been a while

I fixed yon Sea Monkey about a month and a half ago, and have been working at building up those calluses again. Slowly, though, because there's a lot these days to split my attention between and among, even after the kid is fast asleep.

But I'm getting back at it. I like "Wildwood Flowers" except for the jarring switch to the F chord halfway through. F chord, why must you sound so very pretty but be so hard on my inflexible fingers? Hooray for The Carter Family, though. Good stuff, there. If I can find tab for "Ring of Fire" I will be over the moon!

But my favorite song so far, out of all of them (even "Goodnight Ladies" LOL) is this very simple tune called "Dance" from an 1860's banjo instruction manual. It's so light and danceable, and I always see in my head somebody's grandpa with his banjo on his knee playing while the kids and grandkids dance in the parlor some spring evening. It's very short and uncomplicated, and is good practice for me for a number of skills (not using the same finger to play different notes on the same string back to back, building up my flimsy pinkie for further full-on F chord mayhem [this song only needs the little finger note of the F chord, lucky me!], and getting used to switching between quarter and eighth notes). Best of all, it has a pull-off, which is a little tricky to accomplish being as it is the wimpy pinkie that must do the pulling off, but is sounds divine.

For a while tonight, I just practiced some rolls with the F chord. Over and over until my fingers were ready to cramp. Sad thing is, I could do that all night it sounds so nice. Even just screwing around in a vague sort of alternating thumb roll sort of pattern, it's just pretty. Have I mentioned that I love the sound banjos make?

Big problem areas: my posture and my right hand. The one affects the other, and crappy posture is what makes my fancy new banjo strap dig into my shoulder so unpleasantly. Bonus points for figuring that out before I really hurt myself, but I'm not sure how I'll fix my posture without mechanical help. Corsets and banjos go well together, right? Speaking of, the problem with my right hand is the very sloppy way I attack the strings. I'm not hitting just the string I want when I want to, which sounds a bit like a Neil Young guitar solo. (I love you, Mr. Young, but I'm not trying to make those sounds, especially not with an instrument that isn't wired.)

And that, ladies and gents, is what life has been like lately.

Good day

If you have been saying to yourself "wow, that banjo blog has been quiet for a while. I wonder what that's all about," then wonder no more!

The short answer is: I've been doing little other than unpacking. It's driving me up a wall that I (still) have no practice space. Or space to work on freelance projects. Or space to just go have some quiet time at the end of the day. Because the sunroom is still quite full of boxes. I've been focusing on that and other domestic chores lately, and banjo playing has been on the back burner for a while. I wish I could say those days are over, but there's still a lot of work to do to get the sunroom more hospitable. The work never ends. I did move dear Sea Monkey into the only room with a working humidifier, which I hope will be enough moisture to keep him happy this winter. When I have the money, I'll get a proper humidifier for him, but by that time it will probably be the middle of summer and humidity will be the least of our problems. Isn't that always the way?

Today I did break my banjo fast, and did pretty well considering I didn't bother to trim my nails before hand. It's a testament to my improving slide technique, I guess, that having a bit of nail didn't slow me down. I didn't sound that great, but I didn't sound terrible, either.

I wound my brain all the way back to the beginning with many reps of "Good Night Ladies," but this time I played standing up so I can see what my hands look like in the mirror. I mostly did this to snap me out of staring at my right hand (bad!) but also to get me thinking about how I anchor (or not) my non-picking fingers. I clearly need to think about this more, as they were all over the head most of the time.

Other tunes in rotation were "Wildwood Flowers" (I will defeat you, F chord! Later. . . ) and "Cripple Creek" and, in a fit of why-not, a version of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" that had been modified to play off an F chord. And no, I can't really explain what that means. But it was fun to try out a song with a lot of hammer-ons. I didn't get through more than a few measures before I decided I should move back to familiar territory, but I'm proud of myself for not just filing that page away for later. Lots of repetition. Some frustration over how choppy I am, but more than anything, it was fun just to play again. That's why I'm learning, because more than anything else, it's a damn good time. As I can make more time to practice, I'll even out and maybe even discover a sense of rhythm hiding somewhere in the depths of my DNA. (Please come out, little sense of rhythm! The social awkwardness has gone on long enough!)

Problems: my new strap is not comfortable for playing standing up for very long at all. I'm not sure if it's the narrowness or what that's aggravating me. I like the strap in general, now that it's installed, although I think i did it backwards, but I'm now wondering if I can take the pad I previously crocheted and somehow attractively attach that under the strap's existing pad. Gotta think on that more. I might have to crochet something new to best work with the pad's shape.

Speaking of crochet, my little pick bag is full to bursting. It's just too small for three five picks, a 5th string capo, regular capo, and the little wrench for adjusting head tension. I thought about putting the capos in with my mute, which came with it's own little bag, but there's no room there for the wrench, so the new plan is to just make another little bag. It's not like I don't have yarn or half an hour every now and again.

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).

a-HA!

It's cold here. Really, extra special cold. Especially in The Shed, which has but a wee electric space heater to take the edge off. It's usually somewhere in the 50s when there are no people or appliances to warm it up. It's no fun trying to make fingers go under such circumstances.

And that's when it's a good idea to kick back with your tab and your CD and figure out where your thinking is off in translating the little pictures into music. Which is exactly what I started to do with "Hard Ain't It Hard" and "Old Joe Clark." I listened to them both while starting at and occasionally making notes upon the tablature. The tune for "Old Joe Clark" is, after several dozen listens, much easier to pick out and easier to pick in general since it's all on the first string. It's weird but catchy. "Hard Ain't It Hard" is (surprise!) harder. I keep getting lost in the flurry of notes and can't anchor myself well enough to really connect with the basic tune. So I'll keep listening to that one until it clicks, but in the meantime I've got the other to play.

And play I have, but still I have a hard time letting go of the strange rhythm I started with so that I can play it like it sounds. I just realized that what I need to do is slow it way, way down and come at it like I've never played Old Joe Clark in my life. I'm having remarkably little trouble adapting to the gussied up version of "Cripple Creek" because a) I started with the very basic tune and then added more notes and b) I started off slow but accurate in terms of rhythm. All this is rather a no-brainer, but I haven't thought about how music and music learning works since I flubbed my way through flute lessons in the fourth grade. It should go without saying that that was not my finest hour.

Speaking of "Cripple Creek," I still need to calm down about slides. I play them so short that it just sounds like a giraffe that's dying in cute little sound bytes. They should sounds much nicer. I can play them nicer, I just need to calm. down. srsly.

So I continue slowly in remedial banjo. And intermediate knitting, since I would like something nice and woollen for my hands in these cold, cold times.

Tight-ish

I did sit down yesterday to tighten Sea Monkey's head, but I forgot to print out anything that had the diagram of which nuts to tighten in which order, or even any vague recommendations on such adjustments, so I just kinda tightened everything a little bit (about a half turn, I'd say) in something like the pattern I remembered (I hope) from The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo.

I am a weenie, though, and while I did tighten some, it's not really obvious. The bridge is still rather sunken in. I think I'm still a good night of sleep away from working up the nerve to do it right. I didn't rupture anything, though, so that's worth something.

Practice was brief, but consisted of "Good Night Ladies" and "Cripple Creek" and some forward and backward roll exercises that I think sound pretty. Nothing fancy, just working those joints and fingertips to get 'em ready for some serious practice tomorrow. After the aforementioned good night of sleep.

cold hands are not anyone's playthings

For three days, I played no banjo. My fingers got all soft and flabby. There was moping. But the (un)motivating factor was extreme exhaustion, so if I had pushed myself to practice, it likely would not have gone anywhere satisfying.

Then I broke my fast and played. I played the songs that I know the tunes to well enough that I can actually tell how close I am to how I want to sound ("Good Night Ladies" and "Cripple Creek"), which are also my slide songs. Even if I haven't mastered other songs that came before these, it's not like I don't need to practice my slides. So that was where I spent most of my time. I also decided to treat myself to a little skipping ahead to read about and try out the next two techniques: pull-offs and hammer-ons. And they are, in fact, just as you would imagine from the name. It's still a strange new coordination to learn, though, when to apply the left-hand finger with respect to when the right hand hits the string. But that was a lovely and nutritious little jelly donut for my brain. Wow. Weird metaphor. Sorry.

The big new thing, as we move into fall, I must rely on technology to keep my hands warm enough for me to play at all. Right now I'm using a combination of some drugstore stretchy gloves that my dad cut the fingers off of, and a pair of nice wooly wristbands that my mother-in-law brought back from Scandinavia. It's great for my right hand, but the glove part sometimes dampens the first string, which is not all that helpful. I'm trying to figure out if there is some way to make something that is both palmless and mostly fingerless but still skin-covering enough that my fingers will be able to move at a reasonably swift pace. This calls for some knitting/crochet experimentation. If only that wouldn't cut into my pickin' time.

slowly going forward

I turned the page! And slides are killing me! And they're an essential component of bluegrass music! So I have to learn them! But pinches are hella easy and they sound pretty too. I'm working on an arrangement of "Cripple Creek" that's got slides and pinches. Knowing the tune and the tune being a particularly beautiful one are my motivators. I'm really glad I got the banjo I did, since the neck is more narrow than the Gold Tone's was. I'm having a hard enough time sliding and keeping my fingers off the other strings at the same time, if there was more neck in the way I would probably still be on the floor crying.

This morning I practiced in my old bedroom with the windows open. Since I was off in the far corner of the house, I decided to leave the mute off so I could have a better idea of how my slide attempts sound. I love practicing with the mute off, and the wildlife seemed to love it too: a bee showed up and buzzed around the screen every time I played. So today, practice was hard, but in a good way. I'm sounding more and more bluegrassy every day, and that makes me quite happy.

Pickin' at the old homestead

I'm in Indiana visiting my folks these days. Banjo practice hasn't been too badly affected by the change of location. Last night I played "Old Joe Clark" ten times, with a smattering of other songs and exercises. This song's at least twice as long as anything else I know how to play. And everyone thought I was in the other room playing computer games because my mute is powerful enough to keep the racket contained by a flimsy little plywood door.

The other cool thing is that after a fair amount of poking around online, I found the tab for the three-finger arrangement of "Journey of the Sorceror," which unfortunately I can't completely read yet. It must have some hammer-on or hammer-off stuff going on, which I haven't gotten to yet. Soon, though.

I think now I've gone through all the basic rolls, so the next step should be slides and then more complicated things. I just have to get up the nerve to flip to the next chapter.

Bonus!

I got to practice for a whole hour today, while The Husband took The Gaz to the zoo. Bliss! Any day I get my hour's work out of the way before bedtime (and therefore without the encumbrance of the mute) is a good, good day.

little update

Banjo is going well, and I celebrated installing the printer on my laptop (which is running Ubuntu now, instead of Windows) by printing out that alternate thumb roll exercise I've been meaning to employ. Just how many ways to play "Roving Gambler" are there, anyway?* At least it makes playing the same song over and over less like playing the same song over and over.


* The answer is "at least one more" as I haven't gotten to backward rolls yet, although that's coming soon. And then there are nigh-infinite combinations of rolls from there on out. . .