My third 6 months on the banjo

Continuing the celebration of my 2nd banjoversary, I'm taking a look back at the past year in banjo. I'll do this in two parts, so here's a look at mid-June through mid-December 2008. I'll hit the remaining six months in my next post.

So enjoy — if this is your kind of thing — a story of banjos, guitars, jug bands, Earl Scruggs (or not), penguins and one even shorter banjo.

We begin where last year's banjoversary summaries (parts one and two) left off. The Banjo versus TV project was going strong, with the banjo ahead 188 hours to 146 hours after 24 weeks. I'd just gone to Midwest Banjo Camp 2008 and was ready to try some of the things I'd learned there.

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Month 13:

• I started off the year by doing something big: I switched banjo teachers from Mike, who I love, to Dave, who I also love but who is more experienced in the bluegrass style that I was pursuing (and still am).
• Prior to our first lesson:
  • Dave and I talked high-level goals. My answer to "Where do you want to be a year from now?" was "Participate well in jams. Play comfortably solo."
  • I came up with six songs that I'd like to learn to play well at jams.
• Saw some great zydeco from New Orleans: Chubby Carrier and The Bayou Swamp Band.
• I learned a thing or two about flying with my banjo.
• Earlier in the summer I'd heard James McKinney (at Midwest Banjo Camp) strongly recommending that we Scruggs-style players should bend our index- and middle-finger picks so they're snug against our fingers. The idea is that the brain will better respond to signals that go through the bone; an idea that McKinney says is supported by recent research in sports medicine. Besides, Earl bends his picks like that. So I decided to bend my picks up and get used to it that way. It took a couple of weeks, but I adjusted to the new pick style and I like the feeling.

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Month 14:

• I had my first lesson with Dave, who was happy (encouraging, even) to let me record lessons and review them on my blog.
• I began work on a solo for one of my six chosen songs: Good Old Mountain Dew.
• I found some terrific swabs for banjo cleaning.
  
  
• I completed that solo for Good Old Mountain Dew. The solo sounds much better when I'm warmed up.
• Although I didn't know the fancy name of it at the time, I got into Mixolydian mode by playing along with a Sam Bush recording of Ol' Joe Clark.
• Dave shows me an easier and often-better-sounding version of the D chord at the second fret:
  
  
• I started to learn a lick from Bill Knopf's Hot Licks & Fiddle Tunes for the Bluegrass Banjo Player
:


• 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.
• Some other topics from my banjo lessons: playing and singing at the same time, playing along with and learning from recordings, warming up before a lesson, recovering from wrong notes, left-hand positioning and muting.

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Month 15:

• I'm really starting to like Dave's play-along-with-recordings approach.
• I made a pilgrimage to the Four Corners Folk Festival in Pagosa Springs, CO so I could see Earl in person.
  
  
  
  But it turned out to be one of the very rare occasions where Earl cancels at the last minute.
• On the up side, I got to know Warren Kennison, Jr., the guy who filled in for Earl at the festival. Warren's a great guy who would later invite me to go with him to the July 2009 RockyGrass festival.
• At 4CFF I met the members of Crooked Still and really got to like their "new time old time" style of music. Their banjo player, Greg Liszt, plays with four picks!
  
  
• I brought together two things I'd been working by incorporating that Bill Knopf lick #1 into my solo of Good Old Mountain Dew.
• Everyone (Mike, Dave, Pete Wernick) tells me that I should learn how to recognize a few simple guitar chords so I can follow the guitar at a jam. I figured that the best way to learn those chords is to take a few guitar lessons. So I started guitar lessons, which cut into my banjo time a bit.
• I had a wow-I-can-really-do-this moment when I decide to try out my playing-along-with-the-recording skills on some random bluegrass tracks over lunch. Yay me!
• Some other topics from my banjo lessons: a balanced practicce routine, using a metronome and stronger pull-offs.

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Month 16:

• There was this idea I'd been kicking around for a while: shortening the neck of a banjo by 12 frets. I call it my sawed-off banjo. I started work on it by drawing out plans for and creating balsa and styrofoam models of its sawed-off little neck.
  
  
• My plan to do regular practice of right and left hand exercises is short-lived, fizzling out quickly.
• Dave suggested that, despite the long-term goal to play without looking at my hands, I should really be watching my left hand as I play so I can work out some of its bad habits.
• I went to Costello's Early County/Bluegrass Jam
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• The sawed-off banjo project moved from plans and models to actual construction! My business partner, Don, and I started work on the sawed-off banjo in his well-equipped wood shop.
• Some other topics from my banjo lessons: rewriting material, mixolydian mode, open C tuning, vamping and changing the sound of the banjo.

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Month 17:

• We completed the sawed-off banjo, which looks funky and sounds really nice.
  
  
  
  You can see all of the details of its construction here.
• I completed my short set of guitar lessons. The plan was that I'd learn enough to be able to recognize certain chords when the guitar played them at a jam. (G, C and D, mostly.) The lessons probably took me 75% of the way there.
• I attended Chicago's First Annual Battle of the Jug Bands, which put me on a jug band journey that I kinda didn't expect to take, but which turned out to be a lot of fun.
• I was a banjo-playing penguin for Halloween; a costume that nicely incorporated the sawed-off banjo.
  
  
  
  I won first prize in the costume contest at a Bluegrass Legends Concert in Evanston, Illinois.
• I purchased a jug. It's not played by blowing across it as I thought it was; it's played more like a bugle. Embouchure is very important. Jim Craig (of Hogeye Music) demonstrates.
  
  
• I returned to the Costello's Early County/Bluegrass Jam
. The jam is hosted at a sandwich shop, so every time I go there I buy a sandwich and get my frequent customer card stamped. Eight more stamps until my free sandwich!
• My jug band obsession continued with a grand plan to put together a family jug band at my our semi-annual, post-Christmas, family vacation. I asked everyone what jug band instruments they'd like and started shopping. Incidentally, I had this idea before I even saw Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.
  
  
• My jug band research led inevitably into a comparison of the two Muppet jug bands: Lubbock Lou & His Jughuggers and The Gogolala Jubilee Jug Band.
• Some other topics from my banjo lessons: my next banjo and bridge height.

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Month 18:

• Arlo Leach, who hosted Chicago's First Annual Battle of the Jug Bands, taught the Wednesday night jug band class at the Old Town School of Folk Music. The class calls itself the Hump Night Thumpers.
  
  
  
  Arlo invited me to come to a class, so I did. What a lot of fun!
• Taking those few guitar lessons took me maybe 75% of the way toward my goal of recognizing guitar chords by watching the guitarist's left hand. To help me get to 100% I began playing along with Pete Wernick's jam DVD, which feature a zoom-in on the guitarist's left hand.
  
  
• The family jug band picked a name for itself: the Royal Moose Jug Band. We even made some art:
  
  
• We established the Royal Moose Jug Band's lineup:
  • Mom - xylophone
  • Denise (age 16) - harmonica
  • Me - banjo
  • Brother-In-Law - slide whistle
  • Denephew (age 19) - gutbucket
  • Denise (age 9) - guitar
  • The redhead - spoons
  • Brother - washboard and jug
  • Sister-In-Law - Melody Harp
  • Big Sister - kazoo
  • Denise (age 7) - fiddle
  • Little Sister - tambourine
  • Little Sister's Boyfriend - percussion
  • Denephew (age 21) - jaw harp
• Speaking of family, a few hours before arriving from Texas to celebrate her birthday Denise (age 7) decided that it'd be nice if Unca J.R. would play Happy Birthday for her on his banjo. So I learned it.
• I performed in Flatts & Sharpe's annual recital, doing a medley of my two best songs: I'll Fly Away and This Land Is Your Land.
  
  
• Some other topics from my banjo lessons: books at jams, watching the guitar player for chord prompts and key changes.

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Coming up next: A look at the second half of the year. The Royal Moose Jug Band performs! The Banjo versus TV project concludes — or does it? I join another jug band! And so much more! But I still don't get to see Earl.

It's my 2nd banjoversary!

It's been two whole years since that glorious day when the redhead gave me a banjo for my birthday, which makes today my second banjoversary!

And just like I did last year, over the next few days I'm going to review the past 12 months and think about what's next. And I'll blog about it.

But not today. Today the redhead and I are involved in The 16th Annual Artists of the Wall Festival, a neighborhood event in which a couple hundred people paint a long wall bench near our beach, one 6-foot mural after another.

So hang on, banjo fans worldwide. And I know you're worldwide because I occasionally run reports like this one:

But hang on. More banjoversary blogging will commence soon. Look for it under the label 2nd banjoversary.

Circle of fifths clock

With my second banjoversary (and my birthday) right around the corner, I'm sure you're asking yourself, "What gift can I get for J.R.?"

"A circle of fifths clock by mojocoggo," you should be answering yourself.

Some of my banjo camp buddies and I had the idea for this clock. I was disappointed to find that we weren't the first to think of it. In fact there are a lot of circle of fifths clocks out there. But I was happy to find that there was a really good looking one. (All those others were too hard to read from a distance.)

If that still doesn't answer your question there's always my Amazon wish list and the various posts on my blog labeled as J.R.'s wish list.

Are you asking yourself any other questions I can help with?

Update: Got it for my banjoversary. Thanks, Granma!

Banjo versus TV week 67: TV strikes back

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 6/7/2009 through 6/13/2009.

A slightly TV-heavy week on the banjo versus TV scale (5 hrs 26 min versus 7 hrs 25 min), but what can you expect from a week that has the finale of Any Dream Will Do and the season's first non-audition episodes of American Idol? Still, it seems a let-down after last week's Midwest Banjo Camp blowout.

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Also in the last week:

• I've been giving some thought to my practice regimen. After reading a discussion of practice routings at Banjo Hangout, I ordered up a copy of the DVD Tony Trischka's Essential Practice Techniques for Bluegrass Banjo.
• I signed a petition to honor Bill Monroe with a commemorative stamp. If you'd like to help, visit www.billmonroestamp.org and write a letter.

Banjo versus TV week 66: Midwest Banjo Camp

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 5/31/2009 through 6/6/2009.

Like I'd said, I went to Midwest Banjo Camp this week. And I loved it!

I went for the whole thing, so I got a chance to do things from both the regular schedule and the pre-camp schedule. If you go next year I highly recommend the pre-camp. It gave me a good chance to interact with the instructors and to get into the mood of the thing.

I recorded the audio of a lot of educational sessions and plan to review them throughout the year on my blog. These sessions include:

• Danny Barnes: Bluegrass Mentor
• Danny Barnes: Bluegrass Without the Band
• Danny Barnes: Playing with Good Tone and Rhythm
• Danny Barnes: Taking the Banjo into Country, Rock and Other Pop Idioms
• Danny Barnes, Bill Evans, James McKinney: Single String Demo
• Janet Beazley: Appropriate and Musical Backup for Vocals
• Janet Beazley: Overcome Those Jitters: Strategies for Dealing with Stage Fright
• Janet Beazley: Productive Practice Tools and Tips
• Janet Beazley: Top 10 Bluegrass Licks
• Janet Beazley, Peter Knupfer, Alan O'Bryant, Pete Wernick
• Mac Benford: Can That Tuner: Learn to Tune and Change Tunings by Ear
• Bill Evans: The Essential Earl: Licks and Techniques
• Bill Evans: Essential Scruggs Up the Neck Backup Licks
• Bill Keith: Intro to Melodic Bluegrass
• Bill Keith, Alan Munde, Alan O'Bryant: Fiddle Tunes, Bluegrass Style
• Peter Knupfer, James McKinney, Mike Sumner, Pete Wernick: Demo: Tips on Constructing Breaks
• James McKinney: Bluegrass Mentor
• James McKinney: Developing Speed
• Alan Munde: Intro to Creating Bluegrass Solos
• Alan Munde: How Rolls Work
• Alan Munde: Melodic Style Fiddle Tunes
• Alan O'Bryant: Deriving Melody from Chord Positions Via Rolls
• Alan O'Bryant: The Mechanics of Good Tone
• Reinsmith: Banjo Setup and Maintenance
• Mike Sumner: Working on Basic Chords
• Pete Wernick: Fitting in at a Ham: Hearing and Following Chord Changes
• Pete Wernick: Picking it Solid: Achieving Clarity, Punch and Timing

But aside from the sessions and the jamming (which I was able to participate in much better this year, thank you), the big draw of Midwest Banjo Camp is the faculty concert. Each faculty member performs two pieces, which might not sound like a lot until you consider the size of the faculty. The concert takes up two hours each night for two nights and is so good it's worth the price of admission itself.

Unlike previous years where they'd tried to prevent people from recording the concert, this year they bowed to 21st century reality and allowed us to record. For my own benefit I took careful notes about who performed what. Here's my list, which might be useful to others who recorded:

Friday night:

• Mike Sumner
  • The Old Rugged Cross
  • Manzanita (inspired by Tony Rice)
• Art Rosenbaum
  • The Bigler
  • John Henry
• Danny Barnes
  • Misty Swan
  • Overdue
• Laura Boosinger
  • Sail Away Ladies with Cathy Fink (guitar) and Marcy Marxer (cello banjo)
  • Build Me A Cabin In Glory Land with Alan O'Bryant (banjo), Cathy Fink (guitar) and Marcy Marxer (cello banjo)
• Alan O'Bryant
  • Road to Columbus with Tom Ball (bass), Marcy Marxer (mandolin), Peter Knupfer (fiddle) and Kevin Gaugier (guitar)
  • Crossing the Cumberland with Tom Ball (bass), Marcy Marxer (mandolin), Peter Knupfer (fiddle) and Kevin Gaugier (guitar)
• Mac Benford
  • Wise County Jail
  • Medley of Sugar Hill, Julie Ann Johnson and Susanna Gal
• Erynn Marshall (fiddle)
  • Old Christmas Morning with Mac Benford (banjo)
  • Moneymusk with Mac Benford (banjo), Bob Carlin (guitar) and Tama Loewenthal (clogging)
• James McKinney
  • The Rain Song with Niki Portmann (bass)
  • Cherokee with Niki Portmann (bass)
• Howie Bursen
  • Medley of Tune for Tommy Thompson, Hello, Joan D (?) and an Appalachian song
  • Medley of Jay and Molly's Wedding, a hornpipe and Bay of Fundy Reel
• Pete Wernick
  • Words Unspoken
  • Old Joe Clark

Saturday night:

• Janet Beazley
  • Cherokee Shuffle with Peter Knupfer (fiddle), Kevin Gaugier (guitar), Christee McNeil (bass)
  • Love Please Come Home with Peter Knupfer (fiddle), Kevin Gaugier (guitar), Christee McNeil (bass)
• Bob Carlin
  • Barlow Knife
  • She's Gone (and Bob's Gone With Her)
• Bill Keith
  • Sundays Hornpipe
  • Modo Perpetuo
• Adam Hurt
  • Fly Around My Blue-Eyed Gal with Cathy Fink
  • Cabin Creek with Marcy Marxer
• Stan Werbin
  • Bull at the Wagon with Paul Winder (fiddle), Tom Ball (bass), Mary Siders (banjo) and Gerald Ross (ukulele)
  • So Long Mom by Tom Lehrer with Paul Winder (fiddle), Tom Ball (bass), and Gerald Ross (ukulele)
• Bill Evans
  • Earl's Breakdown with Peter Knupfer (fiddle), Tom Ball (bass), Erynn Marshall (mandolin), Kevin Gaugier (guitar)
  • There's No Place Like Home
• Brad Leftwich
  • Ellen Smith
  • Susanna Gal with Bob Carlin (banjo) and Mac Benford (banjo)
• Alan Munde
  • Who Killed the Shanghai Rooster with Peter Knupfer (fiddle), Pooh Stevenson (mandolin), Tom Ball (bass), Kevin Gaugier (guitar)
  • Marching Through Georgia with Peter Knupfer (fiddle), Pooh Stevenson (mandolin), Tom Ball (bass), Kevin Gaugier (guitar)
• Ken Perlman
  • The Fiddler's Drunk and the Fun's All Over with Brad Leftwich (fiddle)
  • Medley: Stella's Trip to Kamloops, The Iron Man, Angus Campbell and Big John McNeil
• All faculty
  • Soldier's Joy

And of course, there's the camp photo. If you look very closely you can see me and my sawed-off banjo in the second row, about one-third of the way from the left.

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Also in the last week:

• During the drive to and from camp I played back some of my favorite audios from last year's camp. I'm going to have to put the 2008 and 2009 audios on my iPhone to make them easier to listen to.
• AgileTek hired a trainer for some agile testing topics and he happens to be a bluegrass mandolin player. So one of AgileTek's guitarists and I, a rogue harmonica player (Hi, Mark!) and our trainer all had a little jam session in the main conference room before work on Thursday. It was nice.

On the road to Midwest Banjo Camp 2009

It's time once again for the redhead's birthday gift to me: a trip to Midwest Banjo Camp. Let's all reflect for a moment on how wonderful the redhead is for supporting (much less putting up with) my love of the banjo.

Reflect. Reflect. Reflect.

Now, go! I'm on the road to camp and will blog more about it as it happens.

Banjo versus TV week 65: Land of the Lost

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 5/24/2009 through 5/30/2009.

I've been pretty fixated all week long with the Land of the Lost movie that came out on Friday. Maybe it's because of the banjo music in the original series.

I was wondering who played the banjo on that show. Here's where Google lead me:

• Jimmie Haskell was the composer for Land of the Lost.
• A Owsley had an interview with Jimmie Haskell in which Haskell says, "I had a great banjo player, Larry McNeely."
• The Banjo Hangout has a whatever-happened-to discussion about Larry McNeely.

When the Land of the Lost: The Complete Series DVD set came out on Tuesday I was first in line to get in (because: of couse!) and I was happy to see a DVD extra of film director Brad Silberling interviewing Sid and Marty Krofft. Here's the banjo-centric portion of the interview:

Brad: Okay, I'm going in right away with the big question. What is with the banjo? Tell me about the banjo. It's the most brilliant and interesting and odd choice for a key instrument, for a theme song, as a recurring instrument, for your underscore. I'm stealing it for my movie.

Sid: Well, I really think it was like two years before we did Land of the Lost, there was a big movie out there with Burt Reynolds.

Brad: Ah, yes, we know that movie.

All: Deliverance.



Sid: And Deliverance had a banjo all the way through it. So when we were scoring Land of the Lost, I said to the composer, "I love that sound. Let's try that to see if it works with the dinosaurs.". And Marty and myself really insisted upon... He saw the movie too and he said, "Wow, that's an incredible sound, so let's go for it." And it really, really worked.



Brad: Science fiction, adventure, banjo. Yeah. Absolutely.

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Also in the last week:

• My watch-in-the-morning DVD has been Bill & Gloria Gaither Present: Country Bluegrass Homecoming: Vol. 1, which I rented from Netflix. Good DVD, although truth in titling should have required it be called Bill & Gloria Gaither Present: A Whole Bunch of Artists Sing One Gospel Song Each, Some of Which is Bluegrass: Vol. 1.
• All that gospel bluegrass stuff put me in mind of the Austin Lounge Lizards singing Banjo Players in Heaven. Growing up with a dad who was a church musician with a sense of humor, I developed a taste for slightly irreverent gospel music.
  
  
  
  Emily Kaitz also sings this song, with some additional lyrics.
  
  
   
• Some stuff from my daily reading at comics.com:
  
  
  
  

Banjo versus TV: Week 64

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 5/17/2009 through 5/23/2009.

Y'know, for a blogger who runs something called the Banjo versus TV project, I spend way more time blogging about banjo than I do about TV. So since this is the week that the networks announce their new lineups, what say I blog about TV for a change?

ABC is bringing back V? From the '80s? Tubular!

So long, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Giving up on you was one of the first things I did in the Banjo versus TV project.

The redhead and I really enjoyed the pilot for Glee. It was kind of odd seeing a May pilot for a TV show that won't air until the fall. If you're a show biz geek (and you should be!) and you missed it, check it out some time this summer at http://www.hulu.com/glee

Curses upon NBC for cancelling My Name Is Earl. I hope the rumors about another network picking it up are true.

I occasionally wonder why I'm still watching Heroes.

Shows that have been piling up, unwatched, on my DVR: The Office, The Girls Next Door, Survivor and The Amazing Race.

I've been thinking about watching Fringe, so I hope it does well in its new timeslot. It looks like some good sci-fi.

And speaking of good sci-fi, I like Dollhouse.

Bummer about the cancellation of Samantha Who? I swear I was going to start watching that regularly.

The show I'm most excited about is So You Think You Can Dance, so I'm really happy to get both a summer and a fall season of it.

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Also in the last week:

• According to the rules, Whack-A-Kitty is both TV and banjo.
  
  
• An Engineer's Guide to Cat Yodeling (with Cat Polka), on the other hand, is musical but not banjo-related so it's just a video.
  
  

Banjo versus TV: Week 63

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 5/10/2009 through 5/16/2009.

Remember how in week 61 I'd ordered two portable power speaker sets? Of course you remember. I only posted it about an hour and a half ago, because it's Memorial Day weekend and I'm catching up.

So never mind that question. The point is, I've compared the two and decided that I prefer the Panasonic RPSPT70 Folding Travel Speakers to the Sentry Clamshell Folding Amplified Speakers. The RPSPT70 sounds much better. Also, if your batteries are dead or the unit is switched off the RPSPT70 can still be used as a non-amplified speaker set. The Sentry model only works when it's got power.

The Sentry isn't without its advantages. Its smaller size and its rounded design is a better fit for a gig bag. And its power switch is kept inside when folded. That's important because the RPSPT70's outside-facing switch tends to get accidentally flipped when I travel. But still, good sound is good sound so I like the RPSPT70.

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Things I learned at this week's banjo lesson:

• I'm thinking of getting better tuners. Dave recommends planetary tuners.
• I've been putting some thought into how I learn.
  • Most of the (few) licks that I know I learned by playing from tablature, memorizing the piece note-for-note.
  • Once the lick has entered my brain this way I can use it in another piece.
  • But I find it very hard to learn a lick simply by repeating the lick itself over and over, as I did when I struggled to learn the first lick of Bill Knopf's Hot Licks & Fiddle Tunes for the Bluegrass Banjo Player:
    
    
  • My conclusion: I need to start picking up some books again and learning their tabs, note-for-note. But I need to be very direct about why I want to learn a particular tab, to avoid the trap of just planing things that sound nice. I want to play things that will teach me the stuff I need to know.
• We explore some ways to create simple variations, like changing some open notes in a song to other notes.

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Also in the last week:

• So, does this video count as watching a banjo video when the banjo is not actually visible?
  
  
• Here's a vid I found from Uncle Earl: Streak o’ Lean, Streak o’ Fat (a.k.a. Hongshao Rou)
  
  
• Speaking of videos, I ran across a banjo-strummin' sneak peak of the upcoming movie Land of the Lost.
  
  
  Movie Trailers - Movies Blog
  
  
  That's a reference, of course, to the banjo-pickin' theme song from the original TV show.
  
  
• Remember in week 58 that I'd wanted to order Tony Trischka's 1976 Melodic Banjo? Perhaps you don't; it's actually been a couple of weeks since I posted that one. Well, I ordered it. Also, Tony Trischka Easy Banjo Solos. I thought about ordering Trischka's Hot Licks For Bluegrass Banjo but, with my upcoming birthday/banjoversary, I added it to my Amazon wish list instead.