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 7/11/2010 through 7/17/2010. J.R. is in catch-up mode. Here's how many weeks he has fallen behind on his blogging:
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?
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.
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 6/27/2010 through 7/3/2010.
Do you recall from the other week that I'd been listening to B.B. King's Bluesville on Sirius radio? Of course you do. Just as you recall that I said there's not a lot of banjo there.
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 6/20/2010 through 6/26/2010. He's still 11 weeks behind in blogging, but at least he's not losing ground.
I poked through Frank Nordberg's Irish Banjo site. It's been a while since it's been updated and some of the graphics don't display but there's a lot of interesting stuff there, even if you're not learning the Irish tenor banjo. He's got stuff for guitar, plectrum banjo, mandolin-banjo, five-string banjo and other instruments. His site map is a good place to start.
As a banjoversary treat, I dedicated some time to setting up the Silent Banjo System. I know I keep saying this every time I mention this project, but I'm still not done with it yet and I promise to post details when I've completed it.
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 6/13/2010 through 6/19/2010 and is being posted a record 11 weeks late. J.R. has some serious catching up to do.
The chord progression is I-VII-IV-I (repeated) for the verse and rel.minor-IV-I (repeated) for the chorus, so it's pretty bluegrassy right there.
I'm apparently not the first person to think of this, though. Banjoist Tom Hanway and Blue Horizon play Addicted to Love on the album "Tom Hanway & Blue Horizon".
Sorry to the folks whose comments have been languishing in waiting-to-be-moderated limbo. I didn't realize that Blogger had automatically switched me to moderate mode a while back.
I've just approved several comments for publication and have denied about 5 times that many comments because they were from spambots. Why, oh why, do spambots never have anything interesting to say?
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 6/6/2010 through 6/12/2010.
After letting it sit on a shelf for some time I've gotten back to listening to my Sirius radio.
I've got an older model Sportster Replay (with car kit) and a Sirius Replay Boombox.
The Replay can pause during playback, which is a great feature for playing along.
I'm finding myself listening mostly to B.B. King's Bluesville. There's not much banjo there but I did hear a gem from Catherine Russell. She covered Howlin’ Wolf’s Spoonful, arranging it for banjo, drums and tuba. It's got a jazzy sort of sound but, to my ear, the banjo player is finger picking a la bluegrass rather than strumming like a 4-string jazz banjo player.
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 5/30/2010 through 6/5/2010. And yes, I'm posting it about 8 weeks after the fact. Life is busy right now.
I've been thinking for a while that I needed to put more energy toward improving my banjo fundamentals. This week I read something from the October 2008 Banjo Newsletter that clinched it.
A few of this issue's articles dealt with how to get the "pre-war sound" from a banjo. Various banjo luminaries were asked to opine on the topic. Some opined that various aspects of banjo composition were key to the pre-war sound; for example, Geoff Stelling said it's the age of the wood.
But I think the best answer, put forward by several people, was that the pre-war sound is mostly about the player.
Roger Siminoff described an experience with Earl Scruggs:
There are four main elements of attack: the method of attack, the location of attack, the duration of attack, and the intensity of attack. A fifth and lesser element is the direction of attack. Each of these greatly affects how the instrument sounds. Similarly, changing any one of or a few of these will creatly change how the instrument sounds. One could almost stretch this idea to suggest that Earl has a "pre-war method of attack".
The attack — exactly how Earl picks the strings — is a critical component of the sound of his banjo. And while this may surprise you, he carries that sound to other well set-up banjos he plays.
Back in 1985 when I was working with Gibson on the development of the Earl Scruggs model banjo, we had prepared several banjos for Earl to play. As I sat there listening to him pick one each on, it was apparent that the sound from each of them had one major thing in common: Earl!
Bill Palmer puts it like this:
[M]y conclusion is that by and large the most important component in the sound of the banjo is the nut that holds the picks.
If I want my banjo to sound better, I've got to improve the quality of that nut. With my banjoversary approaching it's a good time to take stock of my banjo practice habits and to make some improvements. Stay tuned.
Also in the last week:
Worked a little on installing my newly-arrived Silent Banjo System. More on that in later posts.
I tried out some of the YouTube videos from FreeBanjoLessons, such as Cumberland Gap, but I didn't find them to be very helpful.
Every now and again I just have to watch the most-viewed video on YouTube: Evolution of Dance:
Sure, the lack of banjo means this puts 6 minutes of time on the TV side of the scale, but it's worth it.
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