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

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

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!

Red Henry

And so, what did Red, the aged, tottering, grizzled patriarch of the family, do for the weekend? As previously noted, he took care of Casey’s baby, namely Dalton Henry, who is two months old and mighty cute. Even if he couldn’t stay awake for Halloween.

I mentioned before that Dalton is a beginning banjo player, because he can’t help it. But there’s more he can’t help doing too, over the next few years, which includes learning to talk. And how children learn that is HIGHLY relevant to learning to play music.

How does a child learn to talk? By listening and imitating people whom he hears. When you see the slogan “Talk to your baby!” it’s important, because babies have to hear words before they can say them. A baby listens and listens before it learns to talk.

And would anyone say that a baby should learn to READ before it starts to talk? Of course not. That’d be ridiculous.

So what does this have to do with bluegrass? Only everything. If you’re learning to make sounds (play music, that is), learn those sounds– the notes– BY EAR. Then practice. A lot. As Murphy says, “Listen, listen, listen, and play, play, play.”

Don’t try to learn to play bluegrass music from a piece of paper. Do you want to know what the notes should sound like? Yes. Can paper show you that? No.

Casey won’t make little Dalton read before he can talk. That’s not how people learn!

Take a hint.

Red.

Murphy Henry

[And of course the title is a take-off on the song title The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.]

Cutting right to the chase: The Saturday morning of our Beginning Banjo Camp we woke up to find two inches of snow on the ground and more falling! Casey and I made the ten-mile trip into Winchester very slowly since even the main road, Route 50, had not been pre-treated nor plowed. What were they thinking?

We arrived at the venue—the basement of Dalton Brill’s old barber shop—to find a few students waiting patiently under the overhang of the shop next door. Down the steep outside stairs we went and I unlocked the door. The room, where we played music every Wednesday night for years, is below ground with old stone walls. When the lights are out it is pitch black. (Remember that part!) Wondering why I hadn’t remembered to bring a flashlight, I groped my way to the light switches (in the back of the room) and turned the lights on. Casey started coffee and I went upstairs to unlock the back door (which was our emergency exit) as the rest of the students were arriving. Just as I finished that task, the lights went out.

Thanks to the upstairs skylight, I could still see but downstairs it was, as I said earlier, pitch black. Making this long story shorter, we discovered there was a major power outage all across town. Luckily there were LOTS of candles on hand. So for starters we lit those, which helped. But even as we were doing that I’m thinking, “What are we going to do?”

Luckily, my friend Adam Phelps was on hand, as his son Riley was there for the morning session. I asked him to go somewhere and get some battery-powered lanterns. I knew he would come back with something! He is one of those “can do” kind of guys.

Still, I’m thinking, “What in the world are we gonna do?” Luckily, heat was not a problem. Yes, it was chilly, but with that many people (around 20) in that small space, body heat—and coats!–were doing the trick. Even with the candles, however, it was still dark. So I got out my guitar, Casey got out her banjo, and we had an old-fashioned sing-a-long! I can’t quite call it a hootenanny because we didn’t sing any “folk” songs (no Cum By Yah, no Where Have All The Flowers Gone, no The Cruel War, no If I Had A Hammer). But we did sing!

“Guess what we are going to start with?” I said. After a few misses, someone guessed, “I Saw The Light.” “You got it,” I replied. And off we went. We probably sang for close to an hour, doing everything from Will The Circle Be Unbroken to Little White Washed Chimney and Life’s Railway To Heaven. Then—bless his heart!—Adam came back with three lanterns. “You would not believe the lines in Wal-Mart,” he said. “I practically had to knock down two old ladies to get these!” At that point, I did not care!

Adam fired them up and by hanging them on nails already positioned in the middle of both sections of the basement (I’d divided it in two by hanging canvases between—makeshift but functional…sorta!) we could actually see. We decided to go on with the classes.

Shortening the story even more, the electricity stayed off until 4 p.m. Almost SEVEN HOURS! The only thing we had to cancel was the sing-a-long scheduled for that night from 7-9. I was worried the roads would freeze and we’d be driving in the dark on black ice. Been there, done that. Not fun! So, we added an hour-long slow jam to the end of the day’s activities and everyone seemed to be okay with that.

I can’t say enough about how gracious all the students were in a trying situation. Everyone was easy to get along with and no one complained about anything (even the lack of coffee!). And Dave’s wife remedied that later on by stopping by Dunkin’ Donuts and bringing two boxes of steaming Java into our midst. It was most welcome!

I’ve not said anything about the teaching but will blog more about that later. It was WONDERFUL! I was so proud of every student there. But I needed to get this snow stuff out of the way first!

And now I need to go help Casey and Dalton pack up. They are flying back to Nashville today. Boo hoo! Dalton was two months old yesterday and is as cute as a bug in a rug. I will miss them so much!

I’ll be back….with more about the camp! Stay tuned!

Red Henry

Folks, the Murphy Method Beginning Banjo Camp is this weekend! We’ll have students coming in from all over the country to learn from Murphy and Casey. This is our first camp specifically for beginners, so both Murphy and Casey will be teaching, demonstrating, and encouraging new banjo players for three days.

And what use, you may ask, will Murphy’s husband be while all this is going on? He (that is, me, myself and I) will be chasing the family’s newest banjo picker around the house. He’s Casey’s son, named Dalton Henry, age 8 weeks yesterday:

Morning Cheer

–and how does a person that young get to be a banjo picker? That’s easy: he’s already heard more banjo notes than more people. For 9 months. At close range, too. The kid can’t help playing a banjo.

Red

P.S. — Oh, I’ll get over to the camp each evening, too, to help Murphy with jam sessions and sing-alongs… with all those OTHER beginning banjo players.

Murphy Henry

I’m just  back from a lovely weekend in Charlton, Massachusetts, making my first appearance at Banjo Camp North, where I was able spend some quality time hanging out with my buddy, Bill Evans. Somehow we remain friends even though we totally disagree about right-hand position and using a continuous roll to play banjo backup!

We do, however, enjoy performing together so we helped each other out during the faculty concert on Friday where we played “Clinch Mountain Backstep” and “Come Back to Me Little Darling” (Bill’s tunes) and “M and M Blues” and “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” (my tunes). We also managed to work in a bit of humor which included Bill playing some crazy, off-the-wall melodic break in the middle of “Willow” and me grabbing his banjo neck and muting his strings with my hand. He then made some lame excuse saying, “But it’s my style” to which I responded, “Yeah, but I don’t like it and this is my tune!” The audience just howled. All in fun, of course.

Helping us out were Pete Kelley on bass, Phil Zimmerman playing killer Monroe-style mandolin, Dick Bowden on guitar, and Alan Kaufman on fiddle. A total tip of the hat to these guys who had never heard “M and M Blues” before. In fact as I was introducing the song, Bill was talking to the band, telling them the arrangement, and clueing them into the fact that there were stops on the chorus! When I took my banjo break (which was Earl’s first break to Foggy Mountain Special), Bill twinned me. It was awesome. Bill can twin just about anything. Which is why I had chosen “Willow”, just so Bill could twin it.

Saturday night Tony Trischka played in faculty concert and Bill and I had pulled up folding chairs to sit together in the back of the audience. When Tony sat down to play, however, we couldn’t see his hands so we got up and walked to the side of the room so we could see better. Well…..when Tony was done (the Finnish polka he played was particularly amazing) we walked back to our seats only to find that Riley Baugus (the great clawhammer player from North Carolina) was sitting in my seat. Bill was all for pulling up another chair but I said “Watch this. I’m gonna make Riley move.”

So I walk up to Riley and say, “You’re sitting in my seat.” Riley looks up sort of startled and I could tell he was fixing to say something but I continued on. I said, “You’re from North Carolina. [Dramatic pause.] You know what you have to do.” And, sure enough, he got up and gave me his seat. I knew he would. He’s a Good Boy From The South. It was hysterical! As I sat down (gracefully) I looked over at Bill and he has this disbelieving look on his face like “How did that happen?” And I’m laughing so hard I’ve got tears in my eyes. One reason I knew this would work was that on Riley’s part of the show Friday he was kind enough to mention that he was happy to see me way up here in Massachusetts. He said he liked talking to me because I didn’t have an accent!

I will close with a great quote from Bill. As we were watching the show Friday night he said, “When someone sits down to play you know it’s either gonna be very interesting and innovative or it’s gonna be old-time.” I’m not sure what that means regarding our own playing since we stood up!

Okay, I’m not quite done. There’s one more quote. This from one of the students who was there. I didn’t get his name but I think he had some of our Murphy Method DVDs. He said he’d enjoyed hearing me play and being in the classes and the slow jam. He then said, “I didn’t know you would be so nice.” I took that in the spirit it was offered, as a sincere compliment.

And finally as I was sitting down in the dining hall for our final lunch, director Mike Holmes says to me, “So, who should I hire next year, you or Casey?” (Casey has taught at Banjo Camp North several times and the people up there love her!) At first I said, “Hire Casey!” But then I quickly rethought that and walked over to him and said, “Hire us both!  We can be your only mother-daughter duo. It’s a great selling point!” Being the canny New England businessperson that he is, he said he’d think about it! So, we’ll see. Check out Banjo Camp North on line and make your plans to be there next year!

Casey Henry

So I’m here in Maryville, Tenn., for one more day. This morning we have all to ourselves because the campers are doing the band scramble. The previous years I’ve taught her at Kaufman Kamp I’ve been in charge of the Scramble, so had to get up extra early on this day. But I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying being able to get some work done in my room this a.m.

My concert spot was last night and I asked some absolutely wonderful people to accompany me: Jim Hurst on guitar, Andrew Collins on mandolin, Adam Masters on fiddle, and Kathy Chiavola singing harmony (she would have been playing guitar as well except that she broke her left hand and it’s in a cast!). Jim, Kathy, and I had a great little trio going and we gave the campers some plain-old traditional bluegrass which, as it turns out, is not heard much on the concerts here. Here was the set list:

Wandering Boy

Turkey in the Straw (banjo-fiddle duet)

Weary Heart You Stole Away

Dixie Breakdown

East Virginia Blues

The audience here is great and pretty much loves everything everybody does. It always makes you feel good! No doubt pictures and/or videos of the songs will pop up on the internet. I’ll post them when I find them.

Then a little later on in the night I played a banjo-fiddle tune medley with Stacy Phillips, who is teaching bluegrass fiddle this week. It was “Elzick’s Farewell,” “Farewell Trion,” and “Tennessee Waggoner.” (I’m not really sure about the spelling of any of those!) The first tune was in A minor, the second two in C. There was a funny little moment when I joined Stacy on stage. It was just the two of us, sitting kind of facing each other. As he was introducing me he said “I’d like to ask two people to accompany me on this next tune.” In my head I was thinking, “But we only practiced it with just fiddle and banjo…who else is going to play…and there are only two chairs…” and then Stacy continued: “One of them doesn’t do much, just gets carried around all day.” And then I got it! He was talking about my Little Boy bump and it was really funny!

But the whole point of this post was supposed to be to post the instructor photos from the week, which are below (click on pictures for larger versions):

That's me in the front row between Janet and Gary. Front Row Left to Right: Janet Davis, Casey Henry, Gary Davis, Barry Mitterhoff 2nd Row: Mike Kaufman, Mike Witcher 3rd Row: Conny Ottway, Keith Yoder, Stacy Phillips, Kathy Chiavola, Jeff Scroggins 4th Row: Joel Landsberg, Jens Kruger, 5th Row: Jim Hurst, Emory Lester, Adam Masters, Andrew Collins 6th Row: Steve Kaufman, David Harvey Back 2 Rows: Ivan Rosenberg, Don Stiernberg, Jeff Jenkins, Uwe Kruger, Mark Cosgrove, Dan Crary, Clint Mullican, Alan Bibey and Beppe Gambetta

And here we are being silly. It was a couple years ago that we started doing a silly instructor picture. Don't know whose idea that was...