Posts Tagged ‘Improvising’

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Professional? Amateur? or Both?

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Red Henry

I’m just back from Hiawassee, Georgia, where I was one of the judges at the Georgia State Fiddlers Convention. There were contests for fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, Dobro, and other instruments, so we did probably 15 hours of judging over two days.

The judges, along with contest MC Barry Palmer and friends, played a set of music each day– after all, since we were judging the contest, we needed to show that we could play! Our Saturday set went real well (no surprise, since the five people on stage probably had 150 or 200 years of professional musical experience between them), and afterwards I was talking with Chuck Nation, another of the judges, about how much fun our set was. Chuck expresses himself very well, and he commented about playing in a band: “The difference between amateurs and professionals, is that amateurs are competing with each other, and professionals are helping each other.” Well said!

I’ve talked about it before on this blog, but Chuck’s comment really put it down plainly where we can understand it. If you’re playing in a group– on stage or off– are you listening? Are you trying every second to help the BAND (not just yourself) sound as good as possible? Are you playing so as to support the other musicians, not just to make yourself sound good? Your level of proficiency doesn’t matter, and plenty of people who can play well don’t play in a professional manner, in this respect!

You may be an amateur player, but you can play in a professional way. Think about it.

Red

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Jamming: One Easy Time, and one Challenging Situation

Friday, October 8th, 2010

Red Henry

Last weekend I went over to Nashville for the International Bluegrass Music Association convention. During the day I helped Casey with our Murphy Method booth, but both nights I went over to my uncle John’s house to pick. John Hedgecoth is a banjo player with long-standing credentials including a stint in Bill Monroe’s band in the 1970s. He can also play ANYTHING on a banjo, from bluegrass ro jazz to classical, so it was good to pick with him. He invited a few other folks over, and we played a whole lot of tunes. We picked quite a few Bill Monroe numbers. We played lots of traditional tunes. We also played some entertaining numbers like ‘Sweet Sue,’ ‘Baby Elephant Walk,’ and “When I’m 64.” John played them all on banjo with aplomb. Nothing could be easier than picking with him, and it was all good.

Then last night, back here in Winchester, I went over to the weekly Thursday Night Jam. Playing music there was a different situation. About 15 local musicians were playing for an audience of about 50, inside a greenhouse. (It wasn’t any stranger than it sounds, but the acoustics were not the best.) There were about 7 guitar players, three mandolin players, two each playing banjo and fiddle, and (thank goodness) a string bass. So I got near the bass player and played firm rhythm on Randy Wood #3– a mandolin with unexcelled projection– and the rhythm was there. Not great rhythm, but adequate. The on-beat was there from the bass and the off-beat was there from the mandolin, and everybody hung together adequately. And everybody had a good time.

Congratulations to Murphy’s student Zac, who won the banjo contest at Burlington, WV last Sunday! Way to go! We had him play ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ at the jam, and he did quite well with both the low break and the high break. Good picking–

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Picking in the Gazebo

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

Red Henry

Last Saturday I had a good time playing music with family and friends in the gazebo. And, you may ask, just where is that particular gazebo? Well, it’s some distance from here. It’s on the town square in Clarkesville, Georgia. And, in spite of some rain, we all had a good time.

The band for this occasion included, along with myself on mandolin, my old friend and now brother-in-law Mike Johnson, on banjo; Murphy’s #3 sister (and Mike’s wife) Argen Hicks, on bass; Murphy’s #4 sister, excellent singer/songwriter Nancy Pate on guitar; and our friend, multi-instrumentalist Barry Palmer on fiddle. What did we do? We just played music. Well, we did run over some numbers at Argen and Mike’s house beforehand. That was fun, too. Then we went over to the middle of town and set up at the gazebo and played our first set.

Now, I’ve talked before about how good it is when people are really playing together. This can happen immediately, as is did at that party I talked about a few days ago, or it can happen because everybody listens and adapts. On this particular day we had a group that hadn’t ever played together before, and I think we all played with slightly different natural rhythms. When we started practicing back at the house we sounded a bit loose, but by the time we started up at the gazebo, we sounded pretty tight. So how did this happen? It happened because everybody there was a very experienced performer and knew what to do. Everyone was listening and adapting to everyone else, one song after another, and in a short time we were really playing together well.

You don’t have to be a professional picker to do this. You don’t have to have played for 20 (or 30, or 40) years to listen to everyone else and adapt to their rhythm and play what sounds good.

As soon as you are able to play in a group, you can start listening to the other pickers (in fact, those two things go together). You can start listening to the other instruments and to the vocals, and follow your ears in trying to play (or not play) things that help the whole group sound good. If there’s a banjo or guitar player drowning everybody out you usually can’t help that, but if that player is YOU, then you can. Whatever instrument you’re playing, try to play steadily and supportively to the others. (Sometimes this means scarcely playing at all, during other leads or vocals.) When it comes time for you to take a lead, think about it ahead of time– stop playing for a few beats if you need to, to set up your hands and brain to start playing the break at the right time– and then keep listening to the rhythm while you’re playing your lead. That way, whether you’re playing lead or backup, you’ll be playing together with the others. And that can help them do the same thing (more on that later).

Happy picking!

Red

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Are You Playing the Song Together? — Or Just “at the Same Time”?

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

Red Henry

The title for this blog may seem strange, but it’s pretty important. As I mentioned before, Christopher and I played a party Saturday night before last, and we had two fine musicians with us– Mike Munford and Ira Gitlin. All four of us fit together perfectly, and our band dynamics– making the instrument leads stand out, putting the vocals out front, adapting the backup every moment to make the lead sound its best– were excellent.

During our first set break, Ira commented on this. He knew how rare it is for everybody in a band to be paying attention and always playing so as to make the lead instrument or vocal sound its best. He knew how very often, even with good musicians, the guitar player will be showing off his fancy bass runs, or the harmony singers will pay little attention to the lead singer, or the lead singer will be drowned out by a banjo player who’s playing lead all the time, all over everybody else’s vocals and instruments. But the four of us were playing TOGETHER– not just playing the same song at the same time, but listening to each other and playing together. And it was good.

You can pay attention to this too, whenever you’re playing music with other people. Is someone else singing a song? Make sure you’re not the one drowning him (or her) out. Is somebody else playing a lead break? Listen to that person, and play some gentle backup as appropriate to make the lead sound good. LISTEN all the time, and do whatever your ears tell you to, to make the music always sound as good as it can. That way, you won’t be just playing the song at the same time– you’ll be playing it together.

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Bass playing– ON the beat, please!

Friday, August 20th, 2010

Red Henry

Yesterday evening I went out to a local weekly jam session. This event started a couple of years ago and has turned into an informal outdoor concert, with a dozen or more pickers and a hundred or so listeners every week. The players are all local folks, and I enjoy playing music with them. But every so often something will happen to make the music hard to play.

When I arrived and joined the session yesterday evening, a person was playing bass and doing well with it. She knew all the songs, and played solidly on the beat. This really helped the jam session hold together.

After about an hour, though, she needed a break, and was replaced by another player. He got through the first number, though a little shakily. Then when a fiddle player kicked off the next tune (Golden Slippers, in G), the bass player started playing his notes on the off-beat, and stayed there.

Now, bass players play their notes on the ON-beat, not the OFF-beat. When a bass player is playing on the off-beat instead (like a mandolin’s rhythm), it makes the music sound pretty weird. This time, it seemed as if half the players stayed with the fiddler’s rhythm, and the others were wandering a bit between the fiddle and the bass. It was a pretty diffuse sound. I stopped playing after the first few beats of the tune, and decided it was time to pack up and go home.

I applaud all the folks who want to come out and play, but it’s better when the bass player just plays on the beat. It’s easier for everybody!

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“Be Prepared.”

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Have you ever been in a jam session, and were taken by surprise by something? Maybe the other pickers asked you to play or sing a song. Or perhaps while the group was playing, you suddenly had the tune passed to you–and you didn’t know what to play!

If you’re new to playing in jams, things like that can take you by surprise. If it’s all you can do to watch a guitar player to find out the chords, figure out where they are on the banjo, and then vamp or play some simple backup, it’s hard to do anything else at the same time–such as think about a break to play before it’s your turn. But you can have a plan of action.

Think ahead, and know ahead of time what you’re going to do. If the chords to the tune are pretty familiar and you can use some of your familiar Scruggs licks to build a break, start planning for that as soon as you have the chords figured out. If, on the other hand, you don’t know the tune and don’t want to make a leap into nowhere with your banjo break, just tell yourself ahead of time that if the tune gets passed to you, you’ll just nod to the next person and pass the break off before it’s time to start playing. Whichever you do, the tune will go on smoothly, and you’ll be more confident and better prepared for the next time.

“Be Prepared.”

Red

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Picking with Others is the Easiest Practice

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Folks, we’ve discussed practice several times on this blog lately. Some of my own entries have had to do with how to keep up with your practice when you don’t have much spare time available. But there are other aspects of practice to talk about, including “What’s the easiest way to practice?” and “What kind of practice is best?”

In my own case, I discovered in 1967 (about a week after I started playing) that for me, picking with others was the easiest and best way to practice. It’s that way for others, too. When you are playing with other people, (1) you don’t have to provide all the musical energy– energy circulates around the group (even if it’s only two or three people) and comes back to help you; (2) practice time passes so much more quickly that three or four hours playing music with others make seem shorter than one hour at home; and (3) it’s a lot more fun. And you sure learn a lot, painlessly. This is why Murphy says over and over at the end of our videos, “Find some people to pick with!”

Now, I know that in some parts of the country (and the world) there are few other players of bluegrass, country, folk, gospel, or other similar material whom you can get with. For example, I spent a year at an Air Force base in Del Rio, Texas, and didn’t find any other musicians that year. Nowadays, of course, things are a lot better: we have our Murphy Method Slow Jam and Picking Up the Pace DVDs, and you can have a jam session any time right in your house!

So as I said, when you’re picking with others, you not only have a better time than in solo practice, but you learn faster. You also begin improvising, and backing up other players, in a live setting where people are having a good time. Playing in almost any kind of group is not only the easiest kind of practice– but the best.

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Improvising: Hearing the Words

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Murphy HenryAs I’ve been telling you, I’ve got several students who are working hard on improvising right now. And one of the things that has become even clearer to me lately is how important it is to hear the words of the song in your head as you are playing your break. You don’t need to know all three verses and the chorus but you do need to know the words to a verse or a chorus that go along with what you are picking.

Why?

Because if you don’t—and I’m talking specifically about learning the songs on the Improvsing DVD—you end up defining the songs by how many beats of G or C or D they have. I mean, you’ve got to remember these breaks somehow. And, yes, they do all sound alike! The licks are pretty much the same. That’s the point!

If you don’t know the words, then “Blue Ridge Cabin Home” becomes the song that has four beats of G, C, and D, in that order. And “Bury Me Beneath the Willow” is distinguished from “Foggy Mountain Top” by the fact that “Willow” has four beats of C and FMT only has two. So by the time you get to “Your Love Is Like A Flower,” which happens to have the same chord pattern as “Willow,” your head is a complete jumble of chord patterns–that you can’t remember!

But while these breaks are very much alike, the songs themselves are quite different. And what is this difference? The melodies and the words!

So now I am becoming quite insistent that the students LEARN THE WORDS to the break they are playing. And, yes, that does slow down the learning process in the short run, but it makes everything easier in the long run.

And the best way to learn words? Listen to the song and WRITE THEM DOWN. Bet you never thought you’d hear me saying that! Pulling them off the internet won’t do. Sure, it’s  easy, but that doesn’t help you learn them. It’s the listening over and over as you write them down that helps.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t improvise a break to a song you’ve never heard before if you are in a jam session. Of course you can. But in that case, you will be relying more on watching the guitar player’s hands and trying to find some way to remember—for the moment—the chord progression. If you wanted to learn a more permanent break to the song, you’d have to learn the words. And, hey, if you can learn a banjo break to any of the songs on these DVDS, you can learn four lines to a chorus! Start a notebook….

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It’s Sinking In!

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Casey HenryToday my student Kyle came for his lesson. Kyle is sixteen and I’ve been teaching him for almost seven years. He’s turning into quite a good player and he’s recently joined a band with some other young pickers, something I’ve been telling him he needs to do for at least two years. Being in this band is stretching him in just the ways I hoped it would. There is a girl in the band who does some singing, which challenges Kyle to play songs in alternative keys, like “Head Over Heels” in D.

At a recent gig she sang “Sunny Side of the Mountain,” which they had practiced in maybe A or B—a key where he was playing the break out of the standard G-position. Just before performance time, however, they changed it to D, which meant he either had to capo up to the seventh fret or find a new way to play the break. He chose to capo at the second fret and play out of C-position.

He said he had just cobbled the break together, but he played it for me at the lesson today and I was delighted to hear that he was playing melody! All those breaks I made him learn in C, all the improvising and making him pick out his own breaks to songs, as painful as it was at the time, really did sink in! We tweaked it a little bit to get a hair closer to the melody, but the break that he came up with all on his own was excellent. I was so proud!

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Best Teaching Experience

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Murphy HenryI had the best experience a banjo teacher could have yesterday.

My sixteen-year-old student Logan Claytor (he said I could use his name) was in for his lesson. Logan has been taking from me since he was twelve and lately he’s really ratcheted his playing up a notch. But like many teens (and adults too) he doesn’t practice as much as I would like. Of course he always has some good excuse. So lately, as soon as he sits down, I’ve been asking him to give me his excuses before we start, so we can get them out of the way. This week it was homecoming.

Then I asked him if he’d learned the low break to “Amazing Grace” that I had recorded last week. No, he had not. But just as I was getting ready to chew him out (not!), he said, “But I did sorta learn a high break to ‘John Hardy’.”

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

So he procedes to play this most EXCELLENT up-the-neck break to “John Hardy” which he had made up out of his own head! Now, Logan can do simple, first position improvs to almost any three chord song but he’s never done any improv up the neck. So for him to make up this break was simply mind boggling. I was SO proud!

Naturally I asked him how he did. I was thinking maybe he’d worked it out lick by lick while he was practicing. But no. He said the whole break just came to him—in his head—while he was sitting in class thinking about playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” Amazing.

I told him I was going to steal one of his licks for my own break. And I meant it! It is something I’d never thought of doing before. (Too bad we don’t do tab here or I’d show it to you!!) [TOO BAD WE DON'T DO TAB? Who are you and what have you done with my mother??]

So, way to go Logan! I hope your story inspires some other pickers to go and do likewise!

Thursday I’m heading over to Nashville for the IBMA World of Bluegrass, joining Red, and Casey and Chris who are already there. I’ll be at the FanFest Saturday and Sunday. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop by and shake and howdy!

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