Murphy Henry

After a short (very short!) visit with Dalton this afternoon, I headed back to my house to teach my afternoon lessons. I am now resuming my previously interrupted blog!

So, we learned the chords to Boil Them Cabbage. Then I taught the high break. I love teaching that to a group because it’s basically one lick, the Foggy Mountain Breakdown Lick (2121/5215), played in different, up-the-neck chord positions. I will admit that I did modify the last lick of the high break so that the beginners would not have to try to make the Cumberland Gap position up the neck. We did 3-pinch/2-pinch down the neck instead. Which sounded fine. We spent some time moving from the vamp to the lead and back again and then it was time for lunch!

I was afraid that after lunch folks would be too sluggish to learn much but the students surprised me. We jumped right into improvising with my favorite first improv song Blue Ridge Cabin Home.

Murphy and Claire Levine (on guitar) at the Portland banjo workshop.

I had already given my spiel about improvising which is lick based, not melody based. That is, we don’t look for the melody notes first and then try to build a roll around them because that is MUCH TOO HARD. Instead, we learn the chords of the song and then use GENERIC licks to fit the chords. This is Improv 101. Later, when the students are much more advanced, they can begin to try to work in more melody notes, but not now.

So, first of all, we went over the chords, because you can improvise if you don’t know the chords. I choose Blue Ridge Cabin Home because it is a “real” bluegrass song and the chords are so simple: GCDG/GCDG, four beats of everything.

Once we had the chords down, I showed the class the simplest form of improvising: playing a forward and backward roll (3215/1231) in all of the chords. That way, the beginners would always have something to fall back on if the rest of the licks proved to be too hard. We called that our “lousy level,” which is a term John Hartford used to denote the foundational level, the bottom-most rung of the ladder that you can come back to if all else fails. (And they could also vamp.)

Then we started “spicing” up the break by adding a 2-3 slide to the forward roll, then a 3-2 pull off to the backward roll. This gave us a classic Scruggs lick that fits two beats of G every day of the week. We added pinches (3 pinch/2 pinch) to fill out the “measure” of G and then we had to stop and have a conversation about “measures.”

I always think in four-beat measures (when I think of measures at all, which is not often!) but some people think in two-beat measures. It’s no big deal, so I didn’t let us linger here long and get side-tracked from what we were doing which was PLAYING!

So already we had a pretty good-sounding break. And now came the time to venture into more advanced territory. I asked those who played Foggy Mountain Breakdown already to take the “tag lick” (and the pinches that follow it) and drop it into the song as a substitute for those last four beats of G. Bingo! They were able to do that fairly easily. So we played that for a while.

Then I asked them to now take the “D” lick from FMB and drop that into the song as a substitute for the four-beat D lick we were already doing. I told them it would hook right onto the tag lick, that they would share that last third string note.

That proved to be a little harder as not everyone “hears” that open fourth string as the start of the D lick. But with students asking questions and showing me what they were doing, we got it all straightened out.

So now we hard a darn good break, chock full of hard-core Scruggs licks. We left the C lick as it was (forward/backward rolls) because by now the students were getting pretty mentally exhausted. We put everything we knew together and played Blue Ridge Cabin Home as a real song, using our newly-constructed break for a kickoff and then, after the verse and chorus as a break. Whoo hoo! It sounded great! And let me not fail to add that during all this time our faithful guitar player, Claire, hung right in there, playing slow, slow, slow. It was a huge help.

We finished out the rest of the class time with another unrehearsed performance from Patty and Claire and me. I kept referring to Patty as the “poster child” for the Murphy Method because she has done so well, but I think she got a little tired of that, so I stopped. (Did you notice that I stopped, Patty??) It’s just that I am so proud of her. She demonstrated everything that I preach as we played. If she didn’t know a break, she improvised one. If she made a mistake, she kept on playing. If I said, “What do you want to play?” she immediately came up with a tune. (Always be prepared!)

Murphy (center) with all the Portland workshop participants.

Sunday morning, we met again bright and early at 10 a.m. for three more hours of picking, playing, and singing. And improvising. Tommie had already taken the improvising licks she had learned yesterday and had tried to apply them to Bury Me Beneath the Willow. But she had had a problem: Since the chord progression of Willow is GCGD/GCG-DG [and I use G-D to represent a “split measure” of two beats G/two beats D] she couldn’t get the licks to fit. Did they, in fact, fit?

I told her that was exactly what we were going to work on! (And really, I had planned that in advance!) So we did. In addition to plugging in all the licks we had learned yesterday, I showed them how the “tag lick” (and pinches)– which is usually used to end a phrase–now could be used to fill out that third G measure. (And believe me, I hate to be “talking” about this on paper—so to speak—because it rarely makes much sense. SEE THE IMPROVISING DVD! It’s all there!)

And my goodness! That was a hard concept to get across! It was hard for the students to adjust their ears to “hearing” the tag lick in the middle of the song. But we worked long and hard on it, and many people did, in fact get it.

But by that time, the students had pretty much reached the saturation point when their brains simply couldn’t absorb anything else new. So it was Patty and Claire to the rescue, to play a few more tunes including Sally Goodwin. We also had a question and answer session and a general wrap-up. And then, the workshop was over. My how time flies when you’re having fun!

We all took our banjos inside the car repair shop and had our pictures taken along side this lovely old car. We are all smiling because someone said, “Say TAB!”

But the day was not over for me. No, it wasn’t. Claire had told me about a square dance that night that was featuring a live old-time band. Patty bravely offered to accompany me so off we went, via a coffee shop to caffeine up! Since I have spent the last year learning to dance the man’s part (so I will never lack for a partner!) Patty was able to be my partner. We had a wonderful time!

The square dancing was not exactly what I’ve been doing which is called Modern Western Square Dancing where you have to take classes to learn all the moves which have weirdo names like Relay the Deucy and Spin the Top and Spin Chain and Exchange the Gears. But we did square up four couples and then the two callers taught the moves right there on the spot. (They were excellent teachers). The moves weren’t too complicated, but they were somewhat involved and you did have to pay attention to what you were doing. It definitely wasn’t square dancing for dummies. We must have had 7 or 8 squares going all night long. And lots and lots of young people, twenty-somethings, all dressed in funky Portland clothes, lots of cowboy boots, and leggings, and some short skirts and some long skirts, and one man in a skirt. So much young energy in the room! It was great!

A few of the moves were the same ones I had been dancing: allemande left followed by right and left grand is pretty standard, as is do-si-do and swing your partner. But we also did Box the Gnat and Grand Square. Which are way cool.

So my weekend in Portland ended on a high, high note. My flight back Monday morning was uneventful (if long) and now here I am, back at the old homeplace.

Thanks again, Patty and Claire, for all your hard work and many thanks to all you wonderful students for turning out and giving the Murphy Method whirl. Hope we can do it again!

And if you’re interested in a Murphy Method workshop, don’t forget we’ve got our Intermediate Camp coming up in Winchester on March 23, 24, and 25. Check it out on our web page! Hope to see some of you there!

Murphy Henry

Wow! Just back last night from the weekend workshop I did in Portland West (Oregon!) and just had to blog about it. (The heck with The Darn Book today!)

First of all a huge shout out to Patty Spencer for coming up with the idea. Then kudos to both her and Claire Levine for all the hard work they did in publicizing the event, rounding up students, finding a venue, putting me up for the weekend (that was Claire), and treating me like royalty (which I loved!). And an “extry spatial” thanks (as Lester Flatt would say) to Patty for going with me to the square dance Sunday night and being my partner! We had a ball, dancing to a live, old-time band. And, of course, thanks to all you students who came out and worked so hard at everything we did.

Claire Levine, Patty Spencer, Murphy Henry

And what did we do? Well, as you may know by now, Murphy Method workshops are HANDS ON! “Less talk, more playing” is our motto. So our Friday evening “meet and greet” included an impromptu concert by Patty (banjo), Claire (guitar), Matt (Dobro), and me; a rather long explanation of the philosophy behind The Murphy Method; an answer to the question “How did YOU learn to play?”; and a few tunes played together by the whole group.

Then Saturday morning, at the civilized hour of 10 a.m., I was ready to dig in and go to work. When I’m working with a large group of students (23) that range from beginner to advanced, I always try to start at the beginning level so that no matter where we go from there, the beginners can still VAMP! I ask the more advanced students to be patient with this review of material they already know, and I am happy to say that I have never had any complaints about this approach.

And I have learned over the years that when teaching vamping to a group it is best to let the beginners use the simplest chords possible which are open G, first position C, and first position D-7. Or if they prefer, they can use the barre C at the fifth fret and the barre D at the seventh. But everyone can vamp! So since the high break to “Boil Them Cabbage Down” was my Song Of The Day, we learned the vamping to that. I sang it, I played it low, I played it high, I sang it some more, I played it some more, I called out the chords, I pointed out the pattern (all chords are two beats except at the last), and we did rep after rep after rep. And, sure enough, after all this playing, pretty much everyone could vamp to Cabbage. (And many, many thanks to Claire for serving—willingly—as my guitar player. Or guitar slave, as we sometimes call it. We call it other stuff too, but I got that idea from Sex in the City so won’t mention that here in this, more or less, family blog!)

Then Rachel asked a question. The arrangement of Cabbage that she was familiar with included another part, a B part. What about that? Whoops! I knew exactly what she was talking about, having been surprised by that B part ON STAGE at a festival by the great Florida fiddler George Custer. Yes, fiddlers to tend to put in a B part, which, yes, does have a slightly different chord pattern. (I had to make up a break on the spot. Fortunately it was not too hard!) So, I told her I had patterned this break as if Cabbage were a singing song (which it also is) and so I didn’t teach the B part. I told her she could either try to make up a B part (as I had done) or just brazen it out by playing it her way and letting everybody else adjust to her!

Which points to one of the great things about this workshop, something that elevated it to “excellent” in my book: the students asked lots of questions, questions that were relevent to what we were doing and showed a real understanding of what I was trying to teach. The students were also very good at asking for further explanation if they didn’t understand what I was talking about, and asking for more reps if they couldn’t quite play what we were working on.

Okay. I’m at Casey’s house and Dalton is awake!!! I’m gonna ask her to post this as is, but I PLAN to continue after I teach today. Stay tuned!!!!!

Murphy Henry

But by the time Cody came in, I was ready to be in tune. And since Cody’s banjo wasn’t quite in tune, I asked him to tune it. He didn’t have his tuner with him so I handed him mine. Then, I asked Bob to go ahead and use that tuner to tune, so we’d all be in tune together. No big deal, right? All I wanted (for Christmas) was for them to get in tune…

So Cody looks at Bob and says, “ I think I’m gonna buy her a T-shirt that says, ‘Please be in tune WITH ME.’ ”

And Bob says, “Yeah. And the operative words are WITH ME.”

Hmmm….somehow I never thought of it like that!

Murphy

Murphy Henry

It thrills me when someone who is new to the Murphy Method takes that “leap of faith” and starts learning by ear. The series of emails below that I exchanged with Tom after our Beginning Banjo Camp in October seems to capture the start of that experience in a nutshell. With his kind permission, I am sharing them with you. As he said, “Hopefully the message will help others who have struggled with tab. As I say, if I can learn with your method and make some nice music with my banjo, anyone can!” Thank you, Tom!

November 10:

Dear Murphy:

Thanks again for the excellent camp. It was a great experience. I wanted to email you a question about the sequence of learning songs. I have always wanted to play Will The Circle Be Unbroken. I have tried to learn to play it for a number of years by using tab without any success. I do have your Gospel Songs DVD. I know you recommend doing the first two DVDs and Misfits DVD first. Over the past couple of days, I have begun using the Gospel DVD and starting to work on Will The Circle Be Unbroken. I know this song is out of the sequence you recommend for learning and it seems to have some more challenging licks and it will take more time to learn. I wanted to see if you had any recommendations about trying to learn this song. It appears to be a more challenging song but it is perhaps my favorite song on the banjo and a song I really like to sing. Since I have tried to learn it by tab for some time, it is also a personal challenge for me to learn the song by your method. For these reasons, I would like to learn this song and I wanted to see what your thoughts were about working on it. I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas you have. Thank you for your time and response.

Hi Tom,

Glad you enjoyed the camp. So did I! I appreciate your asking for my advice about learning Circle. I can understand why it’s a favorite of yours–it’s also a favorite of mine! And it’s a great song. Now, although this may seem counter-intuitive, I believe you can learn the song faster–in the long run–if you learn a few other basic tunes first. In spite of its seemingly simple roll pattern, it’s really pretty complicated. You don’t have to go thru Vol 1 Vol 2 and Misfits, but would you be willing to learn at least a couple of songs before tackling Circle? They will help you internalize some of the basics you will need to know so you can more easily tackle the specifics of Circle. If so, let me know what you already play from these DVDs and I’ll pick two others that will help you specifically with Circle. Hoping this will appeal to you!

Murphy:

Thanks for your response. I feel I play Banjo in the Hollow, Cripple Creek and Boil Them Cabbage Down fairly well as far as the banjo solos go, but not necessarily the vamping at this point since that was very new to me. Your method really helped me with Cripple Creek and Boil Them Cabbage Down since I had struggled with those songs for a few years with tab and now I am doing fairly well with the melody and timing. So here’s a banjo salute to you and your method. It does work, even with an older musical misfit like myself. I would appreciate any suggestions you have about two additional songs to learn from the Volume 1 or Misfits. As I said, I really enjoy Circle and have been very frustrated with trying to learn it from tab. Truthfully, I was about ready to smash my banjo over my head (just joking). Let me know what you think about some additional songs.

November 11:

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your thoughtful, detailed reply. I believe if you learn I Saw The Light and Worried Man (from the Misfits DVD), those will GREATLY help your learning Circle. There is an important lick (slightly hard) taught in those–the Tag Lick–which will need some practice to get it down smooth before you go on to Circle. As I said, learning these will make learning Circle MUCH EASIER. No need to learn the vamping to these right now, altho in the future you would need to learn that. Each of these songs should take a least two weeks to get down smoothly, it not more. Good luck, Tom, and let me know how you are doing!

Murphy:

Thanks for your time and response. I really appreciate your help. I will plan on learning I Saw the Light and Worried Man before I take up Will the Circle Be Unbroken. After all of that, I will plan on resuming your recommended learning sequence from the Volume 1 and 2. Thanks again for your advice and time.

December 15:

Murphy:

I just hope you don’t mind updates on my experience/progress with the Murphy method. I just wanted to let you know that the lights started to come on. I had been progressing slowly with I Saw The Light as you had recommended but was having some difficulty bringing out the melody when all at once last night it seemed to click and the lights came on and the melody was there. It is still not quite where I would like it, but I am clearly getting there with this song. I plan to polish the song very well and then move on to Worried Man. I just want to thank you for your method. I don’t know if you realize how much frustration a person can have with tab and not being able to play a song and have it sound like the song if you know what I mean. It is a real pleasure to hear real music coming out of my banjo and not just a slew of notes. Thanks again for all of your advice, suggestions and the camp. I will keep you updated from time to time as I continue to make progress. I hope that you and Red, and Chris, Casey and Dalton have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Again, I thank YOU, Tom! Hearing your story will definitely help make my Christmas a Merry one!

Now, over to Casey’s house to see Dalton! Whoopee!

Murphy

Anyhow, the gist of our conversation was, as you have gathered, that no one ever seems satisfied with how they play. And does that dissatisfaction ever end? Perhaps when you are in the grave, Susan suggested.

Then Mark said, “I try to be happy with where I am while trying to get better.” Which Susan and I both acknowledged was an excellent way to look at things.

Then Susan said, “I like to hear a man saying things like that!”

To which Mark quickly replied, “I only apply that to banjo!”

And Susan and I just howled and rolled our eyes. Too funny.
And that, friends, is my short blog for today. Hope you have a wonderful last weekend before Christmas! I’m square dancing tonight so I am happy! “Oh, promenade that ring, take your girl home and swing, because, just because!”

Murphy

Murphy Henry

As you can see, I’m trying to follow through on my pre-New Year’s Rez to blog more! But, frankly, not a lot has happened since yesterday! We worked hard at Casey’s new abode, unloading boxes, putting stuff on shelves, putting together beds, and cleaning her freezer. (I cleaned the fridge the day before!) We also listened to umpteen repititions of the John Hartford album Wild Hog in the Red Brush because that is what Casey uses to put Dalton to sleep by. And frankly, at this point, if I NEVER hear Buffalo Gals or Birdie again it would suit me just fine! (Just kidding, John, wherever you are!)

I told Casey I could work till 5 o’clock but after that she’d have to pay me overtime! So we quit about 5:30 and by then I was WAY too tired to go the old-time picking, even if David McLaughlin and his banjo were going to be there. (Notice how I worked that word “banjo” in? Slick, huh?) So instead I went home, fixed supper for Casey and me–a marvelously quick and tasty concoction of hamburger, onion, mustard, and ketchup all mixed together that you eat rolled up in a tortilla. Casey calls it a “deconstructed hamburger.” I learned about this from my West Virginia square dancing buddies who call it Mexican meat (politically incorrect, I know, but that’s what they call it!) It’s yummy. Then I retired to the TV room with my Corona to watch the last football game of the day, Cowboys v. Giants. I was so sleepy I only made it through the first quarter! I had to wait till today to find out that my team—the Giants, with quarterback Eli Manning (son of Archie)—won 37 to 34. Must have been a heck of a game. Wish I could have seen it!

So, now (Monday afternoon, after a dentist appointment and a workout) Casey and Dalton and I are headed back over to her house to do some more unloading! Red will join us there after he packs today’s Murphy Method orders. And that’s what we’re doing here in Winchester, Va. Hope you’re having a good day wherever you are!

Murphy Henry

Here is a thought I had while I was driving Casey and Dalton from Nashville to Winchester on Friday: I have Grand-Mommy brain! Which is to say, I have plenty of energy to think about all things Casey and Dalton, but little energy to blog about banjos. So, I decided that in lieu of blogging about banjos for a while I’d just blog. About whatever.

So here is my first “whatever” blog! Hope you can hang in with me until I get focused, once again, on banjos! But I was thinking that perhaps this experience may also reflect what often goes on in your lives: too much going on to devote much time to playing banjo. (Or whatever instrument you are learning.) What do you do? You just hang in the best you can, fill your lives with music as much as possible, and wait for the pendulum to swing back around. Music is such a part of my life that I can never be completely separated from it or without it.

Having said that, I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing lately. On Wednesday morning (Dec. 7) I flew to Nashville to join Casey and Red who were in the mad and last throes of packing up her house for the move to Winchester. Red had driven the U-Haul to her house [Editor's note: actually I picked up the U-Haul while Red held the sleeping baby at home!] and when I arrived movers were already loading the 26-foot truck. I would have been there slightly sooner but son Chris and I had made a Starbucks detour on the way from the airport for some mother-son bonding, two breakfast sandwiches, and two tall Americanos with cream! Wednesday night Red delivered the truck to the home of Ned Lubrecki (Nedski to his friends) who was driving it to Winchester on Friday. Red and I spent Wednesday night with Red’s uncle John Hedgecoth and his wife Lynn, sleeping in a soft bed while Casey hunkered down, bluegrass style, on a pallet on the floor of her house. She wanted to spend the last night in her home of the last nine years. (Dalton was nestled all snug in his Pack n Play.)

Thursday morning, as Casey and Dalton and I hit the road for our two-day trip to Winchester, I was surprised to find myself crying as we pulled out of Casey’s driveway. That had been such a good house for her, and she had put so much love and work into it. Casey asked me if I would like Dalton’s pacifier! Red was driving separately and taking just one day. We learned during our long journey home over Thanksgiving that Dalton can make it just about five hours before melting down completely and becoming inconsolable despite Casey’s best efforts—and much John Hartford music!

Our stopping places along the road are now based on which eating places have a baby changing station in the bathroom! Some Starbucks do, some don’t. Some Burger Kings do, some don’t. Cracker Barrel does. McDonald’s is pretty good.

We spent Thursday night at our half-way point, Bristol. Casey and I woofed down a pizza in our motel room, and I tried to stay awake long enough to watch the Steelers play the Browns on Thursday night football. I didn’t make it through the first quarter!

Friday morning Dalton was up bright and early at 6 a.m. So, naturally we were too! Having chosen Exit 7 on I 81 based on the presence of a Starbucks, we got our breakfast there (to go) and geared up for the last 300 miles. We rolled into Winchester sometime around 1 p.m. The rest of that day is a blur. Oh yeah! I made spaghetti! From scratch, with grass-fed local beef! Nedski arrived with the U-Haul sometime around 8 p.m. Since he had a gig in Chattanooga the next afternoon (!) he didn’t hang around. Red drove him to the Baltimore airport. I was out square dancing! Which keeps me sane!

Okay, gotta wind this up. Casey just came downstairs with Dalton and said she would feed him and we would head over to HER HOUSE to continue with the unpacking. Although she has not yet closed on her house (that’s Monday) the sellers were kind enough to let her unload all her stuff there Saturday. Which is what we did all day. I bailed at 4 p.m. so I could get a nap and restore my energy for, guess what? Square dancing!!

Which brings us around to today, Sunday. And more unpacking. I told Casey I’d make us some sandwiches for our lunch, so I’d better get to it. There is a possibility of some old-time picking tonight in Paw Paw with Sam and Joe Hermann and David McLaughlin. If I go, I’ll be hacking away at the fiddle.

If you’re looking for a great (although non-bluegrass) holiday CD, I’m really enjoying the new Carole King offering. Check it out. It starts off with “There As A Few Of My Favorite Things.” And Tony Trischka’s holiday CD from a few years back is (And Glory Shone Around is perhaps the title) is fabulous. And Laurie Lewis’s Winter Solstice. (Don’t hold me to the title!) And of course, The Roaches We Three Kings. (Also non-bluegrass but wonderful with great harmony.)

Okay, time to go be a Grandmother!!! “I have sandwiches to fix and miles to go before I…..” Okay that didn’t work! The best I can come up with (after running through the alphabet) is “miles to go before I picks” which is ungrammatical. This is better: “She has sandwiches to fix, and miles to go before she picks!” I like it!

Murphy Henry

Well, now it’s officially official. I made my plane reservations for Portland so I guess I’m really going! (Not that there was ever any doubt. It just seems more concrete now!)

Thanks to prodding from two mail order students and friends, Patty Spencer and Claire Levine, I will be teaching a banjo workshop in Portland (that’s Portland West, not Portland East!) January 27-29, 2012. The workshop is open to all comers but you will certainly get more out of it if you can play a few songs and do some vamping.

As always, I will adjust the teaching to fit the crowd, but you can guarantee that we will be doing A LOT OF PLAYING. We will play slow and we will play fast (if there are students who want to play fast). We will be working primarily with the  vast Murphy Method repertory of songs and tunes, so hopefully most of the students will know the same material. (Note to potential attendees: No need to brush up on Blackberry Blossom! We will not be playing that! Even from the Murphy Method list, I doubt that we will be playing Salt Creek, certainly not as a group! Why not? The chords are too hard!)
Other things we may cover (no guarantees!) are: using the capo, basic improvising, jamming, playing in C without a capo, playing in ¾ time, and maybe one of those fancy Scruggs backup licks Casey teaches on her Fancy Scruggs Backup DVD.
One thing the students at the recent Winchester Banjo Camp seemed to enjoy (I use the term lightly!) was playing a solo in front of the others. There was no pressure to do this, but almost everyone participated. And this seemed to be the one area that everyone mentioned having trouble with: playing in front of others. Well, a Murphy Method banjo workshop is about the safest, most supportive atmosphere you will find for taking that Leap of Faith. And as I told everyone, you don’t get the Gold Star for playing it perfectly, you get the Gold Star for PLAYING THROUGH YOUR MISTAKES  and keeping the timing going. But actually, at a Murphy Method camp, you get the Gold Star just for trying. Because I know that it takes tremendous courage for an adult to put themselves on the line like that. Every person who played was scared to death. But they did it anyhow! Brave souls! I hope they gained some confidence in their playing and learned that making a mistake was not the end of the world.

In fact, our motto for that weekend could have been: Nobody’s listening, nobody cares! Which sounds harsh and is, of course, an exaggeration, but what I mean is that people who are “listening” are likely thinking of something else at the very instant you make a mistake, so they literally don’t hear it. And if their ears do catch a mistake, they forget in the next millisecond. Because, again, they are likely thinking, “Wow! I wish I could do that. I wish I had that much courage.” Or, “Oh, my gosh. It’s my turn next. I hope I can do that well!”

I’ve told the story before that when I first started playing banjo regularly on stage (at the ripe old age, I thought, of 22!), I was playing in Red’s Charleston, S.C. band, Low Country. Which usually played in bars. At first, like you, I thought everyone was listening attentively to my playing and could hear every mistake. But then, I realized they were all drinking heavily and basically heard nothing except a wall of music. So I decided I would have a beer or two (not more than that) and then I “heard” more like they did, and was less focused on my mistakes. Nobody was listening (to me) and nobody cared (if I made a mistake). No, I’m not recommending you drink before you play, I’m just trying to make the point that I’ve been there.

My partner in crime, Casey, is handling all the financial and logistical details for the Portland workshop, so if you have questions, please direct them to her at 615-513-8620 or email her at themurphymethod@gmail.com.

Hope to see you out there in Portland West! I’ll be bringing plenty of Murphy Method merch so you can look it over and load up. No shipping charges!

And if you’re wondering where the phrase “Portland East and Portland West” came from, here ‘tis. That great song, Eight More Miles To Louisville. Thank you Louis Marshall “Grandpa” Jones!

I’ve traveled over this country wide

Seeking fortune fair

Up and down the two coast lines

I’ve traveled everywhere

From Portland East to Portland West

And back across the line

I’m going back to the place I love

That old hometown of mine.

Eight more miles and Louisville

Will come into my view

Eight more miles to Louisville

I’ll never more be blue

I knew someday that I’d come back

I knew it from the start

Eight more miles to Louisville

The hometown of my heart.

Murphy Henry

So, I’ve done all I can right now to help Casey get ready to leave. Which gives me a few minutes to tell you more about the camp and what we taught.

As you know, our teaching is always hands on and our banjo camp motto is “less talk, more playing.” I think we definitely achieved that goal this weekend.

We asked the students to come prepared to play the first three Murphy Method tunes: Banjo in the Hollow, Cripple Creek, and/or Boil Them Cabbage Down. If they were able to vamp any, that was a plus, but not a requirement. I think I can safely say we played those songs to death!

At our “Meet and Greet” which was the first thing on our agenda Friday afternoon, it became clear that the students really wanted to be able to play with other people but did not have jamming situations available and—this was a biggie for almost everyone—when they tried to play in front of anybody (including their teachers) they were so nervous that they could not play well. Some of them would freeze up and weren’t able to play at all.

I am proud to say that by the end of the weekend almost everyone had played one of those songs by themselves in front of the other students. And they played them VERY WELL. They played IN TIME and they PLAYED THROUGH THEIR MISTAKES. And most of them were also able to do the vamping to the song they played. I received such a charge from witnessing that that I was buzzing around long after camp was over. And I’m still euphoric over their progress. And their courage. Because, by their own admissions, most of them were extremely nervous when they were playing. Terrified is actually the word that comes to mind!

One of the reasons they were able to do this is that we had played through those songs so many times all together. S-L-O-W-L-Y. And they were playing them correctly and in time. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to play slow and steady and to do many, many, many repetitions every time you play. As we keep saying, lots of practice will clear up most playing problems. You also need to listen to what you are playing and to listen to the tune on the DVD. Do they sound the same?

After the Meet and Greet, we got out the banjos, and in one big group, we played through our three tunes. Slowly. My local students Susan and Zac had volunteered to play rhythm guitar which helped the students hear the tunes—and the chord changes—better. But, you know what? Since these were Murphy Method students to begin with, they were already playing pretty well—with good timing. And since they knew how to use their ears, as we played together, students were able to tweak their own timing. Somebody said, “I thought I could play Cripple Creek till we started playing it!” That is why playing with others is so important!

For our second session Friday we divided the class roughly in half (dividing along the lines of those who could already vamp some and those who could not) and began working on vamping and hearing chord changes. As always, hearing those chord changes is difficult. And, even though we do it by ear, in the beginning it’s almost impossible to get away from learning the patterns by rote, especially on the instrumentals. I was working with the vampers, so I told the students, “For now, just memorize the pattern: GGCG, GGDG.” (That’s the A part of Cripple Creek.) Then as they played the pattern, I believe most of them began to hear the changes. We worked on the vamping to all three songs, so that by itself was a lot of vamping!

Meanwhile Casey was busy with the non-vampers, showing them the F position chords and having them vamp to one of the easiest singing songs, Blue Ridge Cabin Home. They later moved on to Boil Them Cabbage Down.
Thus ended the first day of teaching. We broke for supper at 5 and met back at the Barber Shop that evening at 7 for our evening concert. Some of my local students joined Red and me in sitting down and playing casually for a couple of hours. Susan, Zac, and Mark played banjo, Bob Van and Janet played guitars, and Bill played bass. Some of the songs we played were:

Blue Ridge Cabin Home

Mary Dear

I Saw the Light

Train 45

Head Over Heels

Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms

Salt Creek

Sally Goodwin

Down The Road (which Zac sang)

Will the Circle

You Are My Sunshine

Lonesome Road Blues

Old Joe Clark

John Hardy

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

We ended with When the Roll is Called Up Yonder as we had ended so many of our Wednesday night concerts years ago. Everyone played so well. And improvising was definitely happening. I think and hope the students at the workshop got an idea of what can be achieved on the banjo when you work your butt off, you learn by ear, and you play often with other people. It can be done, folks!

Our Intermediate Camp is scheduled for March. Hope to see some of you there!