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

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

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 7/4/2010 through 7/10/2010. J.R. has fallen way behind in his banjo blogging and has this many weeks to catch up for:

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.

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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.

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

KazooKeylele

Perfection.

I need a Kooky-Uke

I need a Kooky-Uke. Need it, need it. Neeeeeeed. It.

Jim Craig*, who runs the (highly recommended) Hogeye Music store in Evanston, Illinois, showed me a Polk-A-Lay-Lee and in doing so set me on a quest. Some day, somehow, I must own a Kooky-Uke.

Mind you, the Polk-A-Lay-Lee is not itself a Kooky-Uke. The Polk-A-Lay-Lee – made by the Peterson Company of Ohio — is a knock-off of the Kooky-Uke brand. That's why I'm going to take a pass on any of Peterson's Polk-A-Lay-Lees or Wander-leles and hold out for an actual Swaggerty-brand Kooky-Uke.

And what is an actual Swaggerty-brand Kooky-Uke? Let's ask Jumpin' Jim Beloff*, the author of Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Beach Party.

Jim has more to say about the Kooky-Ukes, so you should buy the book. He's got pictures, too.

As you can tell from the picture with the blonde, the Trēhōlipee's long headstock has a functional purpose. You play your Trēhōlipee on the beach until somebody yells "Surf's up!" then you flip your Trēhōlipee over, skewer it into the sand and run out to ride the waves on your surfboard. And if you've got a Surf-a-lele, you grab it on your way out since it was designed to be played while riding a surfboard. No kidding. There's even a Rick Griffin illustration on the back of the Surf-a-lele to show you how it's supposed to be done.

Neeeeeeed.

* "Wait a minute. Jim Craig, Jim Beloff and James Robert Jenks?" I hear you ask, because I hear it whenever anyone speaks my name. "Do all ukulele players have the first name of James?" The answer is two-fold. First, yes. Second, it's pronounced OOK-oo-lay-lee.