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!!!!!

“Walkin’ West to Memphis” is getting lots of airplay, and is now #3 in the National Bluegrasss Survey in the new edition of Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine! I believe that’s up from #4 in January.

For those who enjoy good songs and original mandopicking, here’s Chris singing and playing W.W.T.M. with Shawn Camp at the Station Inn in Nashville:

Red

Murphy Henry

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

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

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

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

Murphy

Murphy Henry

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

November 10:

Dear Murphy:

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

Hi Tom,

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

Murphy:

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

November 11:

Hi Tom,

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

Murphy:

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

December 15:

Murphy:

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

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

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

Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

Murphy

Murphy Henry

And me, being me, said, “Because.”
 
And Bob, being Bob, thought about that for a few seconds and then (wisely) said, “Okay. I’ll accept that.”
 
And I said, “Good thing, because I have no idea why that is. It just is.”
 
Just wanted you to know I do occasionally play the banjo and blog about the banjo!

Murphy Henry

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

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

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