That's it for the Banjo versus TV project!

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.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog

Banjo versus TV week 129: My hideously deformed toenails

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 8/15/2010 through 8/21/2010. J.R. has fallen way behind in his banjo blogging but is in catch-up mode and is rapidly gaining on the present week.

(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.

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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.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog

Banjo versus TV week 128: The Fortress of Banjotude

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 8/8/2010 through 8/14/2010. Hey, this catch-up mode is really working! There are now only six Catsup Bottles of Behindness!

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?

1. I will treat my banjo training like sports training
2. I will create a terrific banjo practice area
3. 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.

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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.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog

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

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 8/1/2010 through 8/7/2010. J.R. is still in catch-up mode, as evidenced by (a) the October date stamp on this August entry, (b) yesterday's four (1-2-3-4) posts in a single day and (c) these catsup bottles, one for each week that he needs to catch up for.

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.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog

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

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 7/25/2010 through 7/31/2010. Weekly. Ha! If it's so weekly, then why is J.R. in catch-up mode, starting each post with a catsup bottle for every week he's fallen behind, huh?

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.

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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.

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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.

Cross-posted at J.R.'s Banjo Hangout blog