The Murphy Method Blog

Today we have for you some pictures of the filming of our DVD Picking Up The Pace: More Slow Jamming with Murphy and Casey. We filmed back in August and it seems like ages ago. Here is what took place in our Winchester, VA studio on the first day of filming:

Murphy and Casey’s wardrobe and makeup test.

David McLaughlin, Casey and Murphy tuning, which is a very important part of filming!

Before we even started the first tune, David broke a string. This is him changing it.

Literally behind the scenes..this is Red running the camera, which is what we look at the whole time you think we’re smiling happily at you!

And last but not least, this is Murphy, and yes she is watching her own video! She carefully reviews the breaks to the songs before filming to make sure she plays them the same way that she taught them.

Sandy, who is about my age (the best age!) has been taking fiddle lessons from me now for two or three months. Maybe even four. She’s never played an instrument before. Knowing that if she invested a lot of money in an instrument, she’d feel obliged to stick with it, she bought a good new German fiddle.

We started out slowly, as I always do, just learning to pull the bow across the open strings. Then it was on to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” We just took it in pieces and Sandy had it down in about a month. She’s very dedicated to her practice. This tune is on our Beginning Fiddle DVD so she had a reference. During this time we were also working on the A major scale.

Because Sandy is an adult and is not clamoring to play in a bluegrass band or even a bluegrass jam session, I veered away from the DVD at this point. I don’t think “Cripple Creek” makes a whole lot of musical sense to someone who had never heard it. Instead, I started her on “Are You Sleeping Brother John.” Since this tune is not on the DVD, Sandy had to memorize each section during the lesson. (I’m not sure why we didn’t use a cassette player. Maybe she doesn’t have one anymore.) Again, we took it in sections, doing only four notes at a time. In addition to playing the song on her fiddle (and since I told her not to write anything down), Sandy would sing the song to herself when she took her daily walk. Again, we had it down in about a month. And “Twinkle” kept getting better.

It was when Sandy was learning her next song “Mary Had A Little Lamb” that the ear training started to pay off. Sandy had mentioned that “Twinkle” was easier to learn than “Brother John” because you stayed on the same note for more bow strokes, so I’d picked “Mary” for exactly that reason. So I showed her the first phrase “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and when she had no trouble with those seven notes, I’d added the rest of the line. Then I told her the first part of the next line was the same as the first phrase. She played that easily. Then she did the most astounding thing: on her own, and never having played this song before, she played the last part of the song ALL BY HERSELF, “its fleece was white as snow.” I was SO HAPPPY! And so proud of her. And she was happy and pretty pleased with herself. As she should have been.

And like I told her, this is how it’s supposed to happen. When you learn by ear, especially if you’ve never played anything before, the first tunes almost have to be learned by rote—with the teacher showing you the notes. And if you stick with the “by ear” part of the program and don’t write anything down, then your ear starts to develop and, sure enough, you start to hear where the notes are yourownself. And then you are on the road to being able to pick out other tunes—whole tunes—by yourself without the aid of a teacher. This is not to say that Sandy will be picking out “The Star-Spangled Banner” next week or even “Old MacDonald” but I’m sure the tunes she’ll be learning will be much easier (we’re fixing to start on Christmas carols from our “Christmas Fiddle Tunes” DVD) and she will be able to pick out parts of them by herself.

So to all of you out there, struggling with the fiddle (or any instrument), I hope Sandy’s story encourages you to hang in there!!!!!!

Our friend Jinx Miller sent us some old photos recently and this one made us laugh. It was a very typical pose for Casey and Murphy back in the day (circa 1980).

L-R: Tuck Tucker, Red Henry, Connie Rose, Murphy Henry, Casey Henry, George Shuffler

Just when I think I understand a lot about how students practice, I realize that something important has slipped by me. This week I was surprised to find out that many of my students are playing their songs through only one time. One time only. And then moving on to another song. No, no, no, no, no!

After you have learned the notes to the song and can play the whole thing S-L-O-W-L-Y you need to play the song over and over many times without stopping in between. What is many times? Two times is the minimum. Three or four times is much better. And remember: no stopping in between. When you get to the end of the song, go right back into it.

There are many reasons for this. One is simply to build up stamina—in fingers and in mind—by playing for extended periods of time. If you play “Banjo in the Hollow” one time, you are playing for what? Maybe 60 seconds? Maybe 90 seconds if you’re going really slow? That’s not even time enough to get situated, to get comfortable. You can hardly start to hear what the song sounds like! Repeated playings will allow you to start listening to what you are doing. It will also give you more opportunities to play through your mistakes, to keep on going.

But an even bigger reason is that if you play the song repeatedly you have a chance of finding the “groove.” That’s the magical place where the song starts to flow, where you can let your mind relax and let your fingers do the walking. And the talking. Where, again, you can start listening to what you are playing. And not just to the notes, to see if you are getting them right. But you can start listening to the MUSIC in what you are playing.

By the way, playing along with the DVD, even the Slow Jam DVDs, is not what I’m talking about here. Playing with the DVDs has its place, but the type of practice I’m talking about here is done on your own or with your own personal guitar player. (I used to pay my son Chris to play along with me on guitar when I was learning fiddle!)

Playing a song three or four times in a row is not a hard thing to do and I can almost guarantee that it will improve your playing in a hurry!

These were the excuses from two of my teenaged banjo students last week. Logan you’ve already met.

So this is me: Okay, Logan, what are your excuses for this week?

So this is Logan talking. (My responses are in parenthesis.)

I had two prep sessions for the PSAT, from 6-9 in the evening. (What else?)

I needed to get a good night’s sleep. (Right. What else?)

And there was all the partying and drinking. (He’s just messing with me about this…)

Then Monday was a layoff day. (I took this to mean after a hard weekend of partying….)

My thumb still hurts and I lost my brace. (He’d sprained his thumb playing soccer injury. I give him points for this since the week before he did play with the brace on!)

In spite of all this, we had a good lesson. I’m showing him, piece by piece, how to create a simple break to “Faded Love.” We just did the same thing for “Amazing Grace” and “White Dove.” (This stuff is almost sure to show up on a DVD sometime!) Logan can absorb this because he plays in a regular twice-a-month jam session with some of my other students. They regularly play “Faded Love” and “Amazing Grace” because Patty (one of my Fiddle Sisters) plays them on the fiddle. When I heard from Bob (the Bass Player and a guitar student) that Logan routinely bailed on these and went to get a soda (or as we’d say in Georgia, went to get a Coke), I knew I had my work cut out for me! And because Logan already knew the chords to these tunes from repeated listenings, he was ready to absorb what I showed him. This would not have worked otherwise. The moral: Keep listening to this stuff!

Now for the excuses from Teresa, a younger sister to Gina, Malia, and Christina Furtado whom I have written about in Banjo Newsletter. (And Malia plays on both of our Slow Jam DVDs.)

This is Teresa talking. (My comments are again in parenthesis.)

I had to study hard for a test.

I was gone all day Saturday. (To a banjo contest where she won first prize! I tried to get her to split the money with me, but to no avail!)

What was I doing the rest of the time? (No answer….)

Besides, I’m taking another instrument. (This was news to me. What are you taking?)

Classical guitar. (You mean you’re two-timing me?)

Blank look. (Why are you taking classical guitar?)

My mother is making me. (Can’t fight that!)

We also went on to have a good lesson. All the practice she did for the banjo contest kicked her playing up to another level!

Tune in next time (or sometime) for even more excuses! But I don’t think any of my students will ever top this one: “I spent my pick.” Don’t even ask! (Offered by a student to our Florida friend and banjo teacher Bob Higgenbotham back in the seventies!)

Question: I have been a Murphy Method Student for 19 years. I have a Kyser capo. When playing in C it tends to get in the way of my fingering. Could you tell me what kind you are using in Slow Jam 1 playing “Bury me Beneath the Willow” in the key of C, and where it can be gotten? Thanks. Calvin

Hey Calvin,

First of all, many thanks for hanging in there with The Murphy Method. That’s always nice to hear!

Now about capos:

After trying many capos down through the years including the Scruggs Capo, the Tom McKinney Capo, the Sabine Capo, and the Kyser, I have finally landed on the Shubb Capo, with which I am well pleased. I’m pretty sure that’s what I am using in the first Slow Jam DVD. (Unless I was having a Bad Capo day and lost mine!)

The Shubb Capos are small enough to not get in the way of my left hand, they snap on and off the banjo with no trouble, can easily be carried in my pants’ pocket, and don’t seem to cause too many tuning problems. (Although when you use any capo you almost always have to retouch your tuning.) Also, when I’m on stage and am not using the capo at the moment, I can keep it handy by sticking the end of it into one of the holes in my Stelling flange.

And even with long term use, I’ve not ever had the rubber part deteriorate. (Of course that MIGHT be because I often lose my capo and have to buy a new one…That sometimes comes from lending capos at a jam session! I did have a lawyer friend who absconded—accidentally of course—with my capo replace it with a brand new one!)

And for those of us with arched fingerboards (which for some strange reason we are now called “radiused” fingerboards) on our banjos, the Shubb comes in a slightly curved version, which makes for fewer tuning problems.

I think you can find the Shubb Capo at many music stores, locally and online. I’ll shout out to three of my faves: First Quality Music, Janet Davis Music, and Elderly Instruments.

Hope this helps!!!!

[Casey here...I use a Showcase capo, which handily slides up above my nut when not in use, so I never have to take it off the neck, thereby greatly reducing the chances of it being lost!]

So, I’m at my friend Robyn’s house for supper. (She’s cooking!) Robyn is one of my Fiddle Sisters, a group of five women who like to play fiddles together. We were hot on the nursing home circuit one Christmas! Anyhow, Robyn is the mother of my sixteen-year-old banjo student Logan, whom I wrote about a few days ago.

Supper is underway and Robyn is doing chef-like things at the counter while Logan is sitting across from her doing something with his laptop. We talk a little bit about the band Old Crowe Medicine Show, one of my new faves, and Logan pulls up one of their songs “Alabama High Test” on the computer and plays it for us.

Then Logan says, “Want to hear my favorite song right now?”

I say, “Sure,” guessing that he will play something from one of the hot young bluegrass bands of maybe a jamgrass band.

Instead he clicks on a song title and the ancient tones of “In The Pines” come wafting through the kitchen. Sung by Bill Monroe himself! Complete with harmony “oohing” and the sound of wind moaning through the trees.

I am stunned. And delighted. For a teacher, it doesn’t get much better than that. Thanks again, Logan, for “one brief shining moment.” (And I hope you have that new break to “Faded Love” worked out by Thursday. If you don’t, I’ll be sure to post your excuses right here! <G>)

Beginning banjo students frequently ask, “In what order should I go through the DVDs?” (Although I’ll have to admit, the question is usually phrased using my favorite bluegrass grammar, “What order should I go through the DVDs in?”) Regardless of how the question is asked, it’s a good ‘un.

I found myself answering it several times this past weekend at the IBMA FanFest. So many times, in fact, that I decided to finally post the answer on the Blog!

My own approach to the order of the songs has changed over the years as I learn more about teaching, and especially as I learn more about teaching adults.

So here is my highly recommended Beginning Banjo Track.  You will notice that I skip around on the DVDs, but always stay with the Big Three: Beginnning Banjo Vol 1 and 2 and Misfits. These are your foundation.

First the list (in case you don’t want to read any further), then the explanation.

Banjo in the Hollow
Cripple Creek
Boil Them Cabbage Down (low break)
Boil Them Cabbage Down (high break)
Cumberland Gap
I Saw The Light
Do Lord
Worried Man
Two Dollar Bill
Foggy Mountain Breakdown
John Hardy
Old Joe Clark
Foggy Mountain Breakdown (high break)
Lonesome Road Blues
Fireball Mail

Learning all these songs (and being able to play them) should take you at least ONE YEAR, possibly TWO YEARS. Don’t rush it!!! And learn your chords!

Now the explanation:

I almost always start with these three songs, because they are so easy:

Banjo in the Hollow
Cripple Creek
Boil Them Cabbage Down (low break)
Boil Them Cabbage Down (high break)

Then it’s either

Cumberland Gap
or
I Saw The Light

Some folks HATE Cumberland Gap and I see no need to torment them with it. But if you can stand it, it’s good prep for other up-the-neck songs.

Then, for many adults, I go right on through the rest of the Misfits DVD:

Do Lord
Worried Man
Two Dollar Bill

(You can skip “Do Lord” if it’s not a song you know!)

I use these songs because most people have heard them and, frankly, they are pretty easy. The downside (as so many students inform me!) is that they do sound very much alike. But my point in choosing them was just that: they use many of the same licks which, if you learn them in order, you can just plug in. It also forces you to practice those same licks over and over, so they really stick in your head! Then I teach a new lick in every tune.

After that, I pop back to Beginning Banjo Volume 1 for

Foggy Mountain Breakdown
and
John Hardy

Then for some students it’s on to Beginning Banjo Volume 2:

Old Joe Clark
Foggy Mountain Breakdown (high break)
Lonesome Road Blues
Fireball Mail

You may notice that I have left out “Salt Creek.” I don’t teach that too much anymore. Not because the song itself is too hard. It’s not. But the CHORDS are too hard. They are tricky and fast and not many beginners (or beginning intermediates can handle them). And now I almost always  introduce learning to chord (vamping) at an earlier stage.

And since my students are learning their chords earlier, I have also had really good luck moving them to the Improvising DVD after Beginning Banjo Vol. 1 and Misfits. My student Bob, now a two-year veteran, has just finished all three of those DVDs and is moving on to lick substitution, a step-by-step technique Casey and I are in the process of developing. (Oh yeah, there will be a DVD!) I am really excited about that!

After the Big Three, you can go in many directions. We’ll take up an Intermediate Banjo Track in a future blog, but right now I really need to finish my latest Charlaine Harris book, Dead As A Doornail!

PS Bluegrass Now magazine was kind enough to profile me in their very first online edition. Check it out. I’m sure Casey will add a link here! [Unfortunately, you can't see Murphy's article unless you subscribe to the magazine. If you ARE a subscriber, the link to her article is this one ---but you'll have to log in.]

I 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!

Here are another couple of excerpts from Murphy’s Banjo Newsletter articles about Jimmy Fee.

BNL August 1999

[In June of 1999 my son Christopher enrolled in a recording school in Orlando, Florida, called Full Sail. Much of this column somehow manages to focus on that! Fortunately for BNL subscribers, Jimmy Fee lived nearby and I had a chance to visit him and write something about banjos! I’m including only the part of the article about Jimmy.]

…Then for one frantic week Casey and I were actually in Winter Park, installing Chris in his apartment, meeting his roommate, setting up a bank account, shopping for furniture, buying him groceries, attending orientation at Full Sail, and, best of all, visiting the great banjo player Jim Fee who lives down the road just mile or two from Full Sail. Unbelievable, but true. And at Jim Fee’s picking shack, finally, I got to play the banjo!

I’ve probably told you this before, but we worked a lot of shows with Jimmy when we lived in Florida. He played the banjo with Chubby Anthony and Big Timber and they were hotter than a two-dollar pistol. He’s one of the best banjo players I’ve ever heard, and he’s also one of the most driving bluegrass rhythm guitar players I’ve ever played with. When Jimmy is playing the guitar, you don’t have to work to make the music sound right, you just sit on top of his rhythm and play the banjo.

Back when I was pregnant with Chris (1980), I had somebody take a picture of Jimmy and me, belly to belly. I titled it “Guess which banjo player is pregnant?” I thought it would make a good cover for BNL, but Hub wisely thought not! I did, however, include the picture in my book of BNL columns. I think Jimmy gets a kick out of that picture. I know I do. So round, so firm, so fully packed…

Casey, Chris, and I got in some good picking with Jimmy. There were plenty of banjos there to choose from including our own 1937 Gibson style 11 with a Red Henry neck and a Huber tone ring; another style 11 that a friend of Jimmy’s had purchased through E-Bay; a beautiful new gold-plated Gibson; and a copy of a style 11 which Jimmy had put together with neck he made, a pot and tone ring from Bill Sullivan at First Quality, and a Kalamazoo resonator. Of all those great-sounding banjos, my favorite was the one Jimmy had concocted. It’s a dandy (as Jim would say). He just has a way with banjos. He also has a way with guitars. He was picking an old 12-string Hondo guitar that he had converted to a 6-string by adding a Martin top and neck. I thought it sounded wonderful, especially with Jimmy playing it, but he said “You ort to hear it when it’s got good strings on it.”

What did we pick? Well, we started off with “What A Friend We Have in Jesus” (in D), then we picked everything from “Foggy Mountain Special” to “Baby I’m Georgia Bound” (in F) and “Hold Back the Waters of Lake Okeechobee”. Jimmy also sang a song he wrote about his grandson, Brandon “Tater” Cranston, who’ll be 7 in October. Jim says the song makes Tater’s dad about half mad when he hears it, and when you read the words you’ll understand why. In three-quarter time, now, starting in a G chord with the
downbeat on “my”:

My baby Brandon don’t favor no Cranston
All he got from his Paw was his chin
He looks like a Fee
And that shore tickles me
That Cranston blood line was too thin.

And Jimmy can’t hold back a big grin when he sings that last line. As the evening wound down, Jimmy took back the banjo and picked Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date” at my request and “Never On A Sunday” which I’d never “hyeered” on the banjer before. It was vintage Fee. He’s a dandy.

BNL December 1997

[Most of this column is about the IBMA World of Bluegrass in Louisville. Since Jim Fee showed up for it (a first), I included something about him.]

My old friend Jim Fee, from Orlando, Fla., one of the best “banjer” pickers in the world showed up, to my surprise. We picked a while in my booth, with me on banjo and Jimmy on guitar. Jimmy’s always been pretty tight with a compliment, so when he mentioned that I did a good job on “Foggy Mountain Special” I swelled up like a toad. I guess that gave me just enough moxie to show off my arrangement of “What A Friend We Have In Jesus.” When I finished, all he said was, “I like to play that in D chord.” So I said “have at ‘er,” we swapped instruments, and I watched HIM play it. After that, I felt like I could have stood on the head of a banjo and walked under the strings. Whatever made me think I could play the banjo? This guy can play rings around me.

[If you made it to the end, many thanks! Maybe one day we’ll be able to include some snippets of Jimmy’s music or some downloads.] {Or maybe today, my dear techno-phobic mother!} Here’s Jimmy picking “Give Me Roses While I Live”.