First of all, sorry for the belatedness of this morning’s post. I was really and truly going to blog last night, but I got distracted on account of my new iPhone. And then I resolved to get up early to blog, but through whatever combination of circumstances, sleep was not my friend last night. Luckily I could play Tetris on my new phone to while away the midnight hours!
I was at the Sunday night Station Inn jam this weekend. I don’t usually go because I don’t enjoy that type of picking (big, huge group; guitar players with that modern-style rhythm), but I was helping them out behind the bar due to the busy holiday weekend. I thought I’d share some observations from the night.
Picking in such a huge jam is often very hard. At one point the group consisted of six banjos, five guitars, a bass and a dobro. You have to be very confident in your playing and assertive to even get heard. On the flip side, it’s a great situation in which to stand or sit around the outer edges of the jam and vamp along. That’s what one of my students did for a couple hours. And across the jam a former student and another guy (who would have been my student if I had answered his email quicker than Ned Luberecki did) formed a little banjo corner and were trying to navigate their way through the songs companionably side by side.
What really surprised me, though, was the number of people listening. The place was full. And people stayed for a long time, listening to music that often wasn’t that great. I guess people just really like live music.
I overheard one comment from one of the patrons sitting at the bar. A woman was saying to her date: “There’s a whole different kind of bluegrass called old-time. It’s slower and doesn’t have any percussion at all. Not even a tambourine!” People make me smile!
Tags: station inn