The Murphy Method Blog

Mark, who has been taking banjo about six months now, and I had an interesting discussion at our lesson tonight. Mark said he’d been watching clips of really good banjo players picking on U-Tube and he noticed that all of them look at their left hands and none of them look at their right hands. Mark, on the other hand (no pun intended, I swear), looks at his right hand exclusively. He told me that he thinks this is hindering him from picking up speed. He’s afraid he’ll never be able to play fast if he keeps looking at his right hand. I told him I knew what I’d be blogging about tonight!

Initially I wasn’t too concerned. After all, he’s still a beginning player and he’s really doing well. He’s a little over the one song a month average and he can vamp and come in off the vamp for his breaks. What’s not to like?

But then he told me that when he’s looking at his right hand he’s actually thinking of the strings he’s hitting, as in 4,2,3,1/5,3,4,1. (That’s the double square roll, usually in C chord.) Then I got concerned. Because if he’s thinking of the individual strings, then, he’s right: he’ll never be able to play fast. You don’t want to be doing the Cripple Creek lick and thinking 3,2,5,1.

So, of course, I then asked him to play something easy and NOT look at his right hand. He played “Banjo in the Hollow” and, while it was really hard for him not to look at his right hand, he could do it. Ditto “Cripple Creek” and even “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” The songs even sounded smoother to me.

I told him that since he obviously could play the songs without looking at his right hand, what he was doing was pure habit. Is it a bad habit? I’m not sure. But since Mark was concerned, I told him to start out with easy songs, play them slow, and make himself look only at his left hand.

He told me that in just trying not to look at his right hand on those three songs he was already experiencing quite a bit of anxiety.

I told him that he shouldn’t do anything that would disrupt his playing, since even looking at his right hand he was already doing very well. I reminded him that this was supposed to be fun, not torture.

He told me that he thought he’d try not looking on some songs. But that for the rest of the lesson he was going to have to look.

I told him that would be fine.

So, I think Mark has a legitimate concern. I relate it to you as something to think about. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT get yourself all tied up in knots if you, too, happen to look at your right hand. DO NOT ruin your playing by trying to fix something that might not need fixed (as we say here in the Shenandoah Valley). In Georgia we say “might not need to be fixed.”

Although I have not run any kind of study, I suspect that most people who play banjo long enough eventually stop looking at their right hands.

Stay tuned to the Murphy Method Blog for updates on Mark and the question “to look or not to look?”

And me? I look at my left hand!

Sort of a sad day here. Brill’s Barber Shop and Musician’s Shop where I have taught for the last 22 years is now empty. All the guitars that were hanging up—attached by metal shower curtain hooks and dangling from a long metal pipe attached to the wall—are gone. The shelves filled with CDs and cassettes are now empty. The pegboard that held strings, capos, kazoos, and a musical saw is now barren. All the banjos had made their departures earlier, purchased by lucky students who got some really good deals.

The talking moose, Buck, given to Dalton on his birthday by David McLaughlin and Marshall Wilborn, has found another home. (“What am I gonna do with that?” Dalton asked. “I’ll have to put it up somewhere.” He ended up having loads of fun with it, teasing the little kids who came in for hair cuts by going out in the hall and making Buck talk to them with the remote microphone.) The jackalope that Lynn Morris gave him has also been hauled away. Even the old-fashioned barber chairs are gone. My friend Patty Henry bought the ancient cash register. Dalton never rang up any sales on it, he just kept his money in there. The drawer opened when you pulled the handle. I’m glad it found a loving owner.

This was the first time I had seen the shop empty. The auctioneers loaded things up while we were out of town for Thanksgiving. I came in today to get a few of my things out and as I stared at the empty showcase and the walls devoid of pictures, I thought of a great song we used to sing at our regular Wednesday night concerts in the basement of the shop. It was called “There Was An Auction At The Homeplace” and it was written by Mike Henderson, of Shepardstown, West Virginia. One of the most poignant phrases to me has always been “the house’s heart was empty.” That’s the way the barber shop felt today. The auctioneers had come, they’d “put everything in boxes,” and they’d hauled a life away.

One of the few things remaining is my little table where I keep all my teaching stuff—Banjo Newsletters, picks, bracket wrenches, tiny screw drivers, wire cutters, cassette players, blank cassettes, Murphy Method DVDs, CDs to give away. It’s very crowded. I’ll be teaching in the empty shop though December while I look for a new location in which to ply my trade. I’ll have to dig up a couple of chairs, though. Those are gone, too. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll put up a Christmas tree.

All four Henry’s congregated in Nashville this weekend for Red’s birthday picking party at the World Famous Station Inn. Here are some pictures of us doing what we like to do best: pick!

The  World Famous Station Inn

Red’s Birthday Cake

The picking gets started! L-R: Chris Henry, Red Henry, John Hedgecoth (Red’s uncle), Gary Hunt (back to camera)

Ralph Stanley Rules! L-R: Chris Henry, Murphy, Red

The Hicks Sisters, Murphy’s sibs: Laurie (peeking around guitar), Nancy, Argen, Murphy. Male persons: Mike Johnson (Argen’s hubby) on guitar, Cap Spence on banjo.

Huge picking circle. Too many to name!

Murphy hugging on Joe Forrester, one of her favorite people. Bob Forrester, Joe’s nephew, also one of Murphy’s favorite people, grinning like a possum up a gum stump. Joe played bass with Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in 1945, when Earl was in the band. Bob is the son of Howdy and Billie (Sally Ann) Forrester, both of whom played with Monroe. Howdy played fiddle, Sally Ann accordion. Murphy considers Sally Ann to be the first women in bluegrass.

(Photos by Casey Henry, which is why I’m not in any of them!)

Here’s another report from Saturday’s Misfit Jam. This is from Bob the bass player/guitar player/singer. Bob has already been immortalized (?) in at least one of my Banjo Newsletter columns. He’s been taking lessons off and on (mostly on) for ten or fifteen years. And in spite of his grousing below, he has developed his own really nice style of flatpicking. (Of course, he doesn’t think so.) I always enjoy his lessons because we just sit there and flatpick a bunch of tunes. Everything from “Down Yonder” to “When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” My absolute favorite is “Step Off On That Beautiful Shore.” I love to pick that! Last week, we worked on splitting the break, with one of us taking the first half and the other coming in for the second half. Really fun! Sometimes we even sing!

To get the flavor of Bob’s sparkling personality, I’m leaving in his introductory remarks. I had accused him, in a previous email, of being grouchy….

Grouchy my [hind toenail]. By the time this week is over I’ll make Scrooge look like Shirley Temple. 61 years old + work = sucks. Too old to work, too young to retire (not to mention the economic issues/losses over the past year). Our generation will have to work till we die just to keep medical insurance coverage.

Jam was fun, but not as gracious as the rest of the group apparently saw it (or they are just plain BS’ers). They did pretty good considering they didn’t have a dedicated leader to guide and direct the process from the technical side of the house.

Re Bass Bob, responses should have read more like: Bass player couldn’t figure out chord progression for “Banjo in the Hollow” the first two times through. Completely forgot the second verse to “Circle,” only [barely] remembered the last verse on the same. Only [barely] played through the lead to “Amazing Grace” (both times).

Sang the same verse two out of three times on “I’ll Fly Away.” Bass player had to sing “Wreck of the Old 97” in wrong key so the group could vamp to it in G. (Forgot the second verse of that also.) Several bass notes back-ass-wards on the guitar probably. You know the routine, you’ve seem me in action. But fun was had by all, so time was well spent.

Trying to start granddaughter on ukulele with your video, we’ll see how long that lasts.

Have a safe trip home, give our regards to all.
BV

Closing comment by me: Musicians, even the professionals, are always their own worst critics. Remember: you can almost guarantee that no one is paying any attention to your mistakes. They don’t hear them! They are too busy worrying about the mistakes they are making that they think you are hearing! Which you are not because you’re worrying about your own mistakes! (I do this too, all the time!) Reminds me of the Buck Owens song, “I was looking back to see if she was looking back to see if I was looking back to see if she was looking back at me!” Try to let go of all this and just play! Nobody cares if you make a mistake. Just keep going, don’t ever quit, and plow to the end of the row!

Some of my newest Misfits got together on Saturday to jam—without me—and I asked a couple of them to share their experiences. I hope some of you who are taking lessons from a teacher will consider getting together with some fellow students. All it takes is one person (or in this case one couple) to shoulder the task of making it happen! 

So, here’s what Susan, who has been taking just a few months, has to say:

Saturday some of us adult beginners got together at Mark and Ellen’s house to pick a few. And a mighty few it was too! Four to be exact, because that is all I know! We started with “Banjo in the Hollow,” moved right into “Cripple Creek,” next came “Cumberland Gap” – my personal favorite–and then blew right into “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” where of course mine broke down. Being the newest misfit, I am a little behind my banjo buddies in learning some of the other oldtime favorites, but that did not stop me from practicing my vamping in G, C, and D, with an occasional E minor. Ellen happily accompanied us on my 0-18 Martin guitar and Bass-Man Bob thumped out some good rhythm and then moved on to singing lead with his own Martin guitar accompaniment.

We all inspected each other’s instruments, or at least SOME of us inspected SOME of our instruments – I can’t understand why no one wants to inspect my four-pound Good Time open back in this decidedly bluegrass jam group. If anybody out there can figure out why, let me know! I LOVE the thing! We all ate pop corn and pretzels, compliments of Mark and Ellen, and oooooo-ed and aaaaaaah-ed over Banjo Bob’s Gibson. Tired, happy, and totally banjo-ed out, we again proved true Bass-Man Bob’s comment from our last jam with Murphy, “There are all levels of incompetence here.” And there you have it! (….as Murphy would say!)

And here’s what Bob, who’s been taking a couple of years, has to say.

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Here’s something that came up at a lesson yesterday that I thought I’d share. One of my beginning fiddle students, who is taking up fiddle for the first time at age 71, bless her heart, was having a not-too-good lesson. Her playing was not as smooth as she wanted it to be and her bow was skittering around. Somehow, as she was talking, she mentioned that she’d been raking leaves all day. Well! There was the answer! I told her, “Suzi, you cannot do something strenuous like raking leaves—especially all day long—and then expect to come to a fiddle lesson and play well. Your fine motor skills have been shot! Your muscles are tired, your brain is tired. It’s just too much!”

I learned this the hard way, thirty years ago in Florida. Sometimes before a gig, I would work in the yard for several hours. Mowing the grass, using the clippers to trim the edges, maybe even doing some weeding. (I was young, I had lots of energy! I think this was also BK—before kids!) When I got on stage that night, I found out my hands felt like LEAD. My fingers wouldn’t move like I wanted them to. They felt clumsy and huge. I think I even remember them trembling after one particularly long afternoon with the clippers! I finally figured out: no yard work before a gig! (I later extended that to housework, too! No vacuuming!)

I know it’s not always possible to avoid doing heavy work before a lesson (or even your own practice session). But, if you have a choice, put off the strenuous activities till later! Or as one of my banjo students said (when I told him this story), “I just think I’ll take a nap before my lesson!” That’s not exactly what I had in mind, Bob! Always a smart alec…..

[This is my Banjo Newsletter column from May 1986. It did not, in fact, make it into my book. Guess there wasn’t enough about banjo playing in it! I reprint it here to share with you my first glimpse of Dalton Brill’s Barber Shop where I’ve taught for the last 22 years.]

Well, folks, greetings from the thriving metropolis of Winchester, Virginia! WE HAVE MOVED! It’s over! It’s done! No more following a 24-foot U-Haul truck through the mountains at 25 miles per hour! No more wandering around in Columbia, South Carolina, looking for Interstate 77! And no more wondering whether we are going to like this house that we have just committed a lifetime of payments to. We love it!

But, why Winchester? Well, now, I’m not really a big believer in signs but….on our first visit to Winchester, back in December, naturally one of our first concerns was to find a place where I could teach banjo. I mean, first things first. Not four blocks from the house where we were staying [with David McLaughlin], there it was: Brill’s Barber Shop and Musicians’ Shop—Specializing in Bluegrass and Country Music. Now I have taught at several different music stores in my time, but none of them has ever mentioned the word “bluegrass” in its logo, marquee, or advertising. That was Sign #1. Red and I went in and were introduced to the proprietor, Dalton Brill, who, being between haircuts, was sitting down playing his banjo. (Sign #2.) It was a Gibson. (Sign #3.)

Now in order to understand Sign #4, which is a biggie, I will have to digress for just a moment. On Christmas Eve, John and Lynn Hedgecoth [Red’s uncle and his wife, both musicians] came over to our old house in Hawthorne, Florida, to exchange gifts, see how much our kids had grown, pick a little, and gossip about Prominent Bluegrass Musicians. John just happens to be one of the best banjo players in the world. In between Bill Monroe stories, he was wandering around looking at all our books. He came back and said, “Is that a Don Reno Instruction Book you have? I’ve never seen one.”

“No,” I said, “that’s a Don Reno Song Book. I traded Don Wayne for it up in New Jersey. I didn’t know Don Reno had published an instruction book.”

“Oh, yes,” said John. “I’ve always wanted one.”

“Well, if I ever see any,” I said, “I’ll get two. One for me and one for you.”

So what do you think happened? Up in Winchester the very next week, I walked over to the rack of music books in Brill’s and found a whole slew of Don Reno Banjo Instruction Books. And that was Sign #4. I bought two.

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As you saw on our November 3rd Blog, my good friend and banjo-playing buddy Dalton Brill died on October 29. I’ve been teaching at Dalton’s combination Barber Shop and Musician’s Shop since we moved to Winchester in 1986. As I told the folks at Dalton’s funeral, our friend David McLaughlin had been instrumental (no pun intended!) in getting us to move to Virginia from Florida and one of his hooks was that he knew a place where I could teach banjo. David said it was just down the street from his house on the Olde Towne Mall.

So when Red and I drove to Winchester to check things out, we went by the shop and met Dalton. He was very gracious, as I learned he always was. I told him I’d heard he had an opening for a banjo teacher. He told me that he’d never had anyone teaching at his shop before, but he was willing to give it a try. We negotiated lesson prices and a commission for him and I was all set. It wasn’t until years later when Dalton and I were reminiscing about our first meeting that I found out that Dalton didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat and that David had never said anything to him about my teaching there! But, as usual, Dalton rose to the occasion—being the Southern Gentleman that he was—and wanting to spare me any embarrassment, he just said sure, I could teach there. He was just hoping I could actually play the banjo!

What he didn’t tell me was that his dog Shotzie—a Doberman pinscher—stayed in the back room during the day (and in the shop at night), and that I’d have to walk through there to get into the shop (unless I wanted to come in the front door and walk past all the men waiting for haircuts). I’m afraid of dogs in general (and men getting haircuts in particular), so I opted instead for crawling through a window into my teaching space. (The window was an indoor old-fashioned type that slid up and was low to the ground so it wasn’t hard to do.) Dalton later told me that he got a real kick out of seeing me crawling thought that window. I guess it was sorta funny looking!

Dalton was pretty much solely responsible for all the students who started lessons with me to begin with. Not only did he run an ad in the paper, he also corralled any of his customers who showed the slightest interest in guitar or banjo. I’ve written about Dalton several times in Banjo Newsletter (those columns are collected in my book….) and maybe we’ll post those later.

Murphy’s Misfits—the first group of my students to jam together—originated in his shop and as you can see from the pictures posted on Monday, the tradition continues. The current group of unofficial Misfits (I haven’t told them they are Misfits yet!) is, left to right: Chick, Steve, Bob Van, Mark, Susan, and Bob Mc. I’m the short person in the front in the green Kaufman Kamp T-shirt with the STELLING BANJO.

In the hour and a half jam we had on Saturday, we played six tunes: Banjo in the Hollow, Cripple Creek, Boil Them Cabbage, Cumberland Gap, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and I Saw The Light. Everybody did great! We actually had NO train wrecks. I was so proud of all the students. I’m hoping to make this a regular monthly affair. We’ll see! I can’t stress enough how important it is to LEARN YOUR VAMP CHORDS. That’s what making jamming possible. Who knows? Maybe you can stop by Winchester and join us sometime. After all, Carol Lombardo came all the way from Alaska!

Dalton Brill - April 10, 1935-October 29, 2008

Read the Winchester Star article on Dalton from October 31, 2008.

Brill’s Barbershop is where Murphy’s Misfits originated.

Murphy’s current group of Misfits at their jam on November 1st, 2008:

Photos by Ellen Zimmerman.

Sandy, who is about my age (the best age!) has been taking fiddle lessons from me now for two or three months. Maybe even four. She’s never played an instrument before. Knowing that if she invested a lot of money in an instrument, she’d feel obliged to stick with it, she bought a good new German fiddle.

We started out slowly, as I always do, just learning to pull the bow across the open strings. Then it was on to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” We just took it in pieces and Sandy had it down in about a month. She’s very dedicated to her practice. This tune is on our Beginning Fiddle DVD so she had a reference. During this time we were also working on the A major scale.

Because Sandy is an adult and is not clamoring to play in a bluegrass band or even a bluegrass jam session, I veered away from the DVD at this point. I don’t think “Cripple Creek” makes a whole lot of musical sense to someone who had never heard it. Instead, I started her on “Are You Sleeping Brother John.” Since this tune is not on the DVD, Sandy had to memorize each section during the lesson. (I’m not sure why we didn’t use a cassette player. Maybe she doesn’t have one anymore.) Again, we took it in sections, doing only four notes at a time. In addition to playing the song on her fiddle (and since I told her not to write anything down), Sandy would sing the song to herself when she took her daily walk. Again, we had it down in about a month. And “Twinkle” kept getting better.

It was when Sandy was learning her next song “Mary Had A Little Lamb” that the ear training started to pay off. Sandy had mentioned that “Twinkle” was easier to learn than “Brother John” because you stayed on the same note for more bow strokes, so I’d picked “Mary” for exactly that reason. So I showed her the first phrase “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and when she had no trouble with those seven notes, I’d added the rest of the line. Then I told her the first part of the next line was the same as the first phrase. She played that easily. Then she did the most astounding thing: on her own, and never having played this song before, she played the last part of the song ALL BY HERSELF, “its fleece was white as snow.” I was SO HAPPPY! And so proud of her. And she was happy and pretty pleased with herself. As she should have been.

And like I told her, this is how it’s supposed to happen. When you learn by ear, especially if you’ve never played anything before, the first tunes almost have to be learned by rote—with the teacher showing you the notes. And if you stick with the “by ear” part of the program and don’t write anything down, then your ear starts to develop and, sure enough, you start to hear where the notes are yourownself. And then you are on the road to being able to pick out other tunes—whole tunes—by yourself without the aid of a teacher. This is not to say that Sandy will be picking out “The Star-Spangled Banner” next week or even “Old MacDonald” but I’m sure the tunes she’ll be learning will be much easier (we’re fixing to start on Christmas carols from our “Christmas Fiddle Tunes” DVD) and she will be able to pick out parts of them by herself.

So to all of you out there, struggling with the fiddle (or any instrument), I hope Sandy’s story encourages you to hang in there!!!!!!