The permanent band members at the time were just Murphy and myself and her sister, Nancy Pate. For the photo we surrounded ourselves with all the bluegrass instruments we had– and there were a lot of them. The five banjos include Murphy’s old Gibson Style 4 which she played for 20 years, and also my then-recently-completed Style 11 conversion which belongs to Casey now. (She was almost two when this picture was taken—imagine that!) The guitars include four Martin D-28s of various ages, and the mandolin-family instruments include Randy Wood F-5 #1, an old 1916 Gibson F-4, and my Gibson H-2 mandola. There are plenty of fiddles of various kinds, too.

Sadly, hard times were about to hit the bluegrass world and the rest of the country too. In the recession of 1979-81, we sold many of these instruments and they went to other homes. But in the meantime, we sure did get a good picture!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I told him that would be fine.

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

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

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

And me? I look at my left hand!

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.

This was because all the pickers in the jam were not only good PLAYERS, but good LISTENERS too. Everybody LISTENED to what was going on—to whoever was playing lead or singing at that moment—and made sure that the lead got heard. This meant, in several cases, that pickers would stop playing entirely during a quietly-sung verse or a softly-played lead break. But it sure was good for the music.

Remember that good musicianship includes not only PLAYING, but LISTENING too. One mark of a really good musician is that he or she is always trying to make the GROUP sound good. That’s a goal everyone can aspire to. Next time you’re in a jam, don’t just PLAY. LISTEN.

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

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

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

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”.

The trouble was that the banjo player played pretty loud lead all the time. He played during his own breaks, of course, but he also played during the vocals and during everybody else’s breaks on guitar, mandolin, or fiddle. He just played and played, without any regard for what anyone else was playing. And that’s impolite.

The reason it was impolite was that it covered up what everybody else was doing. (Well, OK, he didn’t cover up the mandolin. The mandolin I was playing—Randy Wood #3—can be heard in any situation.) But this banjo player showed that he was NOT listening to the group, and NOT paying attention to anyone but himself. So the music was not as good as it should have been, although I don’t expect that many others there realized the cause of it. After this banjo picker started playing I didn’t stay in that situation very long, but excused myself and went home. And for some reason nobody else wanted to keep playing, either. I didn’t blame them.

So—next time you’re in a jam session, if you play banjo (or anything else, for that matter) don’t YOU play loudly all the time. Realize that your picking affects other people besides yourself, and know when NOT to play!

The  World Famous Station Inn

Red’s Birthday Cake

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

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

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

Huge picking circle. Too many to name!

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

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

“I’ve been playing guitar for a bit over 40 years… I can play rhythm without batting an eye and play totally by ear… Bluegrass is my all time favorite and the one thing that I want to do more than anything else is to learn to flatpick. I have your guitar flatpicking CD but still cannot get the hang of filling in between the melody notes. I’ve read where you do not advocate the use of scales. What is the secret then to filling in between the melody notes? …”

—and this was my reply:

Thanks for your note. In answer to your question (and as you’ve found out), flatpicking is a complicated skill. We try to set people on the road to it with our flatpicking DVD, but Murphy can only teach so much material on one DVD.

The way most bluegrass flatpickers learn to play lead is by sitting down and picking out the melodies to a lot of tunes—fiddle tunes may be best, since they have such well-defined melodies. This is because those tunes have a lot of great licks in them that can be played against particular chords. When you have a large enough vocabulary of licks built up to use in different chords, and have gotten the hang of putting them into a break when you need them, then you can assemble a guitar break to any tune you need to play. But the most important first step is LISTENING.

Before you can learn to play lead, you need to do a lot of listening. The best “input” is to listen to great lead guitarists (people who actually do play melodies and good musical licks) such as Doc Watson or Norman Blake, and also guitarists such as George Shuffler and Bill Napier, who played lead guitar with the Stanley Brothers. The more of the sound of good lead guitar you can get into your head, the more of it you can learn to play yourself!

We do not recommend that you listen to many modern bluegrass guitarists to learn this, since many of them concentrate on playing hot “jam” licks instead of the melodies to songs and tunes. However, if you are able to pick up some licks from them, more power to you! This goes for using scales too. Listen and learn any way you can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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