ah, Google! my friend!

Happiness is finding the tab for "Bile Dem Cabbage Down," as that's the tune for "Down In The Arkansas," which I fell in love with while listening to the re-issue of Jimmy Driftwood's Voice of the People. I strongly recommend that album to anyone who thinks that mountain folk are all backward and intolerant. And I just love Jimmy's voice. I'm not holding my breath for the tab for "Straighten Out My Laig," awesome as that would be.

I'm also pleased to find some fancy (read: complicated) tab for "Cripple Creek" since I still can't my own copy. Looks like a good time to learn how to execute a hammer-on, since I'm already familiar with the tune.

I think I've settled on buying a banjo Fiddlewidget. Kinda reminds me of those stickers you used to be able to get to put on the neck of your guitar. I remember seeing infomercials for stuff like that.

Back!

Today I finally got Sea Monkey out and tuned up. This is the first time since it got too cold to play at the old place. WOOO! I didn't get to play too long, because The Daughter came home and wanted to cause havoc with my tuner, but I remembered how to play "Cripple Creek" without too much mangling, with a dash of "Roving Gambler" and "Good Night Ladies" too. The rest of the time, I pulled up a nice comprehensive chord chart that also indicated the notes for each fret of each string, and goofed around with that for a while.

Banjo resolutions for 2009: practice and all that entails (including learning to cope with that damnable F chord, without which I can't play "The Great Speckled Bird," alas), learn enough music theory that I can write music on the banjo more efficiently, play at least once with other musicians (friends, teachers, random strangers--I'm not picky, I just need to challenge some of my performance anxieties).