Posts Tagged ‘flying’

When Something’s “Just Not Right”

Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Red Henry

Red Henry

Do you ever pick up your banjo or guitar or mandolin to play it, and you know that somethings “just not right?” Especially if you haven’t been playing for long, you might not be able to put your finger on what the trouble is. You might just know that you’re not comfortable playing the instrument, and it just doesn’t sound right or play right. Well, chances are that you’re NOT just making it up. Something really is wrong, even if you can’t put your finger on it.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a student pilot now, trying to get my pilot’s license. Well, I went out to make a solo flight last Monday. I was assigned an Cessna 172 that I’d flown before, but not recently. And from the time I sat down in the pilot’s seat, I just didn’t feel comfortable. I started the engine and took off, and everything went normally but it “just wasn’t right.”

I decided to make a landing or two before heading out to the practice area. The airplane felt awkward in the landing and as I let the nosewheel down onto the runway, suddenly the whole plane started shaking loudly: BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, and it didn’t stop. I thought the nosewheel had gone flat. We often get what’s called “nosewheel shimmy” after landing, but this was ten times worse than that.

Well, I did get the airplane off the runway, and after that it acted better and none of the tires were actually flat. I taxied back to parking and reported the trouble. I suspect that the nosewheel strut is badly out of adjustment. I had just KNOWN something was wrong with that airplane even before takeoff, but I didn’t know what it was. I found out when it was time to land. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was inconvenient! To me, something had happened to the airplane invisibly, and my hands and mind had been trying to tell me.

Something analogous happened to one of Murphy’s banjo students recently. He knew that something had gone wrong with his banjo, but he wasn’t able to tell just what it was. He knew he wasn’t comfortable playing it any more, and the action had come up, but that was all he knew. So after his lesson, I took a look down the neck — yep, it was pretty bowed. I took off the adjustment rod cover and got a socket-driver to adjust the nut. Sure enough, it had worked loose. I let down the string tension, tightened the nut, and brought the strings back up to pitch. The neck was straight and the action was back low again. Must have taken me at least three or four minutes. But to the student, it was quite a problem. It was something that had happened invisibly to his banjo.

When you pick up your instrument and start to play, your hands and mind send you signals. If it all just doesn’t feel right, there may be something wrong! Get your teacher or an instrument-savvy friend to take a look and see what might be wrong. If something’s “just not right,” it might not just be your imagination!

Red

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Extending your Learning-Limit

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Many of you will recall that in addition to our musical activities, I’m learning to fly. I had a great flight last Wednesday. Snowstorms and high winds had prohibited flying for almost three weeks, so I needed some practice, especially landing the plane. So I took off solo and made 3 landings at the airport here at Winchester, then flew up to Martinsburg, WV and made 10 landings on the big runway there, then came back to Winchester and finished up with 3 more: total, 16 landings in a little over 3 hours.

How did it go? Well, at first the airplane seemed pretty unfamiliar (it had been 3 weeks!) and it took the first one or two landings for me to doing them again. Then, the first several landings at Martinsburg were the best ones I made. When I came back to Winchester I was beginning to get a bit tired, and the last couple of landings could have been improved on. But it took those 3 hours for me to reach that point, and I remember when a 1-hour flight exhausted me, not so long ago. Things are improving fast.

And what does this have with learning to play music? A lot. When you’re learning to play, the instrument may seem pretty unfamiliar in your hands. It can take a while to get warmed up, and then you can get “max’d out” if you play for too long a time without rest. Your ability to learn and to play (and especially your endurance in playing) improves gradually as you go along. At first it might wear your hands and brain out to play for 30 minutes, but after a while you can play for an hour or two without feeling strained. Later, you might get with some other pickers and go all afternoon or evening, and not feel nearly as worn out as you did after a half-hour at first.

Practice, that’s the key. What you’re learning gets better, and easier, as you go along. Practice might not make perfect, but it sure helps!

Red

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

Flying and Picking (6)

Friday, February 5th, 2010
Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Folks, a few days ago I mentioned that my flight instructor and I had gone on a cross-country flight to another airport here in the Shenandoah Valley. Well, yesterday we went on another longer cross-country, and a parallel really struck me between flying and playing music.

The first time, we flew to an airport near Harrisonburg, Va. I had my hands full trying to identify my checkpoints, keep my log of the time at each one, and dial in my radio navaids to confirm my navigation. We got there right on time and course, but I had my hands full just taking care of those “mechanical” things.

Then yesterday, we flew down to Charlottesville. I was able to do all those things, plus keep checking on the chart to make sure that we were in exactly the right place every minute, and looking ahead to what came next. This time the forecast winds were not as perfect as last time, so we might get a little off course, but this time I could detect it soon and correct for it. I was able to make everything go more smoothly. I think I kept us within a half-mile of our planned course the whole way, and when we were about 15 miles from the Charlottesville airport I spotted our destination runway straight ahead (and we were, almost eerily, nearly lined up with it again). Not only had we arrived on target and on time, but I’d been able to look ahead and think of the flight as a whole, instead of as a series of individual steps.

How does this connect with playing music? Well, you start out learning the notes to a tune, and you play them as well as you can. You eventually get to where you can play all the way through the tune without (hopefully) losing your place, or, at least, if you miss a lick you can recover and keep playing in time. This means that you have the “mechanical” part of the tune under control. But as you keep listening to the DVD over and over (for example, Cripple Creek on our Beginning Banjo Vol.1 or Earl Scruggs playing his original version on the Foggy Mountain Banjo CD), the more you hear. You may automatically pick up the subtle way Murphy and other players syncopate the notes to make the tune more listenable. You start hearing notes that are more accentuated than the others, which define (or at least imply) the melody. You start hearing the overall tune, which is more than just the notes.

You come back to the DVD lesson or Earl’s CD a few weeks or months later, and you can hear more than you did the first time. You start hearing more than the notes. In other words, you start hearing the tune as a piece of music. So keep listening to Murphy, keep listening to Earl, and keep picking!

Red

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Posted in By Red, General, Learning By Ear | 1 Comment »

Flying and Picking (5)

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Red, Jan. 13th

Red Henry, Jan. 13th

Folks, a few days ago I had a great first cross-country flight with my flying instructor. After carefully plotting our course, winds, and checkpoints, we flew down the Shenandoah Valley to an airport 63 miles away, and came out right on target. I mean, we weren’t a hundred yards off course when we got there. In fact, we were exactly lined up with the airport’s runway.

Now, how do you make things come out exactly right on a flight like that? First you do your homework, getting all your preparation as right as you can get it. Then when you get into the airplane and take off, you get in a rhythm. You constantly check your altitude, airspeed, and heading, to make sure you’re going exactly right. At and between your checkpoints, which are about 10 miles apart, you check your course on a chart to make sure you know exactly where you are. You get into a rhythm. After each checkpoint, you start getting ready for the next one. This combination of preparation, thinking ahead, and staying in rhythm makes your flight end precisely, and safely too.

So how can you apply this to playing music? In plenty of ways. Now, we practice at home and learn new tunes not only for our own amusement, but mainly (at least in my case) to get with a group of other musicians and either pick or perform. This means, that when you’re at home, you need to do your homework. Practice your tunes, and stay in time. As Murphy says, don’t play any parts of the tunes any faster than you can play the hardest parts. (Our two “Slow Jam” DVDs are perfect for developing this skill.) You need to have your arrangements down, so that you can play them in good time without having to think about every note.

Then when you’re in a group, you can not only play the tune, but also pay attention to the other musicians while you’re playing — listen to the rhythm, and stick with it. If there’s a particularly hard part in the tune, you have to stay in rhythm while you play it. As you play each phrase (your checkpoints) listen to make sure you’re still with the others. And then, when you’ve navigated your way through your break so that you reach the end (your destination) right together with the other players, be thinking ahead to either hand the tune off or end it, and at the end, it’s a great musical experience for everybody.

Flying and picking– I love it.

Red

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Posted in By Red, Learning By Ear, Practice, jamming | 1 Comment »

Traveling with the Banjo

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Casey Henry

Casey Henry

Today I’m answering a question from yesterday’s comments, because it is a question worthy of its own entry:

Dear Casey,
Did you bring your banjo (I’m sure you did). If you did, do you do anything special when you carry it on a plane or do you take the “United Breaks guitars” approach. Are you going to give a banjo show like you did last year (if so, post pictures). Keep having fun.
Marty

First of all, just to clarify, Marty is asking about me bringing my banjo down here to Miami while I work on the Super Bowl halftime show (details here). I did not. It is so freeing not to have to carry a heavy banjo case through the airport that if I don’t have to take my banjo, I don’t. Plus, if I get desperate, Cap Spence (my boss on this gig) has one that I can play.

In answer to the second sentence, I always carry it with me on the plane if at all possible. I have a Calton case, and the few times I’ve had to check it, it has survived just fine. I don’t do anything special to the banjo itself, but when I do have to check it, I always make sure to lock or tape the latches after security has inspected it. Those latches are surprisingly easy to knock open. (I’ve never done it myself, but baggage handlers apparently find it a very easy thing to do.) Now that I travel with my Kel Kroydon I don’t worry about it nearly as much, since everything on that banjo is replaceable. When I flew with my TB-11 and had to check it, I worried to death the whole trip. Even my travel case will fit in the overhead bins on all domestic flights, except little commuter planes where they will let you gate check it. But don’t ASK anyone if it’s OK to carry it on. They’ll say no. Just do it. And act like you know what you’re doing.

For more info about travel banjo options, consult this post from 2008.

And in answer to Marty’s third sentence, I doubt that this year there will be time for me to do a banjo show. The stage is SO big, and there are SO many volunteers that there is little time for the extras we had last year. If you don’t know what Marty is referring to, here and here are some posts that explain.

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Posted in By Casey, banjo | 1 Comment »

Picking and Flying (4)

Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Red Henry

Red Henry

Well, folks, Murphy contributed a ‘picking and flying’ column yesterday because it was about Earl Scruggs’s great tune “Groundspeed”, so I figured I’d continue the trend. Thinking about Earl flying around the country in his nice twin-engined airplane reminded me of an anecdote I’ve heard about Earl and Doc Watson.

Now, if you are flying an airplane in the clouds, or any time you can’t see, you’re flying on instruments. This is because nobody’s sense of balance is good enough to tell, if they can’t see outside, whether the airplane is upside-down, or right-side-up, or in a dive, or a climb– your sense of balance will fool you, every time. Without the instruments, after a minute or so your body begins sending you false signals, and the airplane gets out of control. But I heard of once when someone was able to fly straight and level without seeing anything, and it wasn’t a pilot who did it.

This story may not be true, but it ought to be. The story is that Earl took Doc Watson up in his plane one day. Of course Doc cannot see, but he has a mighty good sense of physical touch and coordination. Well, Earl flew the airplane up high, leveled off, and then turned the controls over to Doc for a while. It turned out that Doc, without being able to see either the world outside or the airplane’s instruments, was able to keep flying straight and level.

Now folks, that’s phenomenal. I never heard of anybody else being able to do it. But if it was anybody, it would have been someone like Doc, who’d never touched an airplane’s controls before but is the best guitar player in the world.

And like I said, if the story’s not true, it ought to be!

Red

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Flying and Picking (3)

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry

Okay, folks, here we are with another installment of our “Flying and Picking” series, where we relate my journey in learning one advanced skill (flying) to all our journeys in learning another (music). Today’s comment will be on PROCEDURES.

When you’re flying and landing a plane, there are things you have to do all in the right order and without getting rushed. This is true in any kind of flying, from my old jet-flying days in the Air Force, to landing a Cessna at the local airport.

For example, in landing a plane, you don’t do things just any way you feel like doing them. When you’re in the traffic pattern you reduce power, put down partial flaps and lower the landing gear, make your turns onto final approach, put down full flaps, and manage the controls and throttle so as to put yourself at just the right glideslope and airspeed. If you do those things right, you’ll find yourself set up just right over the runway for landing. Getting behind or out of rhythm is a sure way to make potentially hazardous mistakes. And as you’re going through these steps you’re also making radio calls, so that other pilots will know what you’re doing and everybody can take turns to take off and land safely. And you have to know all these procedures well enough to carry them out in a rhythm without thinking about them first, and without running out of time, so that you can get everything done and your mind can be on the moment-to-moment flying adjustments and making a good landing.

So what does all this stuff have to do with playing music and making it sound right? A lot. When you’re playing music, especially in a group, you have to have all the licks to the tune already in your head. You have to have practiced a tune over and over with the correct licks, fingering, and timing, so that you don’t have to think about every note, but can concentrate on playing smoothly and at an even tempo and sounding good. That way, when you play with others, you’ll be picking a recognizable tune at an even speed, and everybody else can keep up with you. You need to be listening to the group’s rhythm and not rushing or stumbling over any of your notes, or if you miss a few, coming back in at the right place, so that you (and the other players) don’t lose track of where you are. And when you pass the tune off to the next player, you let everyone else know what’s happening. You give a little glance or nod to the next player so they know it’s their turn, or else signal the end of the tune so that everyone knows it’s time to stop. That’s PROCEDURE. Everybody plays together and knows what’s going on, and the tune won’t crash, or at least, make a rough landing.

Flying and Picking– I love it.

Red

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Posted in By Red, General, Practice, jamming | 2 Comments »

Jan. 13th– Solo Day!

Friday, January 15th, 2010
Red, Jan. 13th

Red, Jan. 13th

Well, folks, this doesn’t have a lot to do with banjo playing, but I wanted to make a personal posting. This Wednesday, January 13th, 2010, I soloed in a small plane. This is the first (and biggest) hurdle every pilot has to achieve on their way to earning a pilot’s license.

In the last few days I’ve found that there are quite a few professional pilots and instructors, active or retired, who play banjo. To them, newbie students are a known quantity because they have done it all before, but even the most seasoned pilot remembers his or her first solo.

Yes, I did this once before. And more. You may remember my old USAF photo that I somewhat ostentatiously posted a few days ago. But that was about a hundred years ago, and this is new. And it counts.

Some details: I made three takeoffs and three landings (a convenient ratio) in a slightly rusty Cessna 172P, N51056, here at Winchester Regional Airport in Virginia. The three landings were all different (as every landing is) and they improved as I went along. The third landing was pretty smooth, if I say so myself.

There’s a lot more work and flying to do before earn my Private license, but I’ve gotten past Step One! More later as I go along–

Red

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Flying and Picking (2)

Friday, January 8th, 2010
Red in 1971

Red in 1971

Folks, here’s another installment about learning, whether it’s on a musical instrument or in an airplane. This is something that a great many learners have trouble with, and it’s called RELAXING.

When you’re flying a plane, you have to relax. If you are tensed up you’ll never be able to make the fine physical movements and mental judgments that you need in order to fly and land the plane. If your muscles are tensed up, you’re fighting yourself all the time. You wear yourself out that way, and the delicate things your hands and feet need to do with the controls get lost in the frozen situation of your muscles. You become exhausted, and you don’t get the job done.

So what does this have to do with playing music? Only everything. If you are trying to play your banjo or mandolin or guitar or fiddle and you’re all tensed up, you can’t possibly play the notes with the kind of tone and rhythm that you need to. If you are putting a bunch of muscular effort into things that should need only a few ounces’ pressure, you’re going to come out with some pretty bad-sounding music. Did you ever see J.D. Crowe, Sonny Osborne, Doyle Lawson, Jimmy Gaudreau, or Kenny Baker on stage? Those guys look (and are) RELAXED. The are able to focus all their attention on the notes (and the sound) they want to play, and when they get off stage they’re not worn out– they could get up there and do the same thing again.

Playing tensed-up restricts your tone, your speed, and your ability to really pay attention to the sound you’re making (which, after all, is the point of it). RELAX. You’ll be glad you did.

Red

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Flying and Picking (1)

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Red Henry

Red Henry

Folks, I’ve been real busy for the last two months, and there’s a reason: Murphy is sending me through flight school at the local airport, and I’m working toward a pilot’s license! Now, I was a pilot in the Air Force back in the early 1970s, but then I didn’t fly a plane even once for 35 years. That means I’m a 61-year-old beginner, and I’m finding out that people in their 60’s don’t learn as fast as people in their 20’s. Sound familiar?

Ever since I was young, I’ve thought that there were parallels between learning to play music and learning to fly. Now I’m finding out that the age issue is one of them. You learn more slowly as you get older. So how do you cope with that, and learn in spite of your age? There are ways. This is one of them:

FOLLOW THE TEACHER’s INSTRUCTIONS AND LEARN WHAT TO DO, AND DO IT RIGHT. You’ll never accomplish much unless you organize yourself and do everything correctly and in the right order.

In flying, this means going by your checklists and prescribed procedures, doing one thing after another in the logical sequence, in every task. Otherwise your work will be incomplete and you won’t ever get very far– possibly finding out too late, in the air, that you didn’t do some important bit of preparation. Trying to hurry gets you nowhere.

In music, this means to learn your chords, rolls, and licks right, and in a tune play them carefully, in the right order and at a REGULAR SPEED, no matter how slowly at first, so that the tune comes out sounding good. If you hurry your learning and try to play as fast as Earl right away, you music will be badly disorganized. You’ll never be able to play along with other people, and when you try to take a break with people who play a steady rhythm, you’ll crash!

In both kinds of learning, you have to concentrate on doing the right things, and in the right order. And, as Murphy has said before, you have to think about it all the time.

Red

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