Banjo versus TV: Week 38

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. This post covers 9/17/2008 through 9/23/2008.

I had a really great playing moment this last week. I brought my banjo along for a lunch break in the park and decided to try to play along with some of my bluegrass CDs. It worked! I was able to keep up with a simple boom-chick accompaniment for anything in G, even the fast stuff. (Next time I'll bring my capo so I can accompany the A stuff, too.) It was a really sweet hey-I-can-do-this feeling.

Also in the last week:

• Things I took away from this week's banjo lesson:
  • Dave kicked off the lesson by asking me to "just play some banjo" so I warmed up with Do Lord then proceeded to my best number, I'll Fly Away. Dave said, "A couple of stumbles, but still: smooth, even, solid sound. That's exactly the way it's supposed to sound." Woo-hoo!
  • I brought my laptop along to show Dave how I've been playing along with TablEdit. He liked it.
  • Dave had me boom-chick along with a very cool version of Ring of Fire from the album Earl Scruggs and Friends. Billy Bob Thornton doing vocals. I really like it, even if the Amazon editorial review calls it one of the album's misfires.
  • Then Dave had me roll along with the same number. Wow. That was the fastest I've ever played along with a forward roll. Dave says I did OK.
• I watched the darkly creepy musical Pretty Dead Girl on iFC. It's a little bit of Scrubs, Little Shop of Horrors and A Clockwork Orange all rolled into one with an heaping helping of Fosse on top.
  
  You can watch the first two songs on YouTube:
  
  
  
  
• 13 minutes of online videos I watched this week:
  • Palin / Clinton (Tina Fey / Amy Poehler) SNL Opening (6 min)
  • Joseph Stiglitz: How foreign governments are buying America (5 min)
  • Babylon 5 Jamaican vacation promo (1 min)
  • Senator McCain Invented the BlackBerry! (1 min)
• I pre-ordered a copy of Banjo Camp!: Learning, Picking & Jamming with Bluegrass & Old-Time Greats. It's supposed to come out in November.

Banjo versus TV: Week 37

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. This post covers 9/9/2008 through 9/15/2008.

So why did the TV kick the banjo's butt this week? Two reasons: Water and the guitar.

The guitar because this was the week where I started my guitar lessons, and that time doesn't count as banjo time even though I'm doing this for banjo-related reasons. (I want to learn to recognize the chords that a guitarist plays during a jam session.)

Water because the roof to our apartment sprung a leak during the weekend storms. The redhead and I slept in shifts so that somebody would be awake to spot new leaks and to mop up. The TV was my stay-awake buddy during much of that time, so I racked up 9 hours and 11 minutes of TV time this week. (Ooooh! 9:11 for the week of 9/11. Is it something mystical, or just a coincidence? [Answer: Coincidence.])

Also in the last week:

• Perhaps a banjo-practice slump isn't something you can buy your way out of. But at $6.99 per CD at the pawn shop, not to mention the buy-three-get-one-free deal, one might as well try, right? So I picked up:
  • Two compilation albums: 50 Years of Bluegrass Hits (Parts 1 and 2) and World's Greatest Bluegrass Bands
  • Two albums by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys: Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys: The Early Years and The Very Best of Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys
  • And speaking of Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, two album from former Boys: Bluegrass Boy by Peter Rowan and I Wonder Where You Are Tonight by Del McCoury
  • And one from a bluegrass girl: Ragin' Live by Rhonda Vincent & the Rage
• Survivor: Gabon - Earth's Last Eden is starting soon.

Banjo versus TV: Week 36

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. This post covers 9/3/2008 through 9/9/2008.

Things I took away from this week's banjo lesson:

• The previous lessons's homework assignments:
  • Playing along with Dolly Parton to Just a Few Good Memories. We discussed the descending bass run (do ti la so [8765]) and its ascending twin (so la ti do [5678]). I'm really liking this playing-along-with-recordings thing.
  • Bill Knopf's lick #1.
  • Continue working on Good Old Mountain Dew. I'd incorporated some of Bill Knopf's lick #1 into my solo.
• Feedback on how I've been practicing:
  • I've been trying to balance my practice time between:
    • Fundamentals (examples: F formation, Knopf licks)
    • Active listening/playing along
    • Learning a new number
    Dave likes this balance.
  • I'd been using this technique for practicing the Knopf lick:
    1. Start with the metronome set to 60 bpm.
    2. Play at that rate until I was able to play through it 5 times without a mistake.
    3. Up the rate by 20 bpm.
    4. Repeat from step 2.
    Dave likes the approach, but says the 20 bpm increase is way too rapid. He suggests an increase increment of 10 bpm or less.
  • Rather than simply practicing at the fastest tempo I can smoothly perform, I need to practice at a variety of tempos.
• Although the long-term goal is for my eyes not to be stuck on any one thing, Dave wants me to concentrate on watching my left hand for now.
  • "Those raggety sounds you're producing are because your fingers are not in the right place on the neck."
  • I should spend some of my practice time in front of a mirror.
  • Here's the rule for now: Right hand mistakes are okay; left hand mistakes aren't.
• We discussed the pull-off.
  • Right now, my pull-off is weak. Dave says this is understandable; the pull-off is one of the hardest things to get right.
  • Dave says his own pull-off took a while to get right. He can really hear the difference between the pull-offs on the album he cut about two years into the banjo and one he cut a year after that. During that year, he'd left his other job to concentrate full-time on the banjo.
• For a little added color, try hammering on at the 5th string during G to C transitions.

This week's homework:

• Keep doing what I'm doing, incorporating the above feedback.
• Continue building on my Good Old Mountain Dew solo. Sprinkle in the use of three F-formation chords: G (between 3rd and 5th fret), C (between 8th and 10th fret) and D (between 10th and 12th fret).

Banjo versus TV: Week 35

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. After having fallen up to 4 weeks behind on his so-called-weekly check-ins, he's now nearly caught up and is posting this check-in a mere one week late.

The big news this last week was, of course, the Four Corners Folk Festival, which you can read all about by following this label.

I lugged my banjo all the way to the festival and only jammed a little, but it was good jamming.

My nicest playing-my-banjo experience this week was on the dirt road on the way to the festival. I was about half way through the 4-hour drive from Albuquerque Airport to Pagosa Springs, CO; in the middle of nowhere Colorado. I hadn't seen anybody else for some time and I decided to pull off the road to admire the scenery and pluck a little.

Here's a picture of that experience. If you listen closely, you can hear me singing "This Land is Your Land."

I saw lots of people at 4CFF, just not Earl

Let's start with the big disappointment at the Four Corners Folk Festival in Pagosa Springs, Colorado: No Earl.

They waited until the absolute last minute to announce that Earl Scruggs was too ill to perform. The Legendary Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends performed without him.

They played without a banjo at all until the last two numbers, at which point they brought out Warren Kennison, Jr. -- the guy who did the tablature for Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo.

I wish Earl well and I really hope I'll get a chance to see him perform.

Oh, well. It was a great weekend at the festival, even if it wasn't the weekend I thought I was going to have.

In the coming days I'll be posting about some of the people who I really did see at the Four Corners Folk Festival. Stay tuned.

Banjo versus TV: Week 34

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. J.R.'s a few weeks behind, so he's furiously getting caught up in order to concentrate on the Four Corners Folk Festival.

Not a lot of banjo time or TV time this week, due to me getting a lot of fresh air, sunshine and exercise.

I'll try not to let that happen again.

Banjo versus TV: Week 33

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. J.R.'s a few weeks behind, so he's furiously getting caught up in order to concentrate on the Four Corners Folk Festival.

Things I took away from this week's banjo lesson:

• We spoke quite a bit about using music to process grief, which is something that's been on my mind due to a recent death in my family.
• Dave likes the sticker on my case, which I got from BanjoDog.com:
  
  I have a bunch of them to share with people who get it. I'll bring one for Dave next time.
• This kicked off a discussion of Earl Scruggs' involvement in the peace movement. Dave has the album of Earl Scruggs: The Bluegrass Legend: Family & Friends from but has never seen the video. (You all remember my discussion of that video from Week 16, right?)
• Most of the time when Dave does the D chord at the second fret, rather than use the full 4-fingered D form...
  
  ...he'll leave the ring finger out of it and make a 3-fingered chord instead:
  
• As we were playing and singing, I reached for a G chord...
  
  ...that I've been practicing a little, but which I'm not good at yet. And I and missed it. Dave said, "The thing is, when you're playing and singing with other people is not the time to experiment with other chords. It's the time to use what you know you can do; what you know you can get to."
• Dave was pleased to see that I'd found a copy of the out-of-print lick book he'd mentioned, Bill Knopf's Hot Licks & Fiddle Tunes for the Bluegrass Banjo Player
. We practiced the first lick of chapter 1 ("30 Ways to End a Solo Break"):


• Dave showed me some variations on this lick, which lead to a discussion of how to learn what notes are played at what frets. Dave suggested that I write out a grid of the gGDBD neck, which was and exercise I'd already done on my own. (And by "on my own" I mean "following the same suggestion from James McKinney, who recommended this approach in a workshop at Midwest Banjo Camp.") I had a few "ah-hah!" moments when I did that exercise.
• What Martin Mull said in Licks Off of Records is true:

  I see you getting all warm and runny
  From my guitar and the way my fingers burn.
  I hate to disillusion you honey,
  But it's just licks off of records that I'm learned.

• We played along with Dolly Parton as she sang a 3/4 time Hazel Dickens song, Just a Few Old Memories, from her album The Grass is Blue (which I just found in a pawn shop the other day). It's got an easy-to-follow G-C-G-D-G progression with a chorus that goes G-C-G-C-D.

My homework from this week's lesson:

• Practice some licks from Bill Knopf's book Hot Licks & Fiddle Tunes for the Bluegrass Banjo Player
.
• Play along with Dolly Parton's Just a Few Old Memories. Try a 3/4 version of the forward-backward roll. Also try the barred C at 5 and the barred D at 7. (Remember to use the index finger for the barre; I'll need to do that when we get to Foggy Mountain Breakdown.)
• Continue working on Good Old Mountain Dew.

Also in the last week:

• I discovered that searching for the term "banjo" at the Live Music Archive (part of the Internet Archive) yields all kinds of free banjo music.
• I'd planned on bringing instruments and doing some jamming at BARcamp Chicago this week, but life intruded so I had to settle for sending the instruments. I understand the instruments had a good time without me.
  
  
• I played my banjo for the neighbors who live across the street from the home I grew up in. They said my father would be proud, which is just about the best thing that anyone could say to me.