The Murphy Method Blog

Today we have for you some pictures of the filming of our DVD Picking Up The Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey. We filmed back in August and it seems like ages ago. Here is what took place in our Winchester, VA studio on the first day of filming:

Murphy and Casey’s wardrobe and makeup test.

David McLaughlin, Casey and Murphy tuning, which is a very important part of filming!

Before we even started the first tune, David broke a string. This is him changing it.

Literally behind the scenes..this is Red running the camera, which is what we look at the whole time you think we’re smiling happily at you!

And last but not least, this is Murphy, and yes she is watching her own video! She carefully reviews the breaks to the songs before filming to make sure she plays them the same way that she taught them.

Today we posted a new clip from our Picking Up The Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey DVD. Here ’tis. If, for some reason it doesn’t show up here, I pasted the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2qCCMUQTNY

I especially liked the comments. It’s always nice to know that someone thinks you’re a “hottie”.

We now have yet another of our videos available on DVD: High Breaks and Backup. This disc is a great introduction to playing up the neck. It teaches five breaks to songs (Mountain Dew, Two Dollar Bill, Worried Man, Do Lord, I Saw The Light) and shows you how to use some fancy Scruggs-style backup licks to boot. Most of these songs are on our two Slow Jam DVDs (1 and 2), so you’ll have a great practice tool to play along with!

Beginning banjo students frequently ask, “In what order should I go through the DVDs?” (Although I’ll have to admit, the question is usually phrased using my favorite bluegrass grammar, “What order should I go through the DVDs in?”) Regardless of how the question is asked, it’s a good ‘un.

I found myself answering it several times this past weekend at the IBMA FanFest. So many times, in fact, that I decided to finally post the answer on the Blog!

My own approach to the order of the songs has changed over the years as I learn more about teaching, and especially as I learn more about teaching adults.

So here is my highly recommended Beginning Banjo Track.  You will notice that I skip around on the DVDs, but always stay with the Big Three: Beginnning Banjo Vol 1 and 2 and Misfits. These are your foundation.

First the list (in case you don’t want to read any further), then the explanation.

Banjo in the Hollow
Cripple Creek
Boil Them Cabbage Down (low break)
Boil Them Cabbage Down (high break)
Cumberland Gap
I Saw The Light
Do Lord
Worried Man
Two Dollar Bill
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
John Hardy
Old Joe Clark
Foggy Mountain Breakdown (high break)
Lonesome Road Blues
Fireball Mail

Learning all these songs (and being able to play them) should take you at least ONE YEAR, possibly TWO YEARS. Don’t rush it!!! And learn your chords!

Now the explanation:

I almost always start with these three songs, because they are so easy:

Banjo in the Hollow
Cripple Creek
Boil Them Cabbage Down (low break)
Boil Them Cabbage Down (high break)

Then it’s either

Cumberland Gap
or
I Saw The Light

Some folks HATE Cumberland Gap and I see no need to torment them with it. But if you can stand it, it’s good prep for other up-the-neck songs.

Then, for many adults, I go right on through the rest of the Misfits DVD:

Do Lord
Worried Man
Two Dollar Bill

(You can skip “Do Lord” if it’s not a song you know!)

I use these songs because most people have heard them and, frankly, they are pretty easy. The downside (as so many students inform me!) is that they do sound very much alike. But my point in choosing them was just that: they use many of the same licks which, if you learn them in order, you can just plug in. It also forces you to practice those same licks over and over, so they really stick in your head! Then I teach a new lick in every tune.

After that, I pop back to Beginning Banjo Volume 1 for

Foggy Mountain Breakdown
and
John Hardy

Then for some students it’s on to Beginning Banjo Volume 2:

Old Joe Clark
Foggy Mountain Breakdown (high break)
Lonesome Road Blues
Fireball Mail

You may notice that I have left out “Salt Creek.” I don’t teach that too much anymore. Not because the song itself is too hard. It’s not. But the CHORDS are too hard. They are tricky and fast and not many beginners (or beginning intermediates can handle them). And now I almost always  introduce learning to chord (vamping) at an earlier stage.

And since my students are learning their chords earlier, I have also had really good luck moving them to the Improvising DVD after Beginning Banjo Vol. 1 and Misfits. My student Bob, now a two-year veteran, has just finished all three of those DVDs and is moving on to lick substitution, a step-by-step technique Casey and I are in the process of developing. (Oh yeah, there will be a DVD!) I am really excited about that!

After the Big Three, you can go in many directions. We’ll take up an Intermediate Banjo Track in a future blog, but right now I really need to finish my latest Charlaine Harris book, Dead As A Doornail!

PS Bluegrass Now magazine was kind enough to profile me in their very first online edition. Check it out. I’m sure Casey will add a link here! [Unfortunately, you can't see Murphy's article unless you subscribe to the magazine. If you ARE a subscriber, the link to her article is this one ---but you'll have to log in.]

You asked for it and we delivered! More slow jamming fun in your living room can be had for only $29.95! Murphy and Casey are joined by David McLaughlin and Malia Furdado for two hours of play-along goodness. Order Picking Up The Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey now!

We’ve just added a clip from our Beginning Bass DVD to YouTube. Here it is:

Hi all. Just walked back in the door from a lightning fast trip to Nashville which I made right after we shot most of the Slow Jam DVD. I rode over with Casey on Sunday (we did crosswords and listened to books on tape) and flew back today (Tuesday). Red picked me up at Baltimore’s BWI airport and after a quick two-hour ride home, here I am once more in front of the computer. Casey indicated in her blog today that I’d be telling you about some equipment problems during the shoot (read: banjo developed buzzing string necessitating a bridge replacement), but that will have to wait for another day.

I will tell you that one of the unexpected joys of recording the Slow Jam DVD was the three-part harmony singing that magically came together during the run through of the first number “I Saw The Light.” I hadn’t really figured on any harmony singing but when Casey and David McLaughlin added tenor and baritone to my lead the sound was so good that we ended up using the trio on almost all of the singing numbers. And while Casey and David and I have played together before in numerous configurations at parties and on stage I’m not sure we’d ever sung a trio together before. So having our voices blend so well together was a welcome surprise and a real treat. And it made recording the DVD even more fun than we had anticipated. I think you’ll really enjoy it. And I hope when we start the editing process that we’ll be able to include some outtakes and bloopers so you can see that things aren’t always as serious as they may seem on screen. And on that note, I will retire to vegetative form on front of the TV!

Oh, but speaking of TV, just one more thing. While Casey was here for the weekend we tuned in to a new TV program on CMT, Outsider’s Inn, that featured our friends Leroy Troy and Mike Armistead. What a thrill to see people you really know and have talked to and played music with actually acting in a sit-com! They both did a great job and I’m looking forward to seeing future episodes! Check it out! [It comes on Friday evenings.]

Last weekend we filmed the majority of the new Slow Jam DVD (to be titled Picking Up The Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey) in Winchester. Over the course of two days we recorded eighteen or so songs at tempos ranging from slowish to mediumish (those are the technical terms…). We always mean to prepare more in advance, but the night before found Murphy finalizing the song list, and the morning of the taping found us donning different outfits to see which ones looked best in front of the camera.

David McLaughlin joined us for the first day of taping. The first song always goes the slowest as we try to work out lights, sound, and camera shots. We were rolling along, knocking out song after song in G. When we decided to move to A we ran into a host of equipment problems, which I’m sure Murphy will tell you about tomorrow.

David McLaughlin, Murphy Henry, and Casey Henry on the first day of filming. Photo by Red Henry.

As we worked out each song, the process went something like this: First we’d play the song through a couple of times to make sure we were all on the same page. Then we’d do the arrangement, which was usually banjo kick, verse/chorus, mandolin, verse/chorus, hole for the student to play their break in, verse/chorus, another hole, chorus and out. Or if there were enough verses we’d have two banjo and mandolin breaks as well. We played the arrangement correctly on all but one song, and I’ll let you try and figure out which one that is!

On the second day of taping we were joined by Malia Furtado on fiddle, who also played on our first Slow Jam DVD. She was fresh from winning third place in the fiddle contest at the Galax Fiddler’s Convention. With Malia we did mostly instrumentals: “Liberty,” “Soldier’s Joy,” “Amazing Grace,” “Arkansas Traveler.” She has amazing tone and played wonderful simple arrangements of the tunes that will be easy to pick-up even if you haven’t learned the songs off of our fiddle videos.

The first song of the day, true to form, was the hardest to get. When we were in the middle of the first take I realized that I had propped my feet on a higher rung of my stool than the day before and that you could now see my bare feet on camera. Murphy thought it was okay, but Red ardently disagreed, so we re-shot the song, with mes pieds again out of the frame.

There are still some things left to shoot, like the introduction for the beginning of the DVD and the guitar left hand, which Murphy will do, for the picture-in-picture, but we got the majority of it done. Red will edit and assemble the footage and we will have them available in time for Christmas!

Twas the night before the slow jam shoot and all through the house….No, I’m not even going to attempt to finish that parody! Suffice it to say that we start shooting our new slow jam DVD tomorrow! Casey and her banjo have arrived safely in Winchester from Nashville, traveling the highway home in her Ford Ranger with the license plate that says “OJNAB” and bumper stickers that read “Real Women Drive Trucks,” “Women in Bluegrass,” and “Hot Yoga.” We just finished looking over the clothes she brought with her, trying to decide what might look best on screen and what might blend in with the limited selection of choices in my own closet! And like Miggie and Polly and Janis Lewis, we both want to wear something we haven’t worn on screen before. (The Lewis Family sisters keep a record of which dresses they wear at every festival and show they play so they never repeat an outfit. That’s only one of the reasons I admire those women so much!)

As you may or may not know, we’ve always used our own Arrandem Studio to record our Murphy Method projects, including our cassettes and our videos. (Anybody still got any of our cassettes? There was some really good stuff there that hasn’t yet made it to DVD. Like Earl’s second and third breaks to “Earl’s Breakdown.”) Having our own studio makes it extremely convenient to record. We can set our own schedule, work at our own pace, and take as much time as we need. Of course, once we get the camera rolling (after working out all the initial bugs about sound and microphone placement and lightening and does my hair look funny), I like to keep shooting because I think I do better when I get up a full head of steam. So we usually do all the recording in one or two days. Then Red takes a few more days to do all the editing. (He’s also the person behind the camera, the one who says, “Do it over.” And “I think you left out a note.” And “Just start playing.” And “I can cut to a shot of your hands.” And “What you said was ‘The second phrase starts with a slide on the fourth string.’” He’s a very helpful husband to have around!)

So, in short, if all goes as expected, we should have our new DVD “Picking Up the Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey” in not too long a time. We’ll keep you posted!

This week we got our Flatpicking Lead Guitar video on DVD (finally) and you can order it from the website. I know a lot of times people hold off on ordering a video, waiting for us to get it on to DVD. Well, you can stop waiting (for this one, anyway!). This is the perfect introduction to lead playing. If you’ve been strumming away on your old guitar for years but have never quite known how to make that leap to picking leads, this is for you. Here is a sample of how it is taught. This comes from the first lesson, “Old Joe Clark”: