Banjo versus TV: Week 25

A weekly check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s resolution to spend more time in 2008 on his banjo than on TV.

If you've been following my first-banjoversary-labelled post you know what I've been up to this last week. But I'll bet you still have questions, yes you do. Two questions, in fact.

Did you get any presents for your banjoversary?

Oh, yes!

• Book: Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo: Revised and Enhanced Edition - Book with CD
• Book: Mel Bay's You Can Teach Yourself Banjo Book
• Book: How to Play the 5-String Banjo, Third Edition by Pete Seeger
• Book: Banjo for Dummies by Bill Evans
• Book: The Complete Bluegrass Banjo Method by Fred Sokolow
• CD: Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits
• CD: The Complete Columbia Stanley Brothers
• CD: American Banjo: Three-Finger and Scruggs Style
• CD: The Complete Mercury Recordings by Flatt & Scruggs
• CD: Recapturing the Banjo by Otis Taylor

What a great banjoversary. Thanks, all!

All that blogging and celebrating, yet you only logged one lousy hour of banjo time this week?

Yeah. It was a pretty low-practice week. And counting my blogging time as banjo time would be against the rules.

My second 6 months on the banjo

It's J.R.'s one year banjoversary and he's writing a series of posts on where he's been and where he's going, banjo-wise.

Yes, after those first six months I just wasn't making the progress that I wanted to. I'd performed on stage and had a good time doing so, but I wasn't satisfied with my musical performance. I'd spent half a year on my banjo and had gone to lessons every week (mostly), but I could just barely manage a Seeger-style sing-along. (And I'd have needed the printed music and a lot of practice before I could play the song.)

Coincidentally – or perhaps because the universe just wanted me to learn to play the banjo better – this period of realization came upon me at the end of the year, just in time for a new year's resolution:

My new year's resolution for 2008 is to spend at least as much time playing my banjo as I spend watching TV.

I set down some ground rules and started the year-long Banjo versus TV project. And let me tell you, the last six months have been much, much more fun.

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Month 7:

• The redhead says my Scruggs-style playing is sounding "almost like music"
• I try to teach myself Foggy Mountain Breakdown when I'm really not ready for it. Mike sets me back on the path of good practice technique.
• I purchase what will become the best gadget in my toolkit: an Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder. In the coming weeks I'll use it to record banjo classes, my lessons with Mike and my own progress.

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Month 8:

• I join the Banjo Hangout Player's Union and really start to use the facilities of The Banjo Hangout. I begin to cross-post between my personal blog and my blog at The Banjo Hangout.
• I do a speech for our Toastmasters group about my Banjo versus TV project. This is important for a few reasons.
  • It helps me organize my thoughts on how feasible the project is, how I can improve my chances for success and why I need so many hours of practice.
  • Because I discuss my goals so publicly I'm more likely to achieve them.
• I go to a jam with the Windy City Jammers. I have a good time and I resolve to go back frequently, despite the fact that I feel like my skill level isn't there yet. (I haven't gone back yet.)
• I attend an evening's performance at the 48th Annual Univerity of Chicago Folk Festival.
• A big break-through occurs and my practice starts to pay off when my basal ganglia (some call it "muscle memory") learns the forward roll. Mike says I sound good! We play a couple of songs together and he says, "I actually had fun playing with you." Woo-hoo!!
• I start to track the songs I want to learn to play on my banjo.
• I'm having a little trouble transitioning between different types of rolls in a song.

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Month 9:

• I buy a cheap, spare banjo so I can have one at work, too.
• The redhead says, "Hey! You're sounding good. I was actually nodding my head to that one." I look forward to the day when people compliment me on my banjo playing without using the term "actually".
• I'm a little bored with the few songs in my books that are within my current skill range, so I order some "easy banjo solo" books.
• I attend Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival and learn how to vamp during a jam.
• I return home from the festival to discover that my employees have transformed my office desk into a hillbilly shack. I love those people.
• I buy myself a copy of Tabledit software and learn how to use it as a practice aid (sort of).
• My first attempt at installing strings does not go well. (I would later learn that I should have used a string winder.)

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Month 10:

• Tried some plastic finger picks and didn't like them.
• Tried some music theory and loved it.
• April Fools Day pranksters kidnapped my banjo.
• Learned to pinch.

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Month 11:

• More pinching and hammering-on.
• Some work on my pinky; this time through the D chord.
• I learn a lot at my sister's jam party.

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Month 12:

• Midwest Banjo Camp, and lots of it!

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As you can see from this chart of my banjo hours over the year...

...I logged a lot more banjo time in the second six months than I did in the first. The Banjo versus TV project has been a success!

"So, J.R.," I hear you say, because I can hear things over the Internet. "That's what the last year has been like. But what's next?"

I'm so glad you asked. Stay tuned for the where-do-I-go-from-here portion of my first banjoversary celebration.

My first 6 months on the banjo

It's J.R.'s one year banjoversary and he's writing a series of posts on where he's been and where he's going, banjo-wise.

You can pretty much divide the past year into two parts: the first six months in which I didn't practice enough and the second six in which I did.

Here's a look at those first six months.

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Month 1: Getting started

• I get my banjo and start blogging about it.
• I begin lessons with Mike at Flatts & Sharpe.
• Mike shows me Seeger-style boom-titty-boom strumming.
• I learn to read tablature.
• I learn three chords (G, C and D7) and assume that I'll be rapidly learning many other chords. (Spoiler: I do not rapidly learn many other chords.)
• I'm supposed to be doing some homework that Mike gave me, but instead I get distracted by plunking out bugle calls on my banjo.

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Month 2: Trouble begins

• I learn to hammer on.
• Mike shows me three new chords (G7, A7 and Em), but they don't stick in my mind, probably because I'm having trouble finding the time to practice.

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Month 3: The left hand learns a little

• I learn to slide.
• I pick up a few songs (like Cripple Creek), all in Seeger style.

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Month 4: Lack of practice makes imperfect

• Mike starts me on my first book: Hal Leonard Banjo Method - Book 1.
• I try to learn the F chord, but my pinky can't do the job.
• Aaaand that's kind of it for the whole month. I don't practice nearly enough.

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Month 5: Thinks perk up 'cause I have a goal

• Flatts & Sharpe announces that it will be hosting a recital for its students, so the month is pretty much dominated by my preparation for that event. I decide to do "The Preamble" from School House Rock.
• Mike helps me figure out the chords.
• I try to learn a few new tricks for the piece (like Scruggs-style forward rolls), but I wind up abandoning them because I can't learn them well enough in time.

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Month 6: Shoving myself onstage

• I perform at the recital and I'm a hit. But, being honest with myself, I realize that I got through it on enthusiasm and a really good slide show.
• Think I'm being too hard on myself? Check out the terrible hand positions from these photos of the recital:
  
  See? I'm having fun, but my right hand is doing everything from the wrist (like Mike had warned me against in month 2) and I'm holding my left hand like a claw (ditto).
• I get involved in the holidays and don't do much with the banjo for the rest of the month.

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Sorry to end the post on such a downer, but that's really where I was after six months. Things will pick up in the next post, though, because I've created a trick that helped me stick with my practicing.

It's my banjoversary!

It's been one year since the redhead gave me the best birthday present ever. Let's relive that moment, shall we?

It's 2007, we're having a birthday dinner at a nice vegetarian restaurant and I'm opening a big, oddly-shaped package from the redhead.

Isn't she wonderful?

And as you know (especially if you've been reading my blog and the 61 posts [so far] with the Banjo label) I've been working on my banjo playing ever since.

How am I celebrating my banjoversary? By blogging. A lot. I'm going to use this occasion to have a little public think session about where I've been and where I'm going, banjo-wise.

So, if you like that sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you'll like and you should really like the next few posts.

Update: It's not just my birthday. It's not just my banjoversary. Apparently, June 20th is the happiest day of the year for everybody. (Thanks for the link, little sister!) (Link broken? Try this one.)