wasn't going to let a little thing like that keep me away from seeing Tom Nechville, the creator of my beloved Nechville banjo, doing a workshop at the Different Strummer in Chicago.

Here's how they promoted the event:

Which is all well and good, but what I really wanted was to see Tom work his setup magic on people's banjos the way he'd done it for my Oscar Schmidt banjo last year. And he didn't disappoint. I love seeing Tom take a banjo, tweak it a little and make it sound great. Which he did, a couple of times.

He also showed off a modified version of his low-tuned Atlas.

And after the inside show ended, he moved out the the street and tweaked my banjo a bit.

Talking with Tom, I learned a little more about how Kyle James Hauser had set up this banjo before he sold it to me.

Kyle tightens the head up really really tight. But Tom thinks I might like it tighter still, so he suggests that I might use a hair dryer to heat up the plastic head before I crank up the head tightness.
I knew that Kyle used a black drum head. What I didn't know is that Tom's not really fond of the sound from those heads. Tom suggests that I try a Remo Renaissance head. So I bought one from him and will try it out.
I thought the bridge that Kyle sold me with the banjo was a Nechville bridge, but apparently it's a Snuffy Smith. Maybe I'll try out some other bridges some day.

Also in the last week:

At the Nechville workshop, Keith Baumann demonstrated a DrumDial as a way to get the tension just right, all around the head of a banjo.

Pretty cool. I might need one.
Keith also showed us a BlueChip thumb pick.

I did a little Googling and found that people are pretty wild about these $40 thumb picks: here, here, here and here.
I've been listening to a Janet Beazley session that I recorded at Midwest Banjo Camp: Backups for Vocals. Good stuff, but hard to summarize. So I'll just settle for telling you that you should attend Midwest Banjo Camp this June. And have a good time for me while you're there; I can't make it this year because of a plethora of family graduations.

Banjo versus TV week 112: Super busy

2010-05-18T07:38:00.000-05:00

A super busy week with a tiny bit of banjo and only a little more TV.

Also in the last week:

Read a good article on musical temperament titled The Wolf at Our Heels: The centuries-old struggle to play in tune.
Had to cancel my banjo lesson this week because, you know, super busy. Better luck next week.

Banjo versus TV week 111: Learning about electric banjos

2010-05-17T21:44:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about modifying one of my cheap acoustic banjos to make it electric so I can practice quietly. And maybe so I can connect it to a loop pedal.

Which is why I've been learning about electric banjos this week.

David, my banjo instructor, showed me how he outfits his acoustic banjo with a magnetic pickup (a Fishman Rare Earth Banjo Pickup) that goes inside the head, attached to the coordinator rod...

...which is paired with a metal shim placed on the other side of the drum head, under the bridge. The pickup detects the movement of the shim.

That's a good way to electrify a banjo if your goal is to perform on stage. But since I want to do quiet practice, that's not the way I'm going to do it.

Actually, that's not the way I'd do it even if I were planning on performing on stage with an electric banjo. If I were going to do that (and yes, I'll do that some day) I'd take advantage of the fact that I own a Nechville banjo and I'd purchase the Nechville Turbo Module...

...which is a swappable replacement head that turns a Nechville acoustic banjo into an approximation of the Nechville Meteor electric banjo.

The Nechville Meteor uses two pickups: one piezoelectric pickup inside the head and one magnetic pickup (a humbucker) which you can see between the drum head and the fretboard. Unlike the magnetic pickup I described above, which detects the movement of the bridge, this magnetic pickup detects the movement of the strings.

Another pickup option is the Kavanjo Pickup System, which places two sets of five electromagnetic pickups right on the drum head.

I've got a lot more to learn about banjo pickups and such, but that's a start.

Also in the last week:

David showed me another quiet practice gimmick that he's got: banjo-muffling pillows.
I found some advice on stretching a new string to help keep in tune...

...which was written about an electric guitar but which would probably work as well for a banjo. I'll try this next time I change strings.

Update: I'd be remiss if I left out another electric banjo thing that David showed me – the 1976 jazz banjo album "Melting Pots"...

...by Susie Monick.

Susie played several songs (including Wicked Witch Breakdown, a variation on Cripple Creek that David and I had previously discussed) on a solid-body electric banjo which you can see on the back of the album cover.

A solid-body banjo electric banjo doesn't have a drum to vibrate so there's no point in trying to detect the movement of the floating banjo bridge using a piezo pickup or a magnetic pickup with a metal shim under the bridge. It's got to be all about using magnetic pickups to capture string movement.

Banjo versus TV week 110: Watching some banjo-related DVDs

2010-05-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

The redhead and I watched a couple of banjo-related DVDs this week.

First up was Throw Down Your Heart, a DVD I'd picked up when I saw Béla Fleck - The Africa Project the other week. It's a terrific DVD and I highly recommend it.

I'm not sure why, but we began to obsess over the banjos that Béla brought with him to Africa. After snapping some screen shots...

...and zooming in we determined that he used a Gibson has his main banjo and a Deering as a backup banjo. Béla's Gibson is described on his site and in a Banjo Hangout discussion. The Deering banjo he took on his Africa tour is a Tenbrooks Saratoga Star.

Our second banjo-related DVD was Bluegrass Country Soul, a documentary about Carlton Haney's Labor Day Weekend Bluegrass Music Festival near Reidsville, North Carolina in 1971. Man, was there a great line-up at that festival, including:

Earl Scruggs
Ralph Stanley
Jimmy Martin
The Osborne Brothers
Roy Acuff
Chubby Wise
The Lilly Brothers
The Country Gentlemen
Del McCoury
Mac Wiseman
The Bluegrass Alliance

An amazing DVD.

Also in the last week:

Most of the recordings of Midwest Banjo Camp sessions I listened to this week were from Danny Barnes:
- Good Tone and Rhythm
- Bluegrass Without The Band
- Taking the Banjo Into Other Idioms
I popped my DVD of Flatt & Scruggs TV Show - Vol. 6 into the player, picked up my banjo and played along. What fun!

Banjo versus TV week 109: Constructing solos and such

2010-05-09T20:52:00.001-05:00

It's been another week of reviewing my recordings of Midwest Banjo Camp sessions. Here's what I learned:

From Danny Barnes "Bluegrass Mentor" session:
- Pat Cloud says there's no such thing as rolls.
- Ned Luberecki has a great 20 second banjo lesson that I should ask him for when I see him this year.
From Peter Knupfer, James McKinney, Mike Sumner, Pete Wernick: "Tips on Constructing Breaks" session:
- This is one of my favorite sessions to listen to because the various teachers (especially Pete Wernick and James McKinney) discuss their differences on some topics.
  - Learning from tablature
    - Peter Wernick says he tells students who are just getting started to learn two breaks from tablature, but then to stop learning from tablature and to begin doing your own breaks.
      
      Wernick likens learning a lot of breaks from tablature to learning to "speak Chinese" by phonetically memorizing a lot of Chinese poems — you're left with great parroting skills but are unable to order food or to find a bathroom in China.
    - James McKinney says that one should pursue multiple learning paths in parallel. It's good to continue to learn breaks from tablature as long as you're also training your ear and working on your break skills. Also, two songs probably isn't enough for someone to gain enough vocabulary.
      
      McKinney counters Wernick by actually speaking in Mandarin and explaining that you're only going to learn a language well if you listen to it and pay close attention to the way people use it.
    - Sumner falls somewhere in the middle, suggesting that there is a point in everyone's learning where it's appropriate to learn others' breaks in detail and to incorporate it into one's own skillset. He says the timing of this period varies with individual learning style.
    I go with McKinney on this one.
  - Essential bluegrass songs
    - McKinney says that Don Reno, Earl Scruggs and Ralph Stanley are the founding fathers of bluegrass banjo. He lists some of their songs that the beginning bluegrass banjo player must listen to over and over.
      - Cripple Creek
      - Foggy Mountain Breakdown
      - Groundspeed
      - Home Sweet Home
      - Lonesome Reuben (in D tuning),
      - Shuckin' the Corn
      - Ballad of Jed Clampett
      - Double Banjo Blues
      - Follow the Leader
      - Remington Ride
      - Missile Ride
      - Charlotte Breakdown
      - Various fiddle tunes like Sally Goodin
    - Wernick disagrees with the high percentage of instrumentals on McKinney's list. He says that bluegrass music is mostly songs: voices plus instruments. Instrumentals are banned during the day at Wernick's banjo camps.
      
      Wernick's essential song list is his list of 74 Two-Chord Songs and Favorite Songs That Use 2 Or 3 Chords.
- Pete Wernick has a couple of theories about the banjo and male or female voices.
  - He says the banjo must have been invented by men because the middle of the male singing range is conveniently placed on the G3 third string while the middle of the female singing range is inconveniently located on the D4 first string.
  - He also thinks that this is why women tend to play clawhammer. The clawhammer style emphasizes the use of the first string.
- James McKinney recommends This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.
- James McKinney describes two approaches to banjo breaks.
  - The modular approach: Stringing together licks that match the chord progression with less (sometimes no) regard for playing the melody notes.
  - The melody approach: Playing (most of) the melody and fitting in licks around it.
  He says both approaches are valid. He finds it interesting that Earl Scruggs was a champion of the melody approach but that the generation that followed Earl seems rooted in the modular approach.

Also in the last week:

I went to First Friday at Old Town School of Folk Music and played along with the Gather-All and the song circle.

We played some good songs, including...:
- Pay Me My Money Down. It's a two-chord song with a great history, but what makes it really good for beginners is the chord change. Every time the word "money" appears in the lyrics, it's time for a chord change.
  
  Here's The Boss to show us how it's done.
- Hotel California.
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Three chords. Pop. Everybody knows it. Nothin' better.
...but the best part was that I've been practicing that first major chord position...

...so much that I was able to use it in nearly every song! Yay me!
I ordered up Wernick's new 2-DVD set: Make Up Your Own Banjo Solos.

I assume it will contain a lot of the stuff he discussed at Midwest Banjo Camp.

Banjo versus TV week 108: Alan Munde's up-the-neck solo technique

2010-04-11T08:47:00.001-05:00

I've been listening to my recordings of the Midwest Banjo Camp sessions. When I do, I almost always catch something important that I missed the first time.

This week's find is Alan Munde's 2009 session, "Intro to Creating Bluegrass Solos". This session is a gentle introduction to the "Roll Logic" section of Munde's book, Getting Into Bluegrass Banjo.

Basically, Alan has his students find the melody on the second string and choose rolls that hit the right note at the right time. It's a simple and pretty way of putting together a break.

In his book, he expands on this idea by adding in the third and sometimes fourth strings and by adding in some up-the-neck chord forms.

I'm going to play around with this technique. I'm pretty good at finding a melody and I find this technique to be really attractice.

Other things I learned reviewing my recordings of Midwest Banjo Camp sessions:

From Alan Munde "How Rolls Work" session:
- Alan describes one of the traps of learning a song from tablature: Only being able to play a lick or section if you start the song at the beginning. This limits your ability to reuse the section in other contexts. He suggests that you might try learning a piece from tablature from the back, forward. Begin with the last measure then back up and learn the measure or measures before that, and so on until you're at the beginning. Also, learn to start playing at any point in the song.
- One of the students really likes Alan's DVD: The Bluegrass Banjo Workout. I've been looking for some workout ideas, so I ordered it.
- I also ordered the Bluegrass Jam Session DVD. The redhead has been getting tired of hearing me play along with the Dr. Banjo jam DVDs and I think she'd like a little variety.
From Mike Sumner "Working on Basic Chords" session:
- How high or low a banjo player wears his banjo has a lot to do with arm length. (Note that while I found this to be an insightful observation, the redhead said it's falls into the "no, duh" category. When I explained that I'd heard lots of banjo players argue about where to wear the banjo and that this is the first time that I'd heard arm length listed as a reason, she said I had just lowered her opinion of the intelligence of banjo players.)

Banjo versus TV week 107: A burst of banjo is needed

2010-04-01T22:27:00.002-05:00

Not a lot happened this week, banjo-wise or TV-wise. So maybe I should go meta and blog about an aspect of the Banjo versus TV project that you might have noticed.

The banjo has been losing ground to the TV. In fact, the TV has nearly caught up with the banjo. Take a look at the last six months.

So what to do? The answer is, of course:

MORE BANJO

(And Shush! to any of you who might be thinking '...or less TV.' That's not the point.)

This has happened before. Take a look at a chart of cumulative banjo (blue) and TV (red) hours.

See how the lines come close to touching and then I have a burst of banjo time? That's what I need to do next.

Mark Your Calendars: Plucky Rosenthal in Willmette, Illinois

2010-03-24T12:50:00.001-05:00

Speaking of banjos, ukelele and Vaudeville — You were just speaking of that, right? — I just got this email from Plucky Rosenthal, whom you'll remember from my post last September. She's putting on a show in Wilmette, Illinois, that sounds wonderful.

You should go.

Banjo versus TV week 106: Finally learning that F-ing chord position

2010-03-21T20:19:00.002-05:00

I've been playing the banjo for nearly three years now and I still couldn't finger the first major chord position well if my life depended on it.

An aside: Most of you might be used to the term "F form" instead of "first major chord position." "F chord" is how I refered to this chord position in in October of 2007 when I first wrote about my inability to do it. There are a lot of people who refer to these three major chord positions...

... as (respectively) "F form," "D form" and "barre form."

But I think the terms "first major chord position," "second major chord position" and "third major chord position" make more sense because the root notes of these chord positions are on the first, second and third strings. I first encountered this nomenclature at Midwest Banjo Camp, where somebody or other told me that Alan Munde uses these terms.

Okay, enough with the aside. Back to how bad I am at doing it.

I can sorta/kinda finger this form slowly. But what I can't do is to pop right into it the way I can pop quickly between the first position C and first position D7.

How am I going to teach my fingers to switch quickly into this chord position?

For starters I'm going to find recordings for a bunch of 2-chord songs. Pete Wernick's got a good list.

Then I'm going to practice by playing these songs in a loop doing a basic strum (or boom-chick) as I switch in and out of chords that use the first major chord position.

For example John Henry is a 2-chord song that Steve Martin plays slowly in the key of G (on The Steve Martin Brothers CD). I'll play along with this song, switching between these chords...

...over and over until I burn the chord position into my brain.

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

I showed David how I've been challenging myself to play Midwest Banjo Camp's Official List of Jamming Tunes without resorting to tablature.
I played the version of Mama Don't 'Low that I worked up. He liked it but had a few suggestions. For example, he likes the way I slip two measures of Foggy Mountain Breakdown G lick in after the singer first sings "don't 'low no banjo pickin' here" and he'd like me to find a good two-measure D lick to play after the second time. In fact, he switched quickly between praising me for breaking my habit of learning songs from books to suggesting that I break out my copy of Bill Knopf's Hot Licks & Fiddle Tunes for the Bluegrass Banjo Player...

...because of its wealth of D lick ideas.

Also in the last week:

Remember those four troubled banjos that I've been slowly turning into three good banjos?

Well, I messed one of them up when I attempted to install a geared fifth string tuning peg. The base of the geared peg is a little wider than the base of the original peg so I bought a $25 fifth string peghole reamer to widen the peg hole. But I made it a little too wide which caused the peg to twist when I tightened it all the way.

I took the thing to Ben, the instrument repair guy at Flatts & Sharpe, who charged me just $15 to correct the damage by inlaying some glue and wood into the peg hole.

The moral of the story: I should have saved the money on that special tool and paid Ben to install the new peg in the first place.
The redhead is pretty patient but she got really tired of the few 2-chord songs that I was practicing. So I spent a little time building up a list with some variety. Here's what I came up with:

Banjo versus TV week 105: Jamming at end of Old Town School session

2010-03-21T09:15:00.001-05:00

I joined the end-of-the-session bluegrass jam at Old Town School of Folk Music. Class sessions at OTS are eight weeks long so this jam is held several times a year.

It's a jam that's very beginner-friendly. Several OTS instructors take turns leading. Song sheets are provided.

The songs we played this time around were:

Nine Pound Hammer
Ring of Fire
I Hear a Choo Choo
Till the End of the World Goes Round
Pig in a Pen
I Wonder Where You Are Tonight
Won't You Come Home and Sing for Me
Footprints in the Snow
Hey Good Lookin'
Little Maggie
Banks of the Ohio

Also in the last week:

I can't believe I had to miss Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival for the first time in three years, but this was a crazy busy week and I just couldn't get away. Next year for sure, Shorty!
At one point in the week I found myself sitting around, waiting for someone, next to the shelves where I've stored the cheap toy guitars that I used in my three-headed guitar project. So I tuned one of the guitars so its first four strings matched banjo tuning and got in a little practice. I understand that John Lennon did something similar when he got his first guitar, since he already knew how to play the banjo.

Banjo versus TV week 104: Midwest Banjo Camp's Official List of Jamming Tunes

2010-03-20T21:21:00.000-05:00

Midwest Banjo Camp (which will be held in Olivet, Michigan on June 4-6, 2010) has released MBC's Official List of Jamming Tunes for a type of jam session that's new this year: the play from a list jam.

In this type of jam the leaders promise to stick to a published list of songs. They've released official lists for bluegrass and old-time players.

I think it will be an interesting to see how this type of jam compares with the other kinds of jam that the camp offers: slow jams for novices, "how to jam" workshops, intermediate jams, open james, specialty jams (e.g. bluegrass vocals, old-time vocals, jazz and swing, and northern & Celtic) and experts' jams.

I'm likely to go to the bluegrass jam, so I took a look at the songs to see where I stand. Here's my take on the 25 songs in their bluegrass list and how well I could play them.

I could play these well and could improvise a little

Bile 'em Cabbage Down
Cripple Creek
Good Old Mountain Dew
Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
Wabash Cannonball
Will the Circle be Unbroken
Worried Man Blues

I could do backup and could definitely fake a solo

Amazing Grace
Banjo in the Hollow
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
I Saw the Light

I could do backup and on a good day could fake a solo

Blue Ridge Cabin Home
Bury Me Beneath the Willow
Clinch Mountain Backstep
Little Cabin Home on the Hill
Little Maggie
Long Journey Home (Two Dollar Bill)
Mama Don't Allow No Music (Played Round Here)
New River Train
Nine Pound Hammer
Old Home Place
Old Joe Clark
Salt Creek
Salty Dog

Couldn't really do it

John Hardy
Lonesome Road Blues
Soldiers Joy

So I've been practicing some of the songs that needed work, especially Worried Man Blues, Long Journey Home, I Saw the Light and Mama Don't 'Low.

Also in the last week:

Took Denephew to see Béla Fleck - The Africa Project at Old Town School of Folk Music. The Chicago Reader had picked this concert as a critics choice and they were right on target. Wish you had been there.
I've now watched 85 of the 94 episodes of Phineas and Ferb. Episodes I'm missing:
- "Tree to Get Ready"
- "Ready for the Bettys"
- "The Flying Fishmonger"
- "Phineas and Ferb's Musical Cliptastic Countdown"
- "Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation"
- "Suddenly Suzy"
- "Undercover Carl"
- "Mom's Birthday Episode"
- "Journey to the Center of Candace"
Glad they're making new ones.
The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived. I've finally gone to Costello's Jam enough to earn my free sandwich! (It helped that I brought Denephew along and treated him to a sandwich.)
I dropped Human Target from my DVR. How disappointing that the TV series chucked everything that made the comic interesting.

I am easily amused: Family Fitting Room

2010-03-10T21:14:00.002-06:00

Banjo versus TV week 103: I make an ape face when I play the banjo

2010-03-05T23:45:00.004-06:00

I am not an unattractive man.

A little hirsute, perhaps. But normally I look like a human being.

So why is it that, in all of the pictures of me playing my banjo at the party this week — Oh, and happy birthday Dave, Julie and Cathy — why is it that in all of those pictures, I have ape face?

Do you see the ape face? Here, let me zoom in for you.

See? Ape face.

Here's another one.

And another.

It's kind of a slack-jawed, thinking-real-hard kind of expression.

And if you think the ape face is clear in those photos, you should see the video. Ape face, ape face, ape face.

Several questions spring to mind.

Why do I make a face like an ape when I play the banjo?
How can I stop making a face like an ape when I play the banjo?
I was having a great time. How come I'm not smiling?
Do I only make the ape face when I play the banjo or do I also make it when I play other instruments?

Actually, I can answer that last one. Here's me playing my washtub bass at that same party.

So, yeah. There it is. Ape face.

Also in the last week:

TV-wise, my obsession with Phineas and Ferb continues. You should really check out the pitch reel on the Phineas and Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas DVD. It's the cartoonists' crudely animated sketchbook that they put together for Disney executives. An interesting view into the creative and corporate process.
Also, TV-wise, is this:

That was no lady, that was my granny

2010-02-27T22:56:00.000-06:00

It amuses me greatly that a picture of me in my Granny Goodness costume has been added to the Ladies of the Con's Flickr group.

Banjo versus TV week 102: Daring Foggy Mountain Breakdown

2010-02-27T21:53:00.000-06:00

I went to Costello's Jam and am now 80% of the way to my free sandwich. See?

During one of my turns at the jam I decided to try Foggy Mountain Breakown, which I limped through.

My banjo instructor, David, was there and he declared it "daring" — which I took to mean "Good for you for trying a song that you clearly weren't ready to play."

So at my lesson later in the week, David had me work on Foggy Mountain Breakown using the version from Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo. I can now play the first part pretty well and am working on the second solo, which has a lot of up-the-neck string bending and some tricky pinky work.

Also in the last week:

I'm sure you've been wondering what's with all this TV time. Two answers: Phineas and Ferb. I've been watching episode after episode after episode as the two step-brothers figure out what to do with each day of their summer vacation.

It's a tremendously fun cartoon that brings to mind childhood days when everything was possible. Reminds me a little of the Henry Reed series. It's just too bad that the show has nothing to do with the banjo. Hey, where's Perry?

Oh, there you are, Perry.
I got a new capo. I'd been using the Shubb S5-r capo:

The "r" is for radiused; my Nechville banjo has a radiused neck. But I've been getting tired of putting the capo on and off the neck so I got a Paige capo which stays on the banjo all the time, resting behind the nut when it's not in use.

And since my banjo has a tunneled fifth string I got the wider Paige guitar capo instead of a Paige banjo capo. The banjo capo only covers four strings and is designed to slide up only as far as the fifth fret, where it runs into the fifth string capo. But on my banjo the fifth string capo is on the headpiece (at the end of a tunnel) so I can side the wider guitar capo way up the neck.

Banjo versus TV week 101: Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival on the radio

2010-02-27T19:22:00.000-06:00

The banjo highlight of my week was WLUW's Live 'n' Kickin' Bluegrass show. Why?

Reason #1: David Bragman hosting. Of course, David (my banjo instructor) hosts the show every first Saturday so that's not really why this show was so good. This show was good because of...

Reason #2: Shorty. I had introduced David and Shorty so I took pride in hearing David interview her about Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival, which is coming up in Peoria on March 4-7, 2010. Shorty made a good case for why you should swing over to Peoria that weekend to enjoy the bands and the jamming that she's arranged. (Discounted rooms are still available at the Stoney Creek Inn.)

Reason #3: Playing along. I decided to do a little playing along with the songs and I did pretty well. Yay me!

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

In honor of the day, David had me work on Groundhog.

Also in the last week:

On the TV front, I watched Meet Dave and really enjoyed it. Shut up.

Lincoln Park Zoo

2010-02-22T07:50:00.000-06:00

I had an errand in the neighborhood next to Chicago's free Lincoln Park Zoo. And I had my iPhone with me. So...

Redmoon Theater: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

2010-02-20T12:36:00.001-06:00

If you see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Chicago's Redmoon Theater before its run ends on March 7th (and you should!), be warned that it is a tale based on a horror film and that nightmares could follow.

The plot of Redmoon production is different from the plot of the 1920 film. Of course, the 1920 film took a turn away from the original script when the producer decided to blunt its pacifistic message with an odd framing device. I guess he figured that post-World-War Germany didn't need to hear about the dangers of following an evil maniac's commands. But I digress.

The point is, this is a great production. Just be aware that it's a creepy story told with scary puppets.

Welcome to the pull list

2010-02-18T10:48:00.004-06:00

I'm starting something new — new to me, anyway. I'm establising a pull list at my local comic shop. (That's Phoenix Comics in Morton Grove, Illinois, by the way. Hi, Craig!)

I've been collecting comics since I was in high school but I've never had a pull list before. I've just poked through the comics on the shelf every week, piled up the good ones in a stack and purchased them. So this pull list thing is a big change.

I'll still have the option of poking through shelves, of course. But now that I'm on a pull list, Craig will have pulled my chosen comics each week and will have them waiting for me.

I'll be tuning the pull list over time, but I'll start with an off-the-top-of-my-head list of the comics that I like most right now. So, ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome to the pull list:

That will do for a start. Later I'll draw on other sources like my stack of recent purchases, various podcasts and such. But the above comics are the ones that spring to mind and which I look forward to the most.

Banjo versus TV week 100: Mammary Glands

2010-02-14T22:44:00.002-06:00

It was a busy week of non-banjo things. I did manage to attend David Bragman's lecture, "The Banjo, From Africa to the Suburbs" (which I mentioned previously). He gave a nice history of the American banjo experience.

But the lecture was also notable because I met the writer of one of my favorite songs. Here, I snapped a picture.

Here's how it happened.

Various groups of people were chatting after the performance. I joined a conversation already in progress to find that the people were discussing the song Mammary Glands. Since it was one of my favorite songs from the Dr. Demento Show I told the group how much I liked the song and sang the chorus:

One of the people was particularly pleased to hear how much I liked the song because she was Kristin Lems, the song's writer and performer.

What a treat.

Banjo versus TV week 99: Improvising versus faking

2010-02-14T22:06:00.002-06:00

I ran across an interesting article, "Improvisation," by Harold Streeter in the June 1979 back issue of The Banjo Newsletter (I'd ordered it up for Jack Hatfield's tablature to Polka on the Banjo.)

Streeter discusses learning a song, improvising and faking.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I've encountered a lot of banjo players who eschew tablature and wrote learning of songs in favor of playing along on-the-fly. Which, in Streeter's terms, makes them fakers.

A real improviser, to Streeter, will learn a song well and then riff on it at leisure. I like that idea a lot.

Also in the last week:

I had a lot of fun at a jug band jam in Chicago. As I wrote previously, this is regular event held at 9:00pm on the third Monday of each month at the Grafton Pub and sponsored by the Barehand Jugband. You should join!
I saw Tim Eriksen perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I liked his instrumentals (on a bunch of instruments including the banjo) but what really stood out for me was his use of throat singing. It's a technique that I described in December when I wrote about the Tuvan throat singing group Alash. It's interesting to see the same technique used in both American and Tuvan folk singing.
When I started my Banjo versus TV project I put together a presentation that noted the average American watches 3 hours of TV per day. I thought of that when I saw the Slashdot article New Study Shows Youth Plugged In Most of The Day. "Young people now devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use." Imagine if I spent nearly that amount of time on my banjo.

Tool Academy 3. Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T21:30:00.001-06:00

What a wonderful Valentine's Day present. It's the season three premiere of Tool Academy!

I've tifauxed it and will watch it when I'm properly dressed.

Minnesotans, mark your calendars: 28th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands

2010-02-08T15:01:00.001-06:00

I can't make it this year but you should definitely go to the 28th Annual Battle of the Jug Bands in Minneapolis on Valentine's Day.

Banjo versus TV week 98: Whoah!

2010-02-07T11:52:00.003-06:00

Whoah! Look at that scale. I've been putting so little time into the banjo and so much into the boob tube that the TV side is only 18 hours behind the banjo.

It's a busy time for me right now. But I'd better get pickin' or the scale will soon tip into TV side for the first time since I started this project.

B-Fest 2010 was a great show of bad movies

2010-02-07T11:07:00.000-06:00

Big thanks to the organizers of last week's B-Fest, which is held every January at Northwestern University. I had a blast.

My friend Ken Begg has a nice B-Fest Diary 2010 at his site.

Mark Your Calendars: Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival

2010-02-06T12:25:00.002-06:00

Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival is one of my favorite bluegrass events and it's coming up the first weekend in March.

This will be my third year attending the festival, which is held annually in East Peoria, Illinois. Shorty, the festival's promoter, puts together a great event with as much emphasis on jamming as on performances. (Take that, Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival, with your broken promises of jamming!)

The best way to enjoy the festival is to book a room at the Stoney Creek Inn (where Shorty has arranged a festival discount) so you can take advantage of the round-the-clock jamming areas. The lodge itself is a comfortable timber-themed kind of place and the staff is very festival-friendly.

This year's performers:

Santa Tracker: 100 percent

2010-02-02T21:03:00.001-06:00

We finally matched up some difficult schedules and exchanged the last of our Christmas gifts. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Chicagoans, mark your calendars: The Banjo, From Africa to the Suburbs

2010-01-28T12:22:00.002-06:00

My banjo instructor David Bragman is presenting and performing a lecture, "The Banjo, From Africa to the Suburbs," this Saturday at the Evanston Public Library.

I've seen some of his props for the event: a number of different banjos including the old gourd-style banjo.

Mark your calendar — it should be fun!

See you tonight at Chicago's new jug band jam

2010-01-18T10:58:00.001-06:00

Reminder to Chicagoans: Tonight is the Barehand Jugband's first monthly jug band jam.

The jam will be held at 9:00pm on the third Monday of each month at the Grafton Pub (next to the Old Town School of Folk Music Lincoln branch).

Virtual age

2010-01-17T13:11:00.001-06:00

According to the virtual age calculator I'm younger than I am.

Banjo versus TV week 97: Stinkin' up the jam

2010-01-17T10:32:00.004-06:00

Bad news and good news from Costello's Bluegrass Jam.

Bad: I stunk. I mean, I was really awful. It's like my slacking off of the banjo this last month has caused my skill to regress by a year.

Good: Only three more times until I get my free sandwich.

BTW, I've been ordering their toasted PB&J, which is yummy.

Also in the last week:

From the music shop next to Costello's I got a good deal on Hayseed Dixie's A Hillbilly Tribute To Mountain Love.
Did you like the stuff I wrote in week 86 about banjo and the recent Sherlock Holmes movie? Then you'll like this interview with composer Hans Zimmer.
While tracking down details on a story that my brother sent me (about a banjo used as a weapon) I ran across this scene from the 1970 Spaghetti Western Sabata:
Caught some nice, simple banjo pickin' on NPR's This Americal Life podcast in the prologue of #233: Starting from Scratch.
My friend Daryl and I agreed that it was time to let Heroes go. So long, promise-breaker.

Good luck, Human Target. It's all on you, now.

Banjo versus TV week 96: The December rut

2010-01-04T13:31:00.003-06:00

Man, have I been slacking on the banjo these last few weeks. I was doing well until December hit (starting in week 92), but look how much TV I've watched in December compared to my paltry few banjo hours.

This is a seasonal thing that seems to happen every year before Christmas. It's time to shake it off.

Also in the last week:

I saw Guy Ritchie's film Sherlock Holmes, which had more banjo than you'd expect. Musical director Hans Zimmer said in an interview that he chose his instruments to give the music a pub-like quality.
Fans of Bill Monroe take note: There was a blue moon this week, both over Kentucky and around the world.
Steve Martin's Late For School made it onto Dr. Demento's Funny 25 for 2009.
Opened some Christmas presents that got here after Christmas, which included a Holy Ghost Tent Revival t-shirt.

Thanks, Rock Islanders!

Chewbacca hates shovelling

2010-01-04T09:35:00.000-06:00

Thanks, Bully, for the link.

Chicago's new jug band jam

2010-01-03T21:07:00.000-06:00

I just got a note from Jonas Friddle of the Barehand Jugband telling me that the band is sponsoring a monthly Chicago jug band jam.

So bring your favorite jug band instrument to the Grafton Pub (next to the Old Town School of Folk Music) at 9pm on the third Monday of the month and join the fun. Or just come to enjoy the show.

A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant

2010-01-02T22:53:00.001-06:00

From A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant

The redhead and I just got back from Next Theatre Company's production of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant. It was really wonderful. If you're in the Chicago area you should go right now and get tickets for tomorrow night's show since it's the last performance of the Next Theatre's run.

A Red Orchid Theatre is also putting on Pageant and they've extended their run until January 17th. The redhead and I have tickets to see that production next week. I look forward to the chance to compare the two.

Banjo versus TV week 95: Christmas

2010-01-02T17:41:00.002-06:00

Banjo-related stuff that I was given for Christmas:

Thanks to all gift-givers. Hope you get as much enjoyment out of what I got you.

Also in the last week:

I got a copy of the Country Cooking CD because it's got some good examples of endings.
Way more TV time (7h 9m) than banjo time (1h 46m) as we watched Christmas stuff.
One activity that counted as both banjo and TV (per the rules): the annual watching of the Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas DVD.

Don't Tread On Me

2010-01-01T12:50:00.001-06:00

Because sometimes you wake up in a new year and want to Photoshop a Dalek onto a Gadsden flag.

Ending endings month

2009-12-31T23:12:00.000-06:00

I've gotten a lot of understanding out of endings month. I haven't had time to blog about everything I've learned as I dedicated this month to a study of endings on the 5-string banjo. Among the things I've learned about but haven't blogged about:

Shave-and-a-haircut ending. Now, don't tell me that you don't already know exactly what I'm talking about. All right, if you must have an example, here's Jackie Phelps on the banjo as one of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, showing us (at about 2:25 on) what I'm talking about with Roanoke:
Amen ending. That's ending with a plagal cadence, which is a IV-to-I cadence. For an example go to church.
Ending after ending after ending. You'll find no better example than Roy Clark wrapping up the Pickin' and a Grinnin' segment each week on Hee Haw. Roy layered on one ending after another. Start at 1:38.

But even endings month must come to an end. Thanks for joining me. See you in January for beginnings month.

Endings month: Abrupt novelty ending

2009-12-30T16:11:00.000-06:00

I can't complete endings month without mentioning one of my favorite novelty endings: The Smothers Brothers singing Hangman, from 0:00 to 0:42 on this video:

That's similar to the ending that Johnny Cash used in 25 Minutes to Go at 2:24.

I'm not sure what musical lesson can be learned from all of this.

Banjo versus TV week 94: Update on the little plastic foot

2009-12-26T17:33:00.002-06:00

It's been a slow week so this is a good time to follow up on something.

Remember how, back in September, I put a little plastic foot on my banjo to train my right ring finger to maintain its position? It's been going really well. I can really feel it when my finger slips off of the disk and my right hand foundation has been improving.

I did make one change from my original plan: I got rid of that crescent-shaped plastic foot...

...and replaced it with a circular foot.

Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

David showed me a bunch of variations on a common ending lick. I'll be posting more about that as endings month continues.
David recommends Killer Tone, an 80-minute DVD by Steve Huber about banjo setup. I've placed it on my Amazon wish list.

Last week to order Band Geek Hero shirts

2009-12-24T02:27:00.002-06:00

According to the banner at tshirthell.com...

...this is the last week to order Band Geek Hero t-shirts, including the Banjo Hero t-shirt (which I just now ordered).

Here's a selection of patterns from the Band Geek Hero line:

If you like one of these you'd better order it by Sunday December 27th at 11:59 PM EST, which their Facebook page says is when the shirts will be gone forever.

Santa Tracker: 88.7 percent

2009-12-23T23:23:00.000-06:00

Shh! Don't tell the people who we're meeting after Christmas that we haven't got some of their presents yet.

But the rest of them are good to go! (And it's not even Christmas Eve!)

Endings month: Ending on the 7

2009-12-23T14:19:00.001-06:00

Here's a variation on the end-the-song-by-returning-to-the-tonic trick: end-the-song-by-returning-to-the-7-of-the-tonic trick

So if your song is in G you bring it back to G at the end, but you slap on a G7 for the final note(s). Or if you're in Bb, end it in Bb with a Bb7. And so on.

It's kind of a bluesy thing to do, so let's look to Robert "King of the Delta Blues Singers" Johnson to show us the way in Sweet Home Chicago at 2:48 in.

And for another example of this technique it's Sweet Home Chicago again, this time by The Blues Brothers with an ending at 3:30.

Santa Tracker: 71.4 percent

2009-12-22T08:39:00.001-06:00

One of the benefits of living in a big city: the post office on Harrison Street is open until midnight.

Endings month: Slowing down

2009-12-20T21:52:00.001-06:00

This is a simple ending trick but it requires you to make sure you have everyone on the same page before you do it: slowing down.

It's a popular ending for train songs, giving the audience the feel of a train slowing down. Bob & Rose Savoy use this ending starting around 1:45 into Ruben's Train:

It's not just for train songs. It's also good for hymns and for just-plain-songs like Reno and Smiley's Talk of the Town (at 2:12):

Santa Tracker: 67.7 percent

2009-12-20T21:35:00.001-06:00

Shopped locally, if by "locally" one means "by driving around the suburbs".

Santa Tracker: 45.3 percent

2009-12-19T22:19:00.000-06:00

The final push has begun.

Someday/maybe list

2009-12-18T11:31:00.002-06:00

Selected items that are on my GTD someday/maybe list, which I'm reviewing because we're coming up on the end of a quarter:

Repair seat in car
Learn to play mandolin
Learn to play ukulele
Learn to play harmonica
Take Chicago architecture tour
Look into ways to prevent the interference from iPhone when you connected to 12v car adapter
Dance lessons
Look for Gasoline Alley comic strip for January 1st 1991 or so, featuring the new year playing a banjo
Learn to shuffle cards
Get screen protector for digital cameras
Learn to play Cuban box drum
Add Wachet Auf by Johann Sebastian Bach to my list of songs I want to learn on the banjo
Learn to roll Rs
Find a T-shirt that says, 1 fish, 2 fish, red fish, blue fish
Research Sunni and Shiite differences
Costume idea: Thanos playing the banjo with the Infinity Gauntlet
Take more vocal lessons
Vacation in Napier, New Zealand, the Art Deco capital of the world

Anyone got any someday/maybe items of their own?

Endings month: Remember variety

2009-12-14T19:44:00.000-06:00

An important lesson that my banjo instructor, David, emphasized when we were discussing my endings month project: Remember the variety. Don't just play the same ending for song after song.

I'll illustrate, but first I'd like to apologize to Barry Scott and Second Wind for using them as an example of what not to do. Sorry, guys. But you did put yourselves out there on YouTube.

So here's what not to do. Two years ago YouTube user wright98 posted several recordings of Barry Scott and Second Wind. Listen to what they play at 2:27 into I'm Waiting To Hear You Call Me Darling...

...and 2:40 into I Want To Live Beyond The Grave...

...and 2:27 into Oh What A Day.

It's the same ending lick. All three times.

These guys have great rhythm and wonderful voices but — just judging from this small sample set from 2007 — their single way of ending makes them come off as unpolished and repetitive.

When you're jamming or especially if you're doing a set on stage, make sure you vary your endings.

Endings month: A cappella endings

2009-12-14T17:35:00.002-06:00

Here's an easy ending trick that works well for songs with meaning: the a cappella ending. Basically you drop the instruments and just sing.

Some options:

Go a cappella for the last chorus.
Go a cappella with a repeat of the last chorus.
Go a cappella with a repeat of the last line or two.

A demonstration of that first option at 1:30 of the Austin Lounge Lizards singing One True God:

That's one of my favorite Austin Lounge Lizards songs. Unfortunately the first line — "You say your god is the one true god but my one god is the one true god..." — got clipped on that video.

Speaking of the Lounge Lizards's irreverence, here's another example of them doing a cappella for the first verse (0:28 to 1:18) and as a penultimate ending by repeating the last line (2:35 to 2:41). The ultimate ending is a banjo tag at 2:42.