The Murphy Method Blog

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!

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!