Posts Tagged ‘jamming’

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Unfamiliar situations: Flying and Picking #14

Friday, July 9th, 2010

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

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

A Meeting of Mandolins

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Folks, I just ran across a photo and wanted to share it with you. A few years ago, a member of the “Co-Mando” mandolin email list held a gathering at his house in Maryland, a couple of hours’ drive from here. Our friend David McLaughlin rode over to the gathering with me, and we joined nine or ten other mandolin players for an afternoon of visiting and picking.

At one point, we lined up our mandolins on a soft couch so that everyone there could try all of them out (it’s called a “mandolin tasting”, and someone took a photo. Here it is:
Mandos104

Seen here at the party are 11 mandolins, my mandola, and my home-made mandocello conversion. Among the mandolins are the two I brought (Randy Wood #1 and #3), as well as the one David brought (a 1923 F-5). Others seen in the photo include two Rigel mandolins, one late-1950s Gibson, and a few other makes. The other pickers were especially excited to have the chance to play that 1923 F-5, after David generously put it on the couch for “tasting.” They were also amused to play Randy Wood #3, the one formerly owned by Bill Monroe, and get themselves a few molecules of Bill as they played. (My four instruments in the picture are distinguished by their light-colored maple bridges.) See if you can pick out David’s Loar in the photo!

As you can guess, a good time was had by all. And we’ve got the pictures to prove it!

Red

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Posted in By Red, Improvising, Instruments, jamming, Mandolin Bridges, pictures | 3 Comments »

Earned the License! (Flying and Picking #12)

Friday, June 25th, 2010

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

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Posted in By Red, jamming, Learning By Ear | 8 Comments »

White Springs: a Vignette

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry

At the Florida Folk Festival, Chris, John, and I were picking at our campsite, warming up to play a set. Since John knows a great many of Bill Monroe’s tunes and plays them on the banjo, we were exploring the Monroe “deep catalog.” We did play ‘Jerusalem Ridge’, but we also played ‘Old Ebeneezer Scrooge’ and ‘Come Hither to Go Yonder’ and ‘The Old Mountaineer’ and ‘Crossing the Cumberlands’ and ‘Right, Right On’ and more.

A person who was new to this kind of music stood by one side and listened. When we finished one tune she asked, “Who wrote that music that you’re playing?” I replied, “Bill Monroe.” She asked, “Is it authentic?”

I pointed to John and said, “That man right there was playing banjo for Bill when he was writing and playing these tunes, and yes, it’s authentic!”

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Posted in By Red, Improvising, jamming | 2 Comments »

White Springs, 2010 – Day 2

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


When I last left you, we (Chris, Jenny, and I) had arrived late and tired at the Florida Folk Festival campground, and I collapsed to get some rest for the next day. Well, Friday dawned bright and promising, and I secured the morning essential (coffee) to start waking up. Pretty soon my mother Renee and her banjo-playing brother, my uncle John Hedgecoth, arrived from Tallahassee and we all picked for a while to warm up. By “we all” I mean myself, Chris, and Jenny, plus John and Barbara Johnson, our bass player.

We’d barely gotten started when someone noticed that our friend Dale was scheduled to play a set at noon on the Seminole Stage, which is at the other end of the festival– probably about a half-mile– from the campground. We wanted to back him up. So we loaded ourselves and our instruments into a variety of vehicles and set out for the Seminole Stage.

Now, when you deal with creative personalities you’re talking about people who sometimes don’t see the point of making sure you arrive everywhere exactly on schedule. This is the case with Dale, one of the most brilliantly creative people I know. So when we all arrived at the Seminole Stage, ready to back him up for his set, he was nowhere to be seen. What to do? Well, we’ve backed Dale up a lot. When the time came to start his set, we just got up in front of the crowd and started singing his songs! We kicked it off with Dale’s original song “Mangrove Buccaneer.” The crowd (full of people who knew Dale) loved it. And when we had played about half of the set, who should come running in, guitar in hand, but Dale himself! Christopher was in the middle of singing “Tate’s Hell,” a wonderful Florida song and one of Dale’s favorites, and Dale just took over the lead vocal from him to finish out with the last verse.

Dale sang several more, and it was time to finish the show. He had decided to end the set with “Mangrove Buccaneer” when one audience member (unfortunately) told him that we’d already sung it! It would have been so much fun if he’d gone ahead and done it again, unknowingly. But instead he finished up with his song “Apalachicola Doin’ Time” (freshly topical these days with the Gulf oil disaster on peoples’ minds), and we we back to the campground to rest and pick.

Our own set was at the same Seminole Stage at 3:30, so we loaded up again and made the trek. We had an excellent crowd, and played and sang many of our favorites, starting off with Chubby Anthony’s “Foothills of Home” and finishing out with the old gospel favorite “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” which I’m glad to say that many people sang along with. Then it was back to the campground and picking until the small hours.

Do you wonder why we do this? Well, who’d want to be anywhere else?

Red

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Posted in By Red, jamming, shows | 3 Comments »

White Springs Festival Coming Up!

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Folks, it’s almost time for the Florida Folk Festival, held every year at the Stephen Foster State Park on Memorial Day weekend. Chris, Jenny, and I will be driving down there on Thursday (13 hours, but we’ll never match Casey’s travel percentage!), and we’ll have three days of performing music on the festival stages. Here’s our schedule:

Friday, May 28th: 3:30, at the Seminole Hut stage.

Saturday, May 29th: 3:00, at the Old Marble Stage.

Sunday, May 30th: 3:20, at the River Gazebo.

Of course we’ll have plenty of our CDs with us at our sets, and a selection of Murphy Method DVDs as well –and, naturally, there will be plenty of picking in the campground the rest of the time!

This festival runs eight or ten stages during the day, and a big show on the main stage at night. Activities include fiddle and banjo contests as well as contra-dances and craft shows. Look the festival up at http://www.floridastateparks.org/folkfest/Highlights.cfm , and take a look at the schedules! There’ll be a lot going on. Come by if you can, and say hello.

Red

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Posted in By Red, CDs, DVDs, jamming, shows | No Comments »

Speed Bumps (Flying and Picking #11)

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

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

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Posted in By Red, Improvising, jamming, Learning By Ear, lessons | 4 Comments »

Becoming an Independent Banjo Player (Flying and Picking #10)

Friday, April 9th, 2010

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

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Posted in banjo, By Red, Improvising, Instructors, jamming | 2 Comments »

Consistency (Flying and Picking #8)

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Red Henry

Red Henry


Murphy had a good slow-jam session with her beginning students last night. I heard about it just after I came in from flying, and it reminded me that we often hear questions about how it’s easier to play on some days than others, and about how a student might learn a tune pretty well and then (in spite of playing it every day) not be able to play it as well on some days as on others.

Well, I can testify that flying is sure like that. My latest flights with my instructor have been at night. Last week I was able to make pretty good landings every time, but last night I started off with a great landing but then, on the next three landings, I couldn’t duplicate it for anything. Tonight we’ll fly, and I expect I’ll do better– at least, on SOME of the landings! Getting them just right is only partly a matter of practice. Sometimes it’s the situation, and sometimes you can’t tell what it is. But I couldn’t land at all unless I’d practiced it a lot. Practice helps!

Playing music is the same way. You can learn to play a tune and practice it until most of the time it sounds pretty good, but then there will be days when it just doesn’t. Every time you play a tune, it’s a little different. There may not be anything in particular you can point to as the cause, but you just simply play better on some days than on others. But practice helps! And it’s a special help if you play along with other people, or (if there aren’t many pickers near by) with our Slow Jam and Picking Up the Pace DVDs.

This doesn’t just apply to students! Professionals also find differences in their playing from one day to the next. Sometimes they’ll get frustrated with that on stage, but their overall level of playing is so high that most of the listeners can’t tell the difference. Sometimes it’s a matter of practice, and sometimes it’s the situation. Sometimes you can’t see a reason for it. But after you play a lot on stage, you know to just keep playing and act as if the music’s good– because it is! You’ve practiced a million hours in your life, so just play. And the point of your being there is so that the audience can enjoy it.

Red

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

“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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Posted in By Red, Improvising, Practice | 1 Comment »

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