Tag Archives: flying


Have you ever taken several days (or weeks) off from your music, and then tried to get back in practice? Every musician I know has done this. And as you have found out, sometimes it isn't easy!

As many of you Gentle Readers know, I've been learning to fly and recently got my license. I've been flying regularly for several months, when the weather permitted. Flying takes practice, just like music. But I recently took several days off, and so now I'll start getting back in practice-- I have a short flight scheduled today to practice some landings, and then I'll make a cross-country flight on Sunday to freshen up my ability to navigate to airports far from home. I didn't want to take off on that cross-country flight "cold," as you might call it. I wanted to get a shorter flight to warm up with first.

Music's the same way. When you've taken several days off, don't expect to dive in for several hours and get it back all at once. That can lead to a lot of frustration. Instead, "gentle" yourself into it by practicing a half-hour or hour each day for a while. You'll find your playing ability coming back without having to strain. And when you've had a few of those short practices, your fingers and brain will be ready for longer sessions when you can really start soaking up music again. Don't worry-- the music will come back. Just take it easy.

Did you ever try to play music in a place that wasn't familiar, and found yourself so distracted by the room, or the people, or the lighting, or the phase of the moon, that you had trouble playing? Or did you learn to play music while sitting down all the time, and then try to play while standing up? It might have been uncomfortable at first. You were in an unfamiliar situation.

I was reminded of this two nights ago, when I flew my very first night solo (well, my first since 1971). I'd flown several times at night recently with my instructor, but hadn't tried it alone. So I took off about sunset and just practiced landings over and over, and kept at it as it got really dark.

Now, I've made about 400 daytime landings or so in the last 7 months. So I'm pretty familiar with them now. But now I was flying at night, and the situation was different. I really had to concentrate to find some of the same visual clues I'm used to in the daytime, and I had to adopt some new ones. But it worked. The results? 11 pretty good landings, including the last 3 in the pitch dark. But it did take concentration and practice in the new, dark situation (making those landings over and over). It was a gradual thing, but finally I was pretty comfortable with it. I really had to concentrate, but it just took some practice.

You can make the same kind of adjustment when you're playing music in an unfamiliar situation. If you're put off your stride (or even freaked out) by standing up to play, or playing in a new place, or playing in front of people, or playing in a group you're not used to, then don't concentrate on the unfamiliar stuff. Simplify what you're doing and concentrate on yourself and the notes you're playing. Keep your eyes on your instrument and play tunes you can play in your sleep, or your favorite basic backup licks, or just vamp until you have your hands and mind under control again. Let your brain assimilate the new variables a little at a time, and eventually you'll get used to the new situation. Play your same familiar tunes and licks over and over standing up, for example, and you'll get to where you can stand up in a group and handle not only your oldest material but new things as well. Practice at different places in your house, or your yard. Play when one or two family or friends are around-- not suddenly for a crowd, but gradually. Even if you're freaked out at first, it just takes some practice!

Red

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

Red Henry

Red Henry


Folks, I made a cross-country flight this morning, just to keep in practice. It wasn't a really long trip, but I flew solo from here (Winchester, VA) to Bedford, PA, then to Cumberland, MD, and then back home: 3 flights, 8 good landings (I used the opportunity to practice those, too).

And what does this have to do with playing music? Well, Chris, Jenny, and I are performing at the Daily Grind here in Winchester (the Jubal Early Drive location) starting at 7:00 this evening. And the flying seems as if it's gotten me in the mood to play.

This happened a lot during my first flying career, in the Air Force from 1972-75. Flying and picking just seemed to go together, one after the other. Have any of you gotten that feeling from these two activities? If so, I'd like to know about it.

Happy picking, and flying too, if that's what you do!

Red
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PS-- Local folks, if you can't make it to the Daily Grind this evening, we're also performing at Borders Books here in Winchester, starting time 7:00 this coming Sunday, the 23rd.

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

Red Henry

Red Henry


Murphy, in an old Banjo Newsletter column, talked at length about how people want to become Independent Banjo Players. They want to be able to get in a group and play tunes, play backup, and pass the breaks around to others just like "independent" pickers do, who don't need a teacher's guidance to participate. And they need to be able to do all this while standing up!

I thought about this yesterday while I was on a solo cross-country flight. As you learn to be an independent pilot, you learn to fly the plane and land it, communicate with other pilots in the air, and to navigate from one place to another-- and eventually, you do all this without an instructor's help. So I took off yesterday morning by myself and flew about 75 miles to an airport I'd never seen before (Somerset County, Pa.), landed there, took off again, and found my way right back and landed here at Winchester. When I got back here, I felt like I was learning to be an Independent Pilot. Could I have done this without a lot of training from my instructor? Of course not. But is it good to feel like an Independent Pilot? Oh, yes.

It also feels good when you learn to be an Independent Banjo Player. You know that you can stand up in a group, play the tunes, do backup when someone else is playing, take breaks and pass them off when you're through playing yourself, and start and finish the tune at the same time as everybody else. Can you learn this all at once? No. And like everything else, it takes some folks longer to learn than others. But when you reach your goal, it feels good. You know you're an Independent Banjo Player.

Red

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

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

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

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