Archive for the ‘Learning By Ear’ Category

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Enthusiasm

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Casey Henry

I started a student about three months ago, an older fellow who had been playing from tab for several years. He knew the basics but when I asked him to play me a tune (I needed to see what he already knew so I would know where to start) it turned out that he couldn’t play a single tune without the tab in front of him. My heart aches when I see a case like this and I wish he had found me sooner. He just wanted to be able to play but was shackled to the page.

We started out with “Banjo in the Hollow,” taking it in very tiny pieces, since he had never tried learning by ear before. I explained that when he went home from his lesson, and went to sleep that night, when he woke up the next day what he had learned wouldn’t be in his brain anymore. And that that was normal! That’s what’s supposed to happen. I told him to go back to the cassette and learn it again. The same thing would happen the next day, I continued, but when he went to re-learn it (for the third time now) it would come more quickly. Eventually, by the fourth or fifth day it would stick and would be in his brain for good.

When he came back the next week he had learned the part of the song that I’d given him perfectly! And he said that, indeed, it had happened exactly like I said it would. He forgot everything two or three times, and then it started to stick. “Banjo in the Hollow” took four or five lessons, and then we went straight to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” That’s quite a jump, but he had already learned tab versions of “Cripple Creek” and “Boil Them Cabbage Down” and the other tunes I generally do in between. Since it’s a hundred times harder to re-learn something, I decided to go with completely new material, even if it was a bit harder technically. We’ve taken a couple months on FMB, but darn if he hasn’t got it down!

As he was packing up his banjo after his lesson last week he told me that he hasn’t been able to put his banjo down. He said it sounded silly to say, and maybe I couldn’t tell, but he just plays all the time! I told him that it wasn’t silly, it was awesome! And I absolutely could tell, that that was the reason he’s doing so well at FMB. It does my heart good to see someone so excited about what they’re learning! I can’t wait until he has another couple songs under his belt so I can get him together with some other students for a little jam. Just think how excited he’ll be then!

Posted in banjo, By Casey, Learning By Ear, lessons | 5 Comments »

Listen My Children And You Shall Hear….

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

Murphy Henry

The poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” has always been one of my favorites (we had to memorize the whole thing in seventh grade) and after I finished writing this blog, I thought the first line would make a perfect title.

I know Red has blogged recently about the four beats of E minor versus the six beats of E major in “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and how satisfying it was to have all the members of that pick-up band making the same choice in the same moment (six beats of E major). Been there, done that (the first time with Red on guitar) and it is truly an awesome feeling. I almost fell off the stage!

Well, at the gig we played Saturday, with a different pick-up band (Red, me, Steve Spence on bass, and Scott Brannon on guitar), I was pleased to see Steve and Scott (both veteran musicians) do the exact opposite. Perhaps this bears a modicum of explanation.

This party, which we’ve played for years, was just down the road about a mile or two at the home of my banjo student Robbie. It was a perfect playing situation: indoors, seated, no P.A. (There was also great food!) Robbie, a senior in high school, is a talented musician who has been taking lessons off and on for maybe a year, less a few months that we lost for some reason or other. He’s recently come back and we’ve been working hard on vamping The Big Four (Banjo in the Hollow, Cripple Creek, Cumberland Gap, and Foggy Mountain Breakdown) so that he could play them at the party.

And play them he did (straight through several times, no vamping) while we backed him up and he did a fine job, despite the fact that he kept stopping and loudly proclaiming, “I can’t do this!” Well, I had my banjo out and every time he’d quit, I’d step in and keep the tune going, and eventually he’d clamber back on board. It is a testimony to his musicianship that he was able to get back in at the right spot every time.

Anyhow, when Robbie started playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” Steve and Scott, being well versed in all things Flatt and Scruggs, were playing the six beats of E major, just like the Foggy Mountain Boys. But, you know, it just didn’t sound right probably because I was vamping four beats of E minor and Robbie was playing much slower than Earl. So, bless their hearts, they were listening to what was going on and without me saying a word they eventually changed what they were playing to match what I was doing. And then things sounded right—we were together. Nobody was hammering those six beats of E major just because “Earl done it that way.” When you’re playing music together, as one of today’s modern country songs says, you’ve gotta  “roll with it” and make adjustments when necessary because the operative word is together.

Or as Susan Morrison said, when she and Zac were practicing for their nursing home gig and she missed an entrance, leaving them both vamping, “So, I should have listened?” My reply? “That would be a great big yes!”

As we keep telling you, it’s not enough to do your little part, you have to listen, my children, and you will hear…what everybody else is doing and then you’ll be able to make your playing fit in better with theirs. Now back to the poem…

He said to his friends, If the British march

By land or sea from the town tonight

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the old North Church as a signal light.

One if by land, two if by sea

And I on the opposite shore will be

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm

For the country folk to be up and to arm.

Done without Google! I could go on but I will spare you!

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Posted in banjo, By Murphy, jamming, Learning By Ear | 2 Comments »

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My…

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Red Henry

You know, there are some things in early bluegrass recordings that are impossible to beat. One of our favorites is on Flatt and Scruggs’s early version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown, where the whole band (except for Earl) is playing the “wrong” chord.

Let’s review the chords in FMB: you start out with eight beats of G, and then you go to an E chord for a certain number of beats. Nowadays, most folks change to an E-minor chord for four beats, to match what the banjo is playing. That’s how Murphy teaches it, because it’s what almost everybody plays now. But on that old Flatt & Scruggs record, the band plays SIX beats of E-MAJOR! It’s a wild and woolly sound. It’s incredible. It’s a hair-raising moment. It’s lions and tigers and bears…

Murphy and I have played FMB with that 6-beat E-major chord for over 30 years. The first time we played FMB that way was at Diamond Jim’s, a bar in Gainesville Florida. When we heard how the E-major sounded, we both about fell off the stage. Oh, my.

Not many other people play Foggy Mountain Breakdown that way. However, Christopher and I found a couple of people who do, when we were playing for a party in Baltimore last Saturday night. I was playing mandolin. Chris was playing guitar. Our band for the evening was a couple of outstanding area musicians, Mike Mumford on banjo and Ira Gitlin on bass. And guess what? When Mike kicked off FMB and hit that first E chord, EVERYBODY went to the E-major chord. For six beats. Automatically. It was a wild and woolly sound. It was incredible.

Listen back to that old Flatt & Scruggs record a few times, and then try it yourself. It’s great. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

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Posted in By Red, jamming, Learning By Ear | 3 Comments »

Picking

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

Red Henry

Yesterday afternoon we had a real good picking session. The participants were what made it work. Besides Murphy, Chris, and myself, we had a teenage banjo player, a forest ranger, a deaf banjo player, a singer converted from hip-hop, and an out-of-work bass player. A well-matched group, huh?

Okay. I guess you are wondering who these people were and why they fit together so well musically. Well, the teenage banjo player was Murphy’s student Logan, a good student and up-and-coming player whom she’s blogged about before. And the party was for Logan’s 18th birthday. The forest ranger was local guitar picker and singer Gerald C., who happens to be Logan’s scoutmaster. The deaf banjo player was our Cousin David, about whom you’ve heard before. (Just kidding about the “deaf” part.) The convert from hip-hip was our friend Chris L., a new Stanley Brothers/Flatt & Scruggs/Reno & Smiley freak who used to be in a rock band with our Chris. (The band was called, appropriately enough, The Bends.) And the bass player was Murphy’s long-time student Bob V., a fine picker and witty person.

So why did we fit together so well? Well, aside from Murphy’s formidable skill at leading a jam session (as amply demonstrated on our Slow Jam and More Slow Jam DVDs), it was because everybody knew a lot of the same material or could pick up on it well. You do find jam sessions where the players all have their own favorite songs but can’t really play anyone else’s. In this case, everybody picked up on what everyone else was doing, and it worked out fine.

Sometimes you find the strangest combinations of folks in jam sessions… and the music still works!

Red

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Posted in banjo, By Red, guitar, jamming, Learning By Ear, Practice | No Comments »

Record yourself!

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Red Henry

That’s right. Record yourself. That is one of the best ways to hear exactly what your playing sounds like, and to find out what you need to work on.

In years past, recording yourself was very easy and cheap to do, with the inexpensive cassette recorders that a lot of folks had. Modern technology makes recording almost as easy (but not cheap) by using video cameras or small high-tech audio recorders. Even most digital cameras can take a movie–with sound– of your playing. But whatever your favorite device is, just record yourself playing a couple of tunes. Then play them back and see what you sound like.

When you hear your music played back, it might not sound quite as good as you thought it was going to. (My band-leading, banjo-playing brother-in-law Mike says that for him, recording music– and listening to it afterward– is as pleasant as having teeth pulled. But that’s just his opinion.) Now, I’m not saying this trying to discourage anybody from playing. If in the playback, you don’t sound like Earl, or Ralph, or J.D., or Murphy, that’s not a reason to give up playing, or even recording. The point is that you can really hear what your playing sounds like. You can hear all your notes, and your timing, and your rhythm. And if you are playing steadily enough on the tape to play along with yourself during the playback, that’s excellent! You’ve come a long way, and are ready to play with other people, whether you feel like it or not!

Sometimes when you hear yourself for the first time, you might be discouraged. But this doesn’t mean that your playing normally sounds the way it does on the tape. Any time the tape is rolling (or any other recording is going on), you’re going to have it on your mind, either consciously or unconsciously. And it might affect your playing. But the more practice you get recording, the better you’ll play each time you record, and when it comes time to listen back to the tune, the better you’ll sound. Recording and listening is great practice, and can sure help a person’s playing!

Record yourself!

Red.

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Posted in By Red, Learning By Ear, Practice | 2 Comments »

Earned the License! (Flying and Picking #12)

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry

Folks, I’m going to break away from those excellent postings from Kaufman Kamp to tell you about something else good that happened this week. As many of you know I’ve been learning to fly, and on Wednesday I got my license! It’s been a huge 7-month-long project, studying and flying all I could, but it finally happened. I took the flying examination (called a “check ride”), and passed with– yes, I’ll say it– flying colors.

This flight exam was in the same old rusty Cessna 172 you see in that photo above, registration number N51056. I’ve flown about 121 hours so far, mostly in that same airplane, and the plane and I have come to know each other pretty well. Now I’ll start flying a couple of times a week just for fun, in this airplane and others, and enjoy the flights even more, because now there’s no pressure about making the grade. Although I expect to keep learning forever, now I’m an independent pilot.

And what (to ask it again), does this have to do with playing music? A lot. The more I fly, the more connection I see with music. You’ll have some goals when you learn to play, such as playing your first tune all the way through without stopping or losing your place; being able to play your tunes while your teacher plays rhythm for you on a guitar; someday being able to play along with the group in a jam session, and maybe even performing at parties, small concerts, at church, or for folks at nursing homes. But along the way, you really hit a landmark when you can play your tunes standing up, at a reasonable speed, in a jam session. That’s what Murphy sometimes calls “becoming an independent banjo player” (or mandolin player, or fiddle, or guitar, or whatever). Although you still have lots you can learn, you might say that that’s when you’ve earned your license. And it’s good.

Red

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Posted in By Red, jamming, Learning By Ear | 8 Comments »

Kaufman Kamp – Week 1

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

I write you from the campus of Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn., where I am teaching fiddle and guitar at Kaufman Kamp. I have the very beginning class for both instruments (simultaneously!) and, despite my reservations about teaching two instruments at once, it is working out rather well. This is our class:

Fiddle/Guitar 101: Roxanne, Casey, Jack, Deb, Louvenia

Fiddle/Guitar 101: Roxanne, Casey, Jack, Deb, Louvenia. I didn't realize until seeing this picture that I'm taller than all my students. Thanks to the multi-talented Donna Dixon for being our photographer.

We picked up one more student this afternoon, after the picture was taken (sorry Jim!). We started out the first morning of class learning a G scale. Now, traditionally on fiddle most people start out with the A scale. But my reasoning was that, since this is primarily a bluegrass camp, and the default key for bluegrass is G, that my fiddles should at least be able to chop along in the most common key right away. In trying to figure out how to manage two instruments in the same class I hit upon the idea of doing “Frère Jacques” as the first tune. Everyone knows the melody already and it only has ONE chord. So my sole guitar student could just grab a G chord and hang on.

It went so well that in the afternoon we learned some two-finger chop chords and alternated between playing lead and playing rhythm. Two of my students showed up at the next morning’s slow jam, at which we played everything in the key of G, so I felt good about teaching them G first.

The next day I started with a challenge. While my single guitar player and I had a guitar-specific workshop, the three fiddles tried to pick out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” by themselves, by ear. They did SO GREAT!!! I had told them the starting note and that all the notes they needed were in the G scale we had learned. They not only got “Twinkle,” they then added the shuffle bow stroke to it! They had started in on “Amazing Grace” when we guitars came back. I was incredibly impressed. All three of the women play other instruments (bass, hammer dulcimer) so they are already familiar with this music, and they’re used to using their ears to figure out what to play. Those very important facts contributed to them picking out “Twinkle” so quickly.

In the rest of Tuesday morning’s class we learned the A scale (for fiddles it’s a whole different scale, for the guitar we just put on a capo and played the G scale) and then “Boil Them Cabbage Down” with the shuffle bow stroke and pick stroke. They did so well I showed them how to do an easy double stop by playing the open E string along with the A string (the string all the melody notes are on).

After lunch we picked up a second guitar student, who jumped ship from the beginner group. I was worried he’d have a hard time since he’d missed what we did in the first three classes, but he gamely jumped right in (luckily he could already play his scale, and that helped immensely).

We took on our biggest challenge so far: “Cripple Creek”. It was the longest tune we’d done, and the most complicated. But by taking it three or four (or sometimes two) notes at a time, by the end of class we sure enough had it down. I was careful to explain to them that since we’re learning by ear, when they went to sleep tonight the tune would seep out of their head and wouldn’t be there in the morning. That’s part of the process. But we’d do extensive review, so by the end of today’s classes, “Cripple Creek” would be back. Oh, sure, it will go away again tonight when they sleep, but you know what, Thursday we’ll review it, too, so by the end of camp it will be stuck in there good and tight.

So, I’m off to lead this morning’s slow jam. Today’s key is A, so we’ll play everything in A, which opens the field to play “Cripple Creek” and “Old Joe Clark.” Also, since it’s two frets higher, my singing will sound less like a sick bullfrog and more like a healthy bullfrog (just kidding!). But I am looking forward to the C day, since that’s actually my key!

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Posted in By Casey, Camps, Learning By Ear | 4 Comments »

Speed Bumps (Flying and Picking #11)

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


As you may recall if you’ve been a MM blog reader for some time, I’m taking flying lessons. Over and over, I find parallels between learning to fly and our students learning to play music.

In the last several weeks I’ve made a lot of progress in flying. I’ve flown solo to some airports over a hundred miles away and returned home easily. Flying solo, I’ve made some difficult landings in crosswinds and tailwinds, and had gotten pretty confident of my ability to get the plane on the ground safely in nearly any situation. But recently, the quality of my landings deteriorated for no reason that I could see. All of a sudden, just getting on the ground solo was a problem. Safety was not an issue– it’s very easy and safe to keep trying landings over and over until one is right and you land– but the landings were much more difficult. Practice didn’t help, as my landings got more and more awkward. So in search of some insight I took a flight with the chief instructor, and he gave me some new angles, exercises, and tips on landing the plane, and now my landings are back to normal.

Is this connected to learning to play? You bet. Whether you’re learning your first tune or your hundredth, you’ll have ups and downs in your learning. You’ll play a tune well one day, and suddenly be unable to get through it the next. You play in groups and jams with no problem, and then one day you find that your fingers don’t work right in front of other people. This is normal!

This happens to professional players too, but you usually can’t tell when they’re on stage. Some days (or weeks) we just can’t play as well as other times. Practice helps, but sometimes, like golfers and baseball pitchers, we can get into a slump, though the audience won’t usually notice it. Professionals just let it go, perhaps giving themselves a break by taking a few days off, because they know that the music will come back.

When you’re in a slump, try something new. If practice isn’t helping, you might even take a few days off from playing. If playing in your usual jam group doesn’t help, try taking a week off from the jam, or playing with some other folks for an evening instead. Listen to some banjo music that’s different from your usual fare. Relax and play along with our Slow Jam or Picking Up the Pace DVDs. Ask your instructor to just spend a lesson playing, trading breaks on your familiar tunes, instead of trying to learn any new tunes for a while. Everybody needs a break!

Red

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Posted in By Red, Improvising, jamming, Learning By Ear, lessons | 4 Comments »

Building Blocks (Flying and Picking #9)

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Last night, my instructor Brian and I made a cross-country flight to an airport about 62 miles away. The flight was in the dark, it was over some pretty sparsely-populated Virginia and West Virginia mountains, and it was in a very small single-engined airplane. We navigated visually at night, and we were not flying on instruments. Were we scared? No, not even when one of the radios quit working. We didn’t really need any radios at all. Did we have any trouble getting there and back? No. It was a lot of fun.

The flight went really smoothly, and along with flying the plane I was able to do all the things I’ve been practicing: checking our course on the ground, checking our speed toward our destination, cross-checking our progress using the navigational radio that still worked, and talking when necessary to Air Traffic Control and other airplanes. Then, of course, I had to land the plane when we got where we were going and again when we came back. In the dark. Was all this complicated? Yes, a bit. Could I have done all this right after I started training? No, of course not. Why wasn’t it overwhelming? Because I’d learned it all a step at a time.

I keep finding similarities between learning to fly and learning to play music. Learning to pick is something you need to do a little at a time. Our banjo students, for example, no matter how much they want to, can’t launch right into learning “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”, or playing “Dueling Banjos”, or improvising in jam sessions, right off the bat. Nobody can (except maybe teenagers). Instead, the students need to go through our Beginning Banjo DVDs step-by-step to learn the building blocks– the banjo licks– which they’re going to use. Then they need to go, step-by-step, into more advanced DVDs which teach them how to put those building blocks together, one step at a time.

Taking one step at a time, it all makes sense and becomes easier. You start with one thing and learn another, and then you aren’t overwhelmed and discouraged by not being able to do it all at once! Learn to play step-by-step at your own speed, and after a while you’ll be cruising over the mountains yourself.

Red

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Posted in By Red, DVDs, Improvising, jamming, Learning By Ear, Practice, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Consistency (Flying and Picking #8)

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Murphy had a good slow-jam session with her beginning students last night. I heard about it just after I came in from flying, and it reminded me that we often hear questions about how it’s easier to play on some days than others, and about how a student might learn a tune pretty well and then (in spite of playing it every day) not be able to play it as well on some days as on others.

Well, I can testify that flying is sure like that. My latest flights with my instructor have been at night. Last week I was able to make pretty good landings every time, but last night I started off with a great landing but then, on the next three landings, I couldn’t duplicate it for anything. Tonight we’ll fly, and I expect I’ll do better– at least, on SOME of the landings! Getting them just right is only partly a matter of practice. Sometimes it’s the situation, and sometimes you can’t tell what it is. But I couldn’t land at all unless I’d practiced it a lot. Practice helps!

Playing music is the same way. You can learn to play a tune and practice it until most of the time it sounds pretty good, but then there will be days when it just doesn’t. Every time you play a tune, it’s a little different. There may not be anything in particular you can point to as the cause, but you just simply play better on some days than on others. But practice helps! And it’s a special help if you play along with other people, or (if there aren’t many pickers near by) with our Slow Jam and Picking Up the Pace DVDs.

This doesn’t just apply to students! Professionals also find differences in their playing from one day to the next. Sometimes they’ll get frustrated with that on stage, but their overall level of playing is so high that most of the listeners can’t tell the difference. Sometimes it’s a matter of practice, and sometimes it’s the situation. Sometimes you can’t see a reason for it. But after you play a lot on stage, you know to just keep playing and act as if the music’s good– because it is! You’ve practiced a million hours in your life, so just play. And the point of your being there is so that the audience can enjoy it.

Red

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Posted in By Red, jamming, Learning By Ear, Practice | 2 Comments »

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